Category: Nijuu Mensou no Musume

Short Synopsis: The doll arc finally ends
Highlights: Have I already said how amazing this series is for its climaxes?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10
Oh my god… when I thought that the previous episode was good. I may have my problems with this series during the quiet parts, but boy… does it deliver when it gets serious. Like mentioned above, this episode closes off the doll-arc, but there’s much more to be said than just that.

We learn how during the war, Nijuu Mensou worked as an investigator of these supernatural weapons. At one time, he worked together with the doll-woman, when she was still human, and there they exchanged their two necklaces. The doll-woman really was in love with the guy, it seems, and underwent the operation that turned her body into that of a doll for him, but in the end he betrayed her.

It’s indeed like I thought: Nijuu Mensou was involved with a lot of supernatural research during the war, and he just left everything without cleaning it up, and now his past is back to bite at him. He tried to live his life as a famous thief, probably in order to forget his past, but after the mass-murder in episode 6, he realized that he couldn’t just ignore his past. This is why he abandoned Chiko and Ken: to not involve them with his problems. Unfortunately, Chiko is now known as his daughter, so all of his enemies will now be going after Chiko because he makes himself unfindable. Nice strategy. The guy is screwed, and a perfect example of the proverb “you reap what you sow”. The fact that he left again at the end of this episode shows how his problems are far from over.

Also, it turns out that Akechi really does exist, but Nijuu Mensou likes to dress up as him. The big question is of course: who was the one who gave Chiko Nijuu Mensou’s necklace. It’s obvious now that Nijuu Mensou has been doing other things ever since he faked his own death, but to what extend did he keep in contact with Chiko?

I must applaud the creators for coming up with such a dynamic cast. Out of all th series that aired during the past spring season, Nijuu Menosu no Musume and Real Drive have a cast of characters that feels most away from any stereotypes, and now that these have hit their second halves, you can really see the results of that. Stereotypes may be best and funniest when they first appear, but they falter in the long run, whereas the developed and fleshed out characters only get better as the series progresses.

Short Synopsis: Lots of things happen, among which is Akine’s backstory.
Highlights: Hard to talk about without spoilers.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10

Oh my god… this episode is exactly why I’m watching this series. One episode might seem to suggest that this series goes nowhere, and then episodes like this one come and the entire plot makes a complete 180 degree turn. If you’ve yet to see this episode, you’d best not look at the rest of this entry. ^^;

I’ve forgotten the name of the glasses-guy, the one that gave Chiko the hint that Nijuu Mensou was still alive and who gave her his treasure. With this episode, it’s obvious why the guy would have all this, because this episode reveals him to be Nijuu Mensou himself. It’s quite sneaky: the attempts at foreshadowing this plot-twist are deliberately done a bit too obvious to take seriously. Both Chiko and Ken note how the guy resembles Nijuu Mensou, so through reverse psychology, there has to be more to the guy than just that. Well, no.

This episode continues to pull tricks like that throughout the episode. The doll-person also shatters the head of a tome-statue in this episode. Obviously, Tome didn’t die, but she was inside this statue, below the head, nonetheless. At the end of the episode, the puppet-woman (yes, woman) also makes a controlled Chiko stab Nijuu Mensou in the back. Thanks to Ken’s smokescreen, we may have to wait five more episodes before we find out how Nijuu Mensou survived that blow.

But really, I’m still surprised at how this series holds no punches at all when it gets serious. Heck, on top of all of that, Chiko ends up kidnapped at the end of the episode, and the puppet woman turns out to have been some sort of part of Nijuu Mensou in the past, suggesting that he abandoned his crew more often in the past. This does explain why all of these supernatural people are suddenly after Chiko: they’re probably all things that Nijuu Mensou left behind and was too lazy to clean up.

Also, what was this about Akine? Why did he use two different names for Chiko: Chiko and Chizuko? Up till now, I just saw him as a rather unlikable lazy guy, but as it turns out, his bond with Chiko (or at least the younger Chiko) turns out to be deeper than suspected. If I understood correctly (and correct me if I’m wrong) during the war, Akine once took Chiko to a foreign country and then lost track of her. Nijuu Mensou then was responsible of bringing her back. If this is true, then Nijuu Mensou did more than just pick a random talented girl off the street…

To hijack this post for a bit, after a few days of using my new star-rating system, and quite a few problems have arisen (with many thanks to the commenters left their opinions):
– It’s too fuzzy
– It’s hard to relate the meaning of the scores, it’s unclear what the maximum number of stars is
– Some PCs can’t support unicode and instead only see a bunch of question-marks.

To conclude, it was a nice experiment, but the star-system sucks, and I’m going back to numbers out of 100 again. I’m going to keep rating, based on Storytelling, Characters, Production-Values and Setting. My biggest beef with my original rating system was indeed how it was inaccurate as hell. In the original system, I had basically ten categories for which I’d give out a rating, where the eventual rating would be their average. These categories always ended up overlapping each other.

With only four categories, this’ll mean that not every number will be utilized (the ratings will quite probably be 8o, 82,5, 85, 87,5, 90, etc. out of 100) but I hope it will make my reviews a bit clearer.

To continue hijacking this post, another thing that caught my attention about the reader survey was the relatively large amount of people who’d like to see the little summaries that I had a year ago back. Are there more who’re interested to see this return? Like, for example:

Short Synopsis: We learn a bit more about Haruka, and last week’s enemy continues to target Chiko
Good: Excellent change from light-hearted to dark throughout the episode
Bad: I’ve never been that big of a fan of brainwashing, and this is no exception. Auntie’s murder attempts keep getting more ridiculous.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10

Very interesting, the way this episode started promised to be a strange beach-episode, but this series managed to add so much more that I’m surprised that it all fit into just 20 minutes. First of all, it is revealed that Haruka had a twin sister. She reveals this as her dead image keeps haunting her since the beach in this episode is the place where she died, and apparently Haruka blames herself for her death.

In the second half of the episode, our long-haired enemy returns again, and his/her weapon this time is brainwashing all those important to Chiko. Like mentioned above: I’m not too big of a fan of brainwashing, mostly those kinds that can be resisted easily. I mean, if you were a villain, using this technique, wouldn’t you make sure that the people you brainwash never get near the conditions to break out of this mind control? Here too: I’m still not sure why exactly Tome was the only one who broke free…

Still, apart from that, I was surprised at the sudden dark tone. When it wants to, this series takes no prisoners, and it immediately throws every one of Chiko’s friends against her. What were those pills supposed to do? I failed to pick that up. Were they just poison, or did they have another effect? Speaking of poison, I’m really not sure what Chiko’s aunt is thinking… before, she came with intricate plans to kill Chiko through poison, and now she has turned to throwing flower-pots at her head. Can’t she just hire a professional killer or something?

Now this is more like it. I’m not a big fan of the new and angsty Ken, but he does spice up things a bit if he continues to develop like that (which is very likely, considering the nature of this series). This episode pushes the plot forward again, and I’m glad to see that some actual meaningful villains appear, rather than those goons of the previous episode.

It also seems that the supernatural research for the past world war is going to play a big theme in the rest of this series. In this episode, a doll, carrying Nijuu Mensou’s pendant appears in front of Chiko. In the meantime, Chiko’s aunt is still trying to poison and kill her (if I understood correctly, Chiko faints in this episode due to the poison that she was fed). Tome and Chiko also get a lot closer together in this episode.

The next episode is going to be the halfway-point of this series, so I hope that that one will give a few more hints as to where this series seems to be going. There are a lot of storylines going on, but no goals, apart from finding Nijuu Mensou. I want to know why the creators bothered to forcefully introduce such a supernatural element in this series, and what difference it would have made if they were just excluded.

Aah! And things went so well for this series! What the heck were the creators thinking at that fight-scene?! Suspense of disbelief is very important for this series, because it’s dealing with the topic of a child prodigy, which is very easy to overglorify in anime. In this episode, Chiko and her new friend have to fight against two grunts that are after Nijuu Mensou’s treasure map for God knows what reason. The way the first one goes down is already hard to believe: one judo-throw by someone who has just been practicing Judo for a year (which reminds me, has Chiko been continuing her judo-training ever since she got back?) will not knock out someone for hours. It’ll startle them a bit at most, especially considering how he was a full grown guy.

Still, that could have all been ignored if not for the blatantly insulting way that the second one went down: he takes Chiko’s friend hostage, so Chiko uses a hand mirror to blind his eyes. If that wasn’t enough, Chiko suddenly is also able to deal out powerful kicks from nowhere. Still, that also would have been sort-of acceptable, if the guy wasn’t stopped in his tracks by some toys that Chiko’s friend threw at him. He even got knocked unconscious because he simply slipped. No amount of explanation is going to set that one right…

I’m going to see this one as a bad day for the creators. Possibly a bad writer was in charge of this one and not the amazing previous three episodes. Thankfully, the parts about Ken made this episode at least a bit worthwhile: we actually see confirmation that Nijuu Mensou is still alive (dressed up as a police-guy), and that he never attempted to contact Chiko. It also took me quite a while to find out that half a year has already passed. I originally thought that Chiko would grew up to like fifteen years old, but it turns out that the major part of her story will take place at the age of only thirteen. I hope that her hormones won’t get in the way of good storytelling.

Boy, how well this series turned out. To think that even at episode eight, Chiko still hasn’t grown up to the version of her we keep seeing in the OP. Every part of this series suggests that the creators are continuously building up, and this building up is already starting to pay off.

The robot turns out to be a humanoid weapon, thereby introducing a supernatural element in this series rather forcefully. If I understood correctly, then the country Chiko lives in (I assume Japan) tried to develop humanoid weapons, though they were never able to be used in the war, because it ended before this technology could be perfected. The woman and robot we saw in the previous episode turn out to be the leftovers from this research: they’ve got superhuman powers but at the same time they seem to be suffering. I’m not sure what kind of torture their bodies go through.

But such a huge and lumpy robot was of course a perfect opponent for Chiko to handle on her own, since she herself was small and light. It forced her to take advantage of this. At one point, the animation style also changed completely, in a really messy kind. It’s interesting to consider how this isn’t the first anime to use this technique, and the fact that they’re used for major fight scenes (take for example the last episode of Macross Frontier, or the final episodes of Shion no Ou). But I do want to urge the creators to be consistent with this style, and not just have one such scene in the entire series. The reason why this worked so well in Shion no Ou was because the animation was building up for it.

Chiko’s future side-kick also surprised me. She’s further away from the spoiled brat than I imagined. As it turns out, she’s incredibly rich, and has to live with the future prospect of marrying at her eighteenth and living a boring life without having to do anything. As she’s really tomboyish, she seems to have convinced herself to live her life to the fullest while she still can, and so she came to overglorify anything that resembles cool adventures. Now I also understand why she’ll easily make friends with Chiko.

In case you were wondering: yes, there indeed was no Nijuu Mensou no Musume last week. The creators sure chose the most annoying time, after episode 6’s huge cliff-hanger. Still, I’m glad that this series is back now, because this episode was really worth it. It wastes no time in developing the storyline further.

As it turns out: her two future comrades are an annoying classmate and the maid of Chiko’s mother. As it turns out, Chiko goes back to her family in this episode after the loss of Nijuu Mensou. The creators also waste no time in placing hints that Nijuu Mensou might be alive somewhere, like many people already suspected.

The mood of this episode got rather ruined when Chiko started speaking English, however. Another item has been added to the list of “things Hirano Aya can’t do”: speak proper English. Even compared to the English skills of your average voice-actor, it was horrible. I think that’s why her voice fits Chiko so well: it’s soft and subtle. Hirano’s problem is that she wants to show off way too much. It may give her lots of awards, but quality is something else. What I’ve heard of her in Zettai Karen Children and Haruhi Suzumiya in particular was unimpressive and more annoying than it was enjoyable.

In any case, I really like how the new cast of characters isn’t as one-sided as the old one. It’s really varied, there are lots of different parties with their own intentions and backgrounds. This should prove to be very interesting for the future of this series.

…but what was up with that giant robot?

Spoilers up ahead! Let me repeat: spoilers up ahead! This is one of these episodes you need to have seen before reading such an entry about it, so this sentence is meant to fill up the blurb that appears on the blog aggregators with. I am SO glad that I decided to blog Nijuu Mensou no Musume.

Because oh my GOD! I kind-of suspected that Nijuu Mensou would end up dead somehow, but talk about bloody overkill! This is even worse than the first episode of Chevalier: the ENTIRE cast is slaughtered apart from two people. It is only now that I finally understand the OP, where they only show the grown-up version of Ken, and not everyone else. I now also understand why Ken was the one who ended up with his eye poked out: doing this on any of the other characters wouldn’t have mattered anyway, since they would have died within an episode anyway.

Having said that, I do want to add that Nijuu Mensou’s death lacked a bit of impact. Chiko’s reaction on seeing him die was of course amazing, but I’m wondering why he couldn’t just detach the train and then quickly hop onto her car. With his skills, he could have easily done it. Or did he die on purpose? Did he feel like he would abandon his comrades if he didn’t die with them? I still somehow feel that the creators could have developed the guy a bit more, but at least he and his crew did a terrific job in developing Chiko. I’m really getting pumped up now for the rest of this series!

I do wish that the creators would show more of Chiko, improving her 1337-skills. Walking on a tight rope isn’t something you just learn overnight, and while I can understand that it’s perfectly possible for Chiko to learn this within a year, I’d much rather see her gradually mastering this skill, instead of vaguely hinting at this in the ED and assuming that the viewers will assume that she has been practicing a lot in the gaps between the episodes. I’m not asking for Dragon Ball Z-length training arcs (that would be pretty bad, actually), but right now this is the big (but also the only) weakness of this series.

Having said that, this series is really picking up steam now, though it does so very subtly. This episode finally introduces a pair of enemies that actually have the potential to cause Nijuu Mensou and Chiko some serious trouble, as they demonstrate by poking Ken’s eye out. That’s a twist I totally didn’t see coming at this stage of the series.

In this episode, Nijuu Mensou attempts to steal a large strange statue, under the cover of a circus troupe. He really demonstrates again how he’s an attention-whore, because he tries to create an as big spectacle as possible whenever he appears. In that way, he’s really different from Chiko, who’s a much more straightforward person.

Excellent, Chico is already growing up, and this episode skips ahead one year. This episode did well in just being believable enough. While it’s a bit hard to believe that in just one year, Chico would turn from a fragile girl who always stayed in bed into a master knife-thrower and how she has no problems with holding onto a rope for so long, the creators did handle her fighting-abilities very nicely. One year of intense practice should be just enough to learn how to execute a basic judo-throw, and a kick in the groin by a cute girl should always be enough to throw an unsuspecting guy off-guard. Although I do admit that it’s a bit hard to believe that a fully grown and trained man would get knocked out just from falling down a bunch of stairs.

I do wish that the creators showed Chico practicing her lock-picking skills a bit. That rather came from out of nowhere, when Chico was in the elevator and suddenly disconnected the suitcase that was attached to one of the policemen by a pair of handcuffs like it was nothing.

One thing that’s interesting to note is how Chico may be a child genius with all the intention to be better, she does lack experience. Right now, she’s moving forward and forward, though this has to end somewhere. She has a lot of book-wisdom, but there will be a point where her confidence will shoot her in the foot. I guess that when Nijuu Mensou disappears, it’ll have a pretty interesting effect on everyone, and I commend this series’ ability to build up for this.