Category: Shikabane Hime

Short Synopsis: An old classmate of one of Ouri’s classmates turns into a shikabane.
Highlights: Wonderful animation.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Really, at this point you can consider me a fan of this series. I’m not often impressed by Gainax (at least, not as much as most people seem to), but I can’t deny that they’re a very unique production-company, and they can make some real hits when they get a concept right.

What was so awesome about this episode was the animation, in the way that it EXACTLY showed what happens if you combine the Gainax that likes bombastic visual effects with the down-to-earth and subtle director of Gilgamesh: it takes the best out of both worlds. This episode was really nicely animated, but the animation never forgot to remain realistic. There were so many subtle touches added that added a really raw feeling to the different fight scenes. there were no cheap visual effects used.

I’m also still surprised at how much I’ve come to like Ouri. He’s a whiny teenager who involves himself with the others against their will. Normally I’d hate his character, and yet I hardly ever feel annoyed at the guy, and he’s perfect to shed light at the strange nature of the Shikabane Himes.

In terms of the plot, since Keisei still is out of the count, this episode gave a proper introduction to another Shikabane-pair, who’ve taken over his duties while he remains out cold and unable to heal Makina’s arm. It seems that he and Keisei were introduced to the concept of Shikabane Himes by last week’s bad guy. Whatever he did with his own Shikabane Hime still remains a mystery, I guess.

Short Synopsis: The fight against the evil car continues, and Ouri gets more insight into the bond between Makina and Keisei.
Highlights: Nice fight!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Now THIS is exactly why I’m watching this series! Best episode so far, and the fight this episode was among the best of the season so far. My idea of a god fight might be different from usual, but my favourite fights nearly always contain the three following ingredients:
– Good music
– Good choreography/direction
– And most importantly: character-development. Obviously about characters I care about. ^^;

This episode had all three of them, and so it’s no surprise that I loved this episode, and it totally made up for my.. er… tantrum after the previous episode.

I really expected Ouri’s whining to get in the way of the fight scene this episode, but instead he actually contributed to it. Okay, the middle of a fight may have not been the perfect time to start questioning Makina about why she’s fighting, but it sure made everything a whole lot more exciting. I think that with this episode, he fully understands the strange bond that has developed between Makina and Keisei, how the two of them swore to protect each other while they both worked towards their selfish wishes.

I also really liked how the creators made use of the fact that this is a Gainax-series, and how it would have been inevitable for people to compare this to Gurren Lagann. This episode laid a lot of parallels between Keisei and a certain character from Gurren Lagann. The creators kept hinting at how he was going to die. At the end of the episode, we’re still not sure if he lived or not (I think he lived, otherwise the episode would have gone off with a bigger bang), but even if he did live, this can just be one big build-up for the guy’s real demise, which still could very easily happen in this series. In any case, it’s a great way to make the viewer care about the characters. That’s also the big problem I had with Gurren Lagann at this point: it was nice and all, but I just couldn’t find myself to care about the characters, and consequently about the big plot twist of that series.

Short Synopsis: A bunch of teenagers jack a car and are attacked by a Shikabane.
Highlights: TRANSFER STUDENT! TRANSFER STUDENT! TRANSFER STUDENT!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6,5/10 (Lacking)
Ack, this series was doing so well, and then that transfer-student popped up. This is all just a pet peeves of me, and I don’t care whether it makes sense or not. It’s not even the fact that she’s a transfer-student, but I personally HATE the scene where suddenly a girl whose prettiness somehow outshines every other girl in school introduces herself to the class, how every single male APART from the lead character makes loud comments on how hot she is, and out of everyone out there, she chooses the male lead as a friend, making every other guy jealous at him. I don’t care how the anime tries to explain it; I don’t bloody care whether it’s important to the story. I’ve just seen the same friggin’ scene way too many times, with hardly any variation. The fun is really gone at this point.

Seriously, anime makes it look like every single good-looking Japanese is continuously travelling the country or something.

In any case, the rest of the episode thankfully proved to be interesting enough to stop this episode from being unimpressive and disappointing. The first is obviously the car-Shikabane, which kidnaps unsuspecting teenagers that are looking for an exciting ride. I mean, you just have to think of it. ^^; The whole action-scene within that car maybe lacked a bit of horror, but nonetheless it was very fun to watch.

At the same time, the creators continue to very slowly give more and more depth to the characters. I mean, the big twist in this episode was no surprise for anyone who read the premise of the series, but it’s like I mentioned before: this series really takes its time, and that’s a good thing so far. At the same time we also see the new bad guy, who is the only one of his… organization (or whatever it’s going to be called) not faded out in the OP.

And really, I don’t hate the new characters or anything. They’ve got potential, but the way in which they were introduced was just… ugh…

Short Synopsis: An idol-turned-Shikabane kills people who don’t like her songs.
Highlights: Best fight so far; Makina’s background.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10 (enjoyable)
Okay, so I’ve gotten a lot of varied feedback on the new episode rating scale, some positive and some negative reactions. As a result, I’ve changed the scale a bit yet again, where anything above or equal to 7/10 means that I liked the series, as opposed to 6/10 (which was too low) or 8/10 (which meant me handing out only 8/10s for 95% of the cases).

In any case, this was a pretty strange episode for Shikabane Hime’s standards, where it spent the first few minutes on Keisei who decorated Ougi’s room full of figures and otaku-posters while he’s sleeping. While a bit funny, it did ruin this series’ mood a bit. On the other hand, however, it was a nice way to flesh out the different characters.

This really was an episode that was meant for both the cast to get closer together, and the viewer, to learn more about the characters. We finally learn a bit about Makina: it seems she was killed, along with her entire family in a fire. She already knew Keisei at that time, and something happened between the two that made Makina return as a Shikabane. The reason why Makina doesn’t berserk like all the other sis because of a contract she made with Keisei, where in exchange she gets to take his life-force (or something similar, at least) so that she can heal her wounds. Judging from the fact that the idol in this episode was surrounded by human allies, I’d say that it takes a skilled monk to make such a contract.

The enemy this time also got a bit more difficult than usual, and it’s good to see that the creators are adding an extra challenge to them, provided of course that they’re not going to drag on these fights over time. The idol’s story was a bit less interesting than the other episodes so far, but that may also be because that’s a subject I’m not interested in at all. Thankfully, the end-fight was an excellent one. I like how Makina doesn’t have any super-strength, but instead just a larger resistance than usual. And even then, when she leaps off a building, she still gets hurt, as opposed to other series where characters can jump off cliffs and are just fine after a few minutes of unconsciousness.

Short Synopsis: A number of people get killed after hearing the cries of a baby.
Highlights: Makina and Kagami
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
I think we’ve got ourselves a record here: it’s episode three, and the male and female lead still haven’t become a couple. Sure, they might meet each other a lot, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the bond between the two, but rather that cat which keeps pulling the strings from behind the scenes. The two of them are being fleshed out pretty nicely overall, with this episode giving a cold for Kagami to deal with. It’s also nice to see that his whining actually was justified in this episode, where the baby actually wasn’t the culprit. That removes the one-sided part about their relationship, where Makina was the strong one and Kagami the weak one. I believe that they’re going to grow nicely so that they can complement for each other’s weaknesses.

What I also like about this series is that apart from Makina and Kagami, there are actually lots of different and more characters. These first three episodes have introduced a significant amount of returning characters, even though we’re talking about episodic stories here. The cat and the strange guy who killed this episode’s bad guy, what are they plotting? This series is especially going to be interesting if the creators manage to give everyone on Kagami’s brother’s organization his and her own identity (the unimportant ones still feel too much like one single character at this point: replace them with one guy and you’d never know the difference).

I must say that with this, Gainax has clearly shown that they can make more than brainless action-shows, which I like a lot. What it needs to pay attention to is that male lead, Kagami. So far, he hasn’t been that annoying, but the FACT REMAINS that he’s an angsty teenager. The guy needs to develop quickly before the angst gets annoying.

Short Synopsis: Three dead children come back as corpses
Highlights: Male lead takes some getting used to, but is more than just a damsel in distress (or a male version anyways).
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
Aaah! Why did this series’ second episode have to air so soon? Basically, at this point I’m still desperately trying to figure out which shows I’m going to blog, and in this case I’m doubting between three series: Shikabane Hime, Kurozuka and Chaos Head, and I’ve got two spots for the three of them. Shikabane Hime has a cast with potential and an excellent soundtrack; Kurozuka has the best production-values of the season but its characters need a bit more work, and Chaos;Head… well I don’t have a freakin’ idea about it yet, but it’s supposed to be mystery and I’m a mystery-fanboy.

So, yeah. For now I’m going to blog this thing, but do expect it to disappear again if I get blown away by Chaos;Head and Kurozuka’s second episode. The thing that especially intrigues me about this series is its director: the director of Gilgamesh. This guy knows his subtlety, and he’s just been assigned to the most un-subtle production-studio you can imagine: Gainax. The result is pretty interesting: quiet moments that take their time in building up, and yet it’s got hitting action-scenes. I’m hoping for this series to take the best of both extremes. And yeah; because of the male lead and this series’ relations to Gilgamesh (and probably also because most people are expecting this to be the next Gurren Lagann), I’m expecting this series to not really become that popular.

Another reason why I decided to blog this series was that within only two episodes, we’ve already seen quite a few sides of the male lead, and he’s definitely not a stereotype, which has potential for this series’ second season. The guy will feel annoying in this episode, though, especially in the way that he stands in the way of Machina like that. It’s also quite rare for such a guy to actually be voiced by a voice-actor that still sounds young, who still has that nose-sound in his voice. It’s a shame that the children in this episode were obviously voiced by adults that tried to be overly squeaky, but I guess that that can’t be helped.

If I’m still blogging this series next week, then the creators need to pay attention to the ultimate villains of this series, and don’t make them stereotypical bad guys who are out to destroy the world. The children in this episode were a fine example of enemies that were neither good nor bad, so let’s hope it can keep things that way.