I’m getting more and more surprised at the lack of attention Baccano has been getting. I’ve only seen one blogger who also picked it up beyond the first episode. I mean, what’s not to like about this series? I really expected this to be one of the more popular series of the season, but yet again I was wrong. I guess that people really do like to watch Schooldays, Moetan and Zero no Tsukaima than this series. O_o
Anyway, while watching this episode, I realized another thing why I love this series: it features so many different types of criminals. We have the demented Ladd and his companions, who are after the people with money on the Flying Pussyfoot. Chane and her companions belong to a sort-of cult, and are completely devoted to their master who is in jail. Then there are Firo, Maiza and the Gandor-family, who may look nice but definitely also have a history of shady business. The Runorata-family is the typical mafia-family, in the middle of vetes with many different parties. In the midst of all this seriousness, there are Isaac and Miria: two simple yet surprisingly brilliant train thieves. Jacuzzi and Nice also steal for “good” purposes, though they steal nonetheless. Czeslaw has also meanwhile showed that he’s more than just an innocent boy and Dallas and Eve could be victims, who happened to be member of the wrong family. I can hardly believe it, but this anime knows exactly what it’s doing with its huge cast of characters.
Anyway, the character most featured in this episode was Ladd. He quickly ends the stick-up of the previous episode by killing some of the guys in black suits. It also seems that he’s a member of an important family. A family who worked under him became the victim of Isaac and Miria’s ‘little’ robbery.
I also mistook Szilard Quates from another guy in the previous episode. We see the real guy make his entrance in this episode, and the guy from the previous episode seems to be working under him. This also busts my theory that every person in the OP is immortal and every person who isn’t in the op is mortal, since we saw the scientist revive in the previous episode. If I’m not mistaken, his name is Barnes. I’m not sure how you spell that, though.
Anyway, it seems that Ennis works for Quates as well, and she’s been ordered to retrieve him. We saw Barnes flee afterwards, though, and I assume that he’s set his place on fire. It’s probably here where Firo helps Ennis to find Barnes, which explains how he turned immortal. But what about Luck, Czeslaw and Isaac?
Also, the mysterious green-clothed girl intrigues me. She’s definitely in te train for a reason, but her mission is still one complete mystery. She’s one of the few people to survive the mess that happens on the Flying Pussyfoot unharmed, and this episode shows that she likes to act as careful as possible when she escapes through a train window when Ladd throws is tantrum.
The episode also ends with quite an interesting cliff-hanger: a mysterious glowy-eyed figure appears out of the train. Is this the same shady figure we’ve seen in episode one? It’s also interesting how Chane has received even less development than her companions, even though she turns out to be their only survivor. It seems that she’ll be doing something interesting in the next episode, though.
Another thing that I’m curious about: Firo, Maiza and the Gandor family. What is their role in this story? I mean, they’ve got nothing to do with what happens on the Flying Pussyfoot. They should be just friends of Isaac and Miria. If that’s the case, then why is so much development spent on them? They can’t just be getting their immortality without having to play any major role in the future…]]>
Category: Finished Series: Action
Claymore – 20
So, basically because Eclipse took so long with their release for this week, I got impatient and checked out the raws. At times like these, I’m glad that I can understand them. 🙂
Anyway, this is one of the few Claymore-episodes without fighting, but it’s definitely one to look forward to, as there’s a really high emphasis on character-development, and this episode may have been one f the best ones of Claymore yet, especially not considering the fights.
There’s only one part I didn’t like, so I’ll start with that one: Raki. We still don’t know how the heck he ended up in the north in the first place. If I heard correctly, he’s supposed to have been victim of slave-trading in the manga, which is a perfectly good explanation, though I never heard any of the sorts in this episode. Either that or I must have missed it.
Okay, now the good stuff: Raki is getting closer to Priscilla and Isley than I thought. I’m eager to learn of the background of the two of them, as they’re definitely behaving unlike other awakened beings I’ve seen so far. Priscilla also is entirely different from the Priscilla we saw in episode eight. The creators will definitely be using this for when Claire runs into Priscilla. I wonder if Priscilla still recognizes Claire, by the way.
The biggest focus of the episode was on Deneve and Undine, though, and I both loved them. Undine proves yet again that she’s more than just a cocky muscle-machine. It seems that she has learned to always activate a small piece of her youma-powers in order to keep her muscles tense at all times. She’s just someone who likes to act tough, afraid that people will find out her true nature. That second sword of hers, it also seems to be from a good friend of hers.
Deneve was the one who found this out, and she acts really mature at this. I think I finally begin to understand why she chose to be a defensive type: unlike Claire, whose loved one was killed by an identifiable enemy (Priscilla), her loved ones (most likely her family) were killed by unknown Youma. Instead of swearing to kill off all youma, like Priscilla did, Deneve swore to protect as much as possible. That’s why she demands perfection from both herself and others.
Flora, meanwhile, shows that she’s been around since Claire’s youth, because she recognized Irene’s arm. That’s not something you do easily, since Miria, who’s a lot stronger than Flora (I assume, at least) couldn’t recognize it. Because of this, she and Jeane become some of the few to hear Claire’s raison d’Être of killing Priscilla. Flora should be getting character-development in the next few episodes.
To add to that, the fina minutes of the episode show Helen, trying to encourage a minor Claymore, who looks surprisingly unique, and it ends as the second wave of Isley’s henchmen are coming. Look forward to the next episode!]]>
Baccano! – 03
I’m surprised that I’m the only one who has said anything about the second episode of Baccano! This is a really fun show, especially once you realize that it keeps hopping from one time to the other without any warning whatsoever. This episode made even more sense than the previous one, despite the horribly complex first one. It’s strange, but this anime seems to know exactly what it’s doing. So many loose ends are already tied together, and we’re only at the third episode. This series is definitely one to look out for.
This episode has three focuses: 1930, 1931 and 1932.
1930 tells how everything started. Szilard Quates isn’t a mafia-boss at all. He’s a scientist, who invented the immortality-drink. His work gets interrupted by an unpredicted fire and some street-thugs, though. He first gets saved by Firo, who just received a new hat from Maiza, after which he gets attacked again. Ennis sees him recover. The interesting thing is that Firo and Ennis weren’t any accomplices back then, and they didn’t even know each other. Same with Isaac and Miria. Something happened here, and it brought immortality to at least Isaac, Firo, Luck and Chezlaw, and it set the stages for the later parts of the anime. The most obvious questions are now: where did Chezlaw get in the picture, and does Ladd have immortality as well?
1931 tells about the happenings at the Flying Pussyfoot, and it’s basically a continuation of the previous episode. Ladd and Lua have quite an interesting and puzzling relationship. By now it’s clear that Ladd has some mental problems, and Lua seems to be hopelessly in love with him. The strange thing is that they keep talking about Lua’s death, and how the moment when Ladd would kill Lua should be something really special.
Also, the reason why Ladd recognized Jacuzzi: he’s wanted. There seems to be a bounty of 5000 dollars on his head. Jacuzzi’s motives are still a puzzle to me, but I think he and Nice went on the Flying Pussyfoot to stop the Chane and her companions, as at the end of the episode, he runs into a few dead people. I suspect that these people were after this, or there must be some fifth party on that train I don’t know about. I need to rewatch the first episode for that. The obvious question is now: what the heck happened on this train, considering that even the locomotive had to be replaced? At the end of the episode, both Lad’s henchman and Chane’s companions try to seize control of the dining room, though what will happen next?
1932: the events in this year are all centred around Dallas Genoard. The events that happened in the first episode definitely didn’t happen chronologically, as there was an entire year between them. Apparently, Dallas made the Runorata-family very angry with his accusations, after they killed his brother and father. He afterwards disappeared for both them and his sister. In this episode, we see both of them enter an enterprise, trading information, and we see the black guy from the ED. He seems to have some connections with Dallas, but he unfortunately can’t help Eve. The biggest question about their story: how the heck are they related to the things that happened on the Flying Pussyfoot? So far, the only link between these stories that we’ve seen is that Eve’s brother Dallas is being searched by the Runorata-family, who is on wrong terms with the Gandor-family, who is acquainted with Isaac and Miria, who happened to be on the Flying Pussyfoot when all the events took place. Obviously, there has to be a more obvious link.
Still, I really recommend this series, and it really is among the highlights of the summer-season.]]>
Claymore – 19
Heh, I couldn’t help but find the second half of this episode amusing. I never thought that the writers would be stupid enough to pull such a cheesy twist as that one. Ah well, the next part of the manga is supposed to be the best part of the entire series, so it’ll be interesting to see where the creators can take it. Still, letting Raki literally fall into Priscilla? It feels a bit like a bad soap, to suddenly bring Claire’s best friend and worst enemy together.
Still, the first half was pure win. Both fights against the awakened beings were really good, and especially Undine got a great dose of character-development. Right now, we know that she isn’t a bad character. She cares for casualties, and she often likes to head into things alone, to not be indebted to anyone. She’s just like Helen, that she doesn’t really show any politeness. I also liked how Claire and Deneve stole the show with their unusual skills.
Veronica and Cynthia also get more development than I originally thought. They both seem to be defensive types, and they sure proved a great help for Jeane, who needed time to charge her drill-sword (how did she call it again?). I really hope to see more of the two of them, as they really seem like interesting characters. This fight was definitely meant to bring the entire group of Claymore closer together (surprisingly, there were no casualties). Helen, and the more useless claymores all were awesome as well. The only two who disappointed were Flora and Miria, simply because Flora hasn’t really shown any of her trump cards yet, and we didn’t get to see how Miria slaughtered her opponent.
It’s also interesting. I never really thought about it, but awakened beings can adjust their appearances to their will. Riful obviously wasn’t a little kid when she awakened, and Priscilla has now also taken on a new form. It’s interesting how they al chose cute and innocent forms. We’ve seen two awakened beings who go as little girls, Priscilla turned into a teenager and Isley is a pretty bishounen. I wonder what the one from the South chose for her appearance. Will we see her as well, by the way?
It’s also ironic that Priscilla finds that Raki smells good, as the scent basically indirectly comes from Teresa. I assume that she’s grateful to her now, because she caused her to awaken.]]>
Baccano! – 02
Awesome. This episode was much better than the previous one, somehow. Probably because Isaac and Miria provided for a bit of nice comedy. The current episode is way more focused than the first one, and it basically tells the story of what happened on the Flying pussyfoot, as the previous episode suggested that a lot happened there. People were murdered and thrown off the train, ad lots of things were going on.
First of all, Isaac and Miria, who were sortof central in this episode. You could probably classify them as “unlucky bystanders”, because they were just invited by Ennis after they hadn’t seen each other for more than a year. The two of them spent their time mining in an abandoned mine, somewhere in California. After they got Ennis’s letter, they rob a few banks, and they’re off to New York.
Jacuzzi and Nice also had a lot of screen-time in this episode. They’re with two accomplices, and Jaccuzi needs to do something I haven’t exactly understood what, though. I like the relationship between Nice and Jacuzzi, by the way. I’m not sure how the two of them met each other, but she’s helping him getting a bit more social to others. Isaac and Miria are of course perfect for that. I wonder though, how the barman he was sitting next to knew who he was…
We also meet the girl we saw Cheslaw with in the OP. Her name is Merry, and her mother is called Nathalie Williams. They bump into Jacuzzi at one point, and they looked really cute together. ^^; The question remains, though: why didn’t we see them exit the train together? But then again, that might have something to do with Cheslaw’s head being blown off. An interesting point is that we saw him enter the train with a man who refused to show his face. Could that be the same individual whose silhouette we saw in the previous episode?
The thing is that lots of mafia-like thugs were on that train, and something went terribly wrong, as the first episode seemed to suggest. There are two main parties, one lead by Ladd, and one where Chane seems to be working for. Both parties have people working undercover as the train staff (one of them killed one of his colleagues at the end of the episode), and they’re both after something. What that something is, however, I couldn’t understand, due to my limited Japanese.
Then there’s also the mysterious woman. In this episode, we see her enter the train. In the previous episode, we saw her exit the train. What she did in between remains a mystery.
I really wonder what’s going to happen next in this series, as it’s shaping up to be quite an interesting mystery-series. We know that a lot is still going to happen. Isaac is going to get his ear stabbed, How did someone like him turn immortal? Was it because of something that happened on the Flying Pussyfoot? And there are still those matters with the Gandor family, and the other two mafia-families. Dallas Genoard seems to have been the one to cause troubles with one of these two, after they killed his older brother and father. And where does Firo fit in all of this? How is he related to the story, besides being an old friend of Luck?
Still, I’m glad. The amount of questions I have after this episode is considerably smaller than the amount of questions I had after the first one. I have high hopes for this series now, as it seems quite plausible right now that every character is going to get enough development and background. The only things that annoy me about this series are the mafia-guys. Not because they’re bad, but because they’re so incredibly difficult to understand. But then again, that makes it even more fun to try and figure out what they’re up to. ^_^]]>
Claymore – 18
Heh, and here I thought that this episode would disappoint. I was proven totally wrong when this episode comes and brings no less than twenty-four Claymore in one place, in order to fight the awakened beings in the north. It’s clear that this is just a way for the organization to buy time. They’re quite predictable once you figure them out. First, they sent out the worst possible party to Riful of the West, to show her that she isn’t going to get anything good that easily and now they send out an entire army of Claymore, but with the best four of them missing.
This is understandable, though, It seems that the little incident of Priscilla made a huge impact on them as well, and they now know that they shouldn’t waste their top-Claymore that easily. That does raise an interesting question, though: are Alicia and Beth really as good as their numbers seem to suggest? The two of them may have special powers and all, but because they’re so protected by the organization, they do lack the battle experience in really dangerous situations. I may be wrong, but I think it’s safe to assume that number five, Rafaela, is the real strongest Claymore.
Anyway, about the episode, many interesting new characters were introduced. We see Helen, Deneve and Miria return. Number eight, Flora, seems to have the fastest ability to draw her sword and attack. I assume that she’ll be a major character for this arc, due to the huge amount of screentime she already has. Same goes for number eleven, Undine. Interestingly enough, they all ended up fighting alongside Claire at the end of the episode.
Number 13 seems to be Veronica, though I don’t think she’ll get much of development, unfortunately. I do wish that some more unknown Claymore show their personalities in the next couple of episodes. I also hope for these male awakened beings to get fleshed out a bit more. Right now, only the spider one that Jeane was up against looked interesting and I hope that they turn into more than just random goons. But then again, Claymore has showed that it can make some pretty interesting antagonists. I’m looking forward to the next episode.]]>
Baccano! – 01
And finally Baccano! airs. The promo-art looked really cool, and I was intrigued by the premise. So, after having seen the first episode, what is my first reaction?
HUGE cast of characters!
Seriously, this anime has an amazingly big cast of main characters, and an even bigger cast of side-characters. The episode felt twice as long as usual, since there was so much going on with so many different parties. I’m definitely going to blog this, as it’ll be fun to try and get some sense out of it. Before I start, though, I must give a small warning: this isn’t for the weak-hearted or the young children and this anime isn’t afraid to show blood.
So, let’s start with the main characters, in order of appearance on the OP (I am SO glad that it provides their names. It would have been an incredible hassle to try and figure them out for every single character, especially considering that this takes place in Europe, where the katakana would have made it even more difficult).
Isaac Dian. In this episode, he gets a piece of his ear blown off by a gun, which magically heals afterwards. He seems like a jolly ignorant fellow, who, according to the OP, works as some kind of thief.
Miria Harvent. She travels along with Isaac, and she seems just as energetic as he is. The two of them form a good team.
Firo Prochainezo. In this episode, we see his fingers get cut off, which also magically heal back again. If I had to guess, then all of the characters we see introduced in the OP have become immortal somehow.
Maiza Avaro. He meets with Firo at one point of the episode. I’m not sure about his role yet.
Keith Gandor. He seems to be an important mafia-leader.
Berga Gandor. I suspect he’s Keith’s brother, and they work together somehow.
Luck Gandor. Another of their brothers. He works under Keith. We also see him meet up with Firo at one point. I wouldn’t have guessed the connection. The two of them seem to know Isaac and Miria somehow.
Szilard Quates. An old guy, some kind of Mafia-boss? We didn’t see him yet, in any case.
Ennis without a last name. I’m not sure who she is, but I could have sworn to see her among the crowd where Isaac and Miria were, and I think it was her who was sitting with Maiza and Firo, at the end of the episode.
Lua Klein, she seems rather shy. We see her during a few scenes with her new husband.
Ladd Russo: Lua’s husband. The guy’s got a rather high temper, and we see the two of them right next to a train with guns aimed at them and with Ladd missing an arm. Which will probably heal back together anyway.
Chane Laforet. At one point in the episode, we see a bunch of crates float in a river. She is on one of them. At this point, we can only guess what happened to her.
Nice Holystone. She seems to be with Jacuzzi.
Jacuzzi Splot. A rather miserable guy, who seems quite crucial for the story. He seems to be hiding something, and he’s running away because of that.
Eve Genoard. We only saw her during one scene, in which she seems to be waiting for an important person: her brother.
Dallas Genoard. Eve’s brother. He seems to be on the run from Keith’s maffia-network, though. Both Eve and Dallas are the children of Geoffrey Genoard, who seems to be an important person, which is probably why he’s hunted.
Czeslaw Meyer. A small kid with big plans. We see his head get blown off in this episode, which heals back on later without any trace. Maiza seems to know him
So, believe it or not, but these are SEVENTEEN characters already. But does it end there?! No. The episode already starts with two whole new characters:
Caroll and her boss(?). I believe that they’re the ones through which the story is being told. They seemed to be travelling at one point, at which they met the characters of this story.
We also have numerous people, working under Keith and Luck, of all possible ranks, from hitmen to executives to people who use scissors to get information from their targets.
Sullivan. He seems to be a detective, after some recent homocides. I’m not sure which member of the gigantic cast is behind it.
Then there’s this woman who cut off Isaac’s ear, surrounded by a rather strange crowd. I’m not sure, but two of them looked suspiciously much like other characters in this show. Coincidence?
There also seem to be other Mafia after the Gandors. While it’s obvious that there are, I’d like to know why. Could this have to do something with Dallas?
There also is a rather shady figure who refuses to show his face. All we know is that he’s searching for someone.
Another shady figure seems to be on the same train that Jacuzzi was on. He or she wear a cap, and makes sure to leave it as soon as possible. She might have had to do something with Jacuzzi being in pain at the end of the episode.
Then there’s another guy accompanying Jacuzzi and Nice at that point.
And to make things even more complicated, the ED shows us even more characters THAN WE ALREADY HAVE. Seriously, if this story doesn’t get swallowed by its huge cast, we may be in for something very amazing. It’s now up to the following episodes to properly develop all of them, and I really hope that it does this well. :)]]>
Claymore – 17
I liked this episode. A lot. It was intriguing, the fight was really tense, it made sense, and there was A LOT of character-development in it. Claymore may be dull in its introductions; it’s brilliant in its conclusions. While this does mean that the next episode will be another dull one, I’m glad enough that this episode turned out good.
First of all, Jeane. Not only is her new hairstyle much better than her old one, she showed that you can go back from awakening, even though you haven’t put your mind to it, though that may be because of Claire and Galatea’s ability to manipulate Yoki so well. I can imagine that Claire will pick Galatea’s technique of manipulating Yoki up as well in the future somehow.
I think I also finally realize what makes Claire so special. Half-awakened beings already are rather rare among Claymore, but the Claymore it happens to usually don’t notice the difference. The only reason Miria noticed this was because they were with four Half-awakened ones in one group, so this just had to stand out. I think the reason that the Organization sends the problematic Half-awakened ones to get killed off as a precaution, as the awakening-process seems to have made them more curious, and easier to question the Organization (after all, fully awakened ones tend to go berserk, so I wouldn’t be surprised at some subtle effects on the characters of Half-awakened ones). Claire is probably one of the few who survived such an attempt to kill her off, along with Miria, Deneve and Helen, and because of her rather impulsive and ignorant nature, she probably is the first of them who left the organization willingly.
It will be interesting to see where she’ll go now. She now has another companion who’ll follow her around, no matter what (although I do think that Raki won’t be doing that anymore, as something major seems to have happened to him, according to the manga-readers). The fact remains, though, that it’ll take a long time for Claire to defeat Priscilla without Riful’s help.
I wonder how many comrades Riful managed to gather. The guy up in the north seemed to have at least three huge awakened beings, as seen at the end of the episode, if you add Priscilla, that makes four. (The organization is losing a lot of Claymore lately, isn’t it? If the party we saw there didn’t survive, they’re going to have to recruit ten new members, quite a significant amount and I suspect that more Claymores have died off-screen).]]>
Claymore – 16
Ah, it sees that my worries after the previous episode were all for naught. This episode was really good, and it finally tied the entire anime together. Lots of interesting things happened, and I didn’t even mind the way in which Galatea saved Claire at the last possible minute.
Let’s start with Galatea. It seems that she didn’t just get her first place, just because she was very good at sensing Yoki. She also possesses the ability to manipulate small amounts of it, and from all 47 Claymores, her strength increases the most when she releases her Yoki. (It would be bad for her to awaken, wouldn’t it?) It makes you wonder how powerful number one and two are.
It also seems that there are three awakened beings, even stronger than Priscilla. One of them is the girl we saw in this and the previous episode, Riful. One of them recruited Priscilla after she went berserk, and apparently she manipulated the guy into becoming active again. The episode wasn’t really clear whether he meant to pick a fight with Riful herself, or he means to fight against the organization, but all three of them have begun to gather more awakened allies.
What I’m really curious about is how these three awakened beings will be defeated, and what Claire’s role will be in it. I really like how she finally showed in this episode that she isn’t perfect, and needs the help of others. The next episode should start out really interesting, when Claire needs to rescue Jeane. At this point, all signs point to the fact that Claire is indeed going to save her, but then again, this isn’t the first time that Claymore surprised me. ;)]]>
Claymore – 15
This episode was slow. A bit too slow, if you ask me, and needlessly drawn out, so that the next episode would be able to feature a big fight. As the end of the episode draws closer, this becomes more and more apparent. And I actually like slow episodes usually, but this one just didn’t fall right for me.
One of these reasons for this was that it completely wrecked one of the major reasons why I liked this series: the fact that everything made sense. With only one or two exceptions, events happened in Claymore because they had to happen, and it was completely logical for these events to happen, with no apparent signs of predictability whatsoever. And then it comes with this.
First of all, how often do you see people arguing about a stranger they met, TEN friggin’ days ago?! And how often does that happen with Claire in the neighbourhood? Furthermore, why did Claire chose the perfect timing to visit a town, at the exact moment when four claymores were slaughtered by an organized team of awakened beings?
Raki is also more stupid than I originally thought. You’d think he’d pick a landmark that was easy for both of them to find, and yet we see him now, wandering in the middle of nowhere. Doesn’t he want to meet Claire, no matter what? And what was that about Youma, not usually being in groups? This isn’t the first time we’ve seen groups of Youma together. And don’t you just love it that these Youma tell their strategy before it even worked?
Anyway, I liked how we finally get to see the people who control the organization. Now all that’s needed is some development for these guys. Galatea also gets sent to go after Claire, seeing as it’s been three months after the previous episode (now that I write this, it doesn’t make sense, actually. When Raki talked to the couple, he was supposed to be covered in wounds, but at that point, he already was supposed to have run for more than two months and two weeks. That’s more than enough time to heal these kinds of wounds).
And I was wrong with my prediction at the previous episode, since it seems that this episode introduces two villains who probably don’t have anything to do with Priscilla. They’re also quite full of themselves, and they actually are confident to think they’ll be able to beat the top Claymores combined. Obviously, they’re not, since Claire is going to beat them, but the matter of an organized group of awakened beings does have potential.
Also, we finally know a bit more about the two Goddesses, It seems that the name of the second god is Teresa, alongside Claire. I now understand why Teresa chose the name of Claire.
Okay, next episode should prove to be more exciting. Claymore: surprise me!!!]]>