Category: Ooedo Rocket

An excellent aftermath to the already excellent previous episode. Not only does Sora get captured and put in jail, Ginjiro’s identity also gets revealed. Nearly every scene in this episode was memorable somehow, and I’m looking forward to seeing this anime go towards its finish. It seems like Seikichi and the Townsfolk do see Sora as a monster, even after they saw her transform. It’s only after she’s captured that their minds get back on earth again, because they direct all their energy at getting angry at Ginjiro for working for Torii. Ginjiro himself also wasn’t too happy with this, as his entire plan to keep secrets to everyone failed miserably. Thanks to Akai, Seikichi has now officially become a fugitive. He managed to escape after all this in quite an amusing way, but Akai is now actively looking for the guy. I loved how later, Ginjiro managed to bring him back to earth. Another interesting thing is that he’s beginning to get friendly with Blue-monster-from-the-sky (she still hasn’t chosen herself a name?!). This episode also showed that the third blue monster from the sky does indeed have a mind of its own, and it’s actually searching for Seikichi’s rockets as well. Whether or not it also has a human form isn’t certain yet. Oh, and Anui confirms that she is, in fact, a dog, when she manages to find Seikichi, based on his scent alone.]]>

Haha! This episode is not to be missed, as it’s excellent in both the comedy as the drama-department. It has been a long time since I laughed this long and hard when Kinshiro ruined Akai’s attempt to arrest Seikichi., using modern photo-cameras and a strange version of a computer. The rest of the episode, though, was rather serious, and the first drop of blood has been spilled. I was quite surprised when it happened, but apparently, this show does have the guts to show blood. I wonder how much more of this we’ll get to see. On the graphical side, things looked great, by the way. It’s clear that this would be an important episode for the creators. There was one development that stood central in this episode: Seikichi finding out about Sora’s identity. To make things even better, he attacks Sora in beast-form, while protecting blue-monster-from-the-sky in human form. The next episode is promising to become a great aftermath, since he’s got to do some explaining to her. ^^ Another rather interesting thing happened: another blue monster from the sky sprouted from the blue monster from the sky. Not only that, but her physical abilities seem to be way higher than those of the ones we’ve seen before, judging on how she (at least, I assume it’s a she) easily took care of Ginjiro’s henchmen. This raises some interesting questions: is this monster the same as the one we saw before, or does she also have a human form? I’m also still not sure whether to classify the blue monster from the sky as “evil”. After the previous episode, I started to feel a bit compassion for her, despite the huge number of women she killed, but in this episode she showed that she showed to be quite merciless when she tried to take out Sora by making Akai reveal her secret in front of Seikichi. What she didn’t realize, though, was that this incident will only bring our couple closer together.]]>

Today’s focus was rather difficult to really pinpoint, as there isn’t really a character who asks up most of the attention. Central in the episode, though, was a new experiment by Seikichi and Shunpei: what happens when the rocket is launched from a great height? Shunpei also tweaked the rocket-designs a bit, so that the exhausts would move when unbalanced, to keep the rocket in a straight line. Of course, things go wrong when Akai shows up. ^^; Also, I finally noticed something. Notice the jackets that people wear in the Op, among other places? The ones with the random characters on it? These are actually the first hiragana-characters of the individual names of the characters! Okay, it’s an unimportant detail, but it’s nice to see that the creators spent so much time on this. One thing I loved is how Santa, Shinza and Rokubei used a steam powered engine that Gennai invented to make Leonardo Davinchi’s flying machine take off into the air. Take that, brothers Wright! ^^; Don’t you also love that Seikichi’s reaction when the finds out that there is no air in space merely comes down to “I don’t care”? Still, the major appeal of Ooedo Rocket remains the support that everyone’s giving to Seikichi and Shunpei. They definitely are not alone, and everyone around them helps them as much as possible, which all makes for a very fun series. In this episode, Santa, Shinza and Rokubei also try to prove themselves with that flying machine of theirs. We also see Ginjiro and his friends help to the best of their ability, in order to get a kite with Seikichi, Shunpei and Akai on it back to the ground, after it went out of control. There wasn’t much of the blue monster of the sky in this episode. She spends most of her time in bed (ripping it apart in the process). I do wonder how she’s going to be for the rest of the anime, especially now that matters have become personal for Akai with the inclusion of Seikichi. Ooedo rocket is just one of these anime that is fun to watch, when it comes with a great combination of characters, music, story, detail and creativity. Okay, it’s not the best series of the spring-season, but definitely one of the better ones. :)]]>

I guess that this was one of those episodes that had a bit of everyone. Heck, half of the huge cast got a bit of development. The blue monster from the sky, Genzo, Seikichi, Sora, Kagiya, Shunpei, Tenhou, Tenten, a few of the hunters, Akai, Anui, the townsfolk, O-Ise and Genzo’s mother all play some kind of important role in this episode. To start with O-Ise, in this episode she keeps bugging the townsfolk about a luxurious vacation she’s selling. Judging by the reaction of the townsfolk, they have experienced her vacations before, and left there with some baaaad memories. ^^; Oh, and she gets robbed afterwars, by the blue monster from the sky. And poor Genzo! He’s now also been degraded to mere pigeon in the OP. And only now I realize that he was responsible for most of the calculations that Seiichi needed. It also took me till this episode to realize that he’s got a mother! It’s so cute of her to worry about him, and yet she thinks he’s on some sort of journey. And boy, does the blue monster from the sky show a different side of her during this episode! The past few episodes portrayed her as an evil bitch, but she actually showed pity in this episode. The events of the previous episode really made her think, because I’m sure that she wants to return to the moon as well. It’s ironic that she of all people starts needing Genzo, since all of the townsfolk just took his existence for granted. I also finally realized why I can’t remember her name: she doesn’t have one! Akai meanwhile, tries to use Kagiya’s daughter to try and get Seikichi, but it fails. Basically, he arranges it so that she gets assigned with the task f repairing the space-ship, with which he hopes she’ll go to Seikichi for advice. He didn’t take her “I don’t want to lose from that guy”-attitude. ^^; In any case, with this she finally got an important role, instead of being a side-character who shows up once every five episodes. This episode also was a great one for the different couples on the show. Shunpei gets a bit closer to Anui, due to his frustrations with his brother. Seikichi and Sora keep doing random things in order to tweak the rocket (I’m actually not sure what the poles they made were for, but I guess we’ll see that in the next episode), and Tenhou gets a bit closer with her stalker. ^^; I’m also glad to see that after Bokura no, other shows are coming with their new EDs to. I still liked the first one better, though, but this one also is quite fun to watch.]]>

The focus of this episode? The six “knights” that work under Ginjiro. Right now, it’s their turn to get a bit of development, as they start to critically analyze the things that Ginjiro said to them. After all, he seems to be defending the white beast from the sky a bit too much, and he suddenly came with the idea that there’s another blue one. The right word to describe almost half of this episode: Chaos. The townsfolk, in my opinion, are the best group of pure supporting characters that came with the series of the spring-season. Why? Because they make things happen. Because of them, you feel that the people that live near Seikichi have real personalities, and aren’t just caricatures, just because they need to exist. They provide energy to this series, and for a change, they are actually useful in an indirect way. They make sure that the main characters develop well, and they also help with the muscle-work for Seikichi’s rockets. Even Seirei no Moribito spends less attention to these kinds of people, and that has to say something. I also must say, that Seikichi’s development of the rocket has been really enjoyable to see so far. Even though he only appears briefly in most of the episodes, this development does show that he’s the main character of this show. I love main characters like these, that don’t take up the majority of the screen-time. This episode also shows a major progression, as he manages to get his clock out of sight with a new revolutionary idea: use four engines instead of one. Anyway, this episode was loads of fun. It was hilarious to see Ginjiro trying to find excuses to protect Sora’s and Seikichis secrets. Oh, and Tenhou has a new fan. ^^; Like mentioned above, the result was chaos. Akai’s storyline also progressed a bit forward when the blue monster from the sky (what was her name again?) discovers Seikichi’s rocket. I didn’t quite understand what she was after, but if I had to guess, it’d be the special gunpowder that Sora got out of her spaceship a few episodes ago, before it blew up. Since Seikichi was the one to blow her chance of obtaining it (she stole his rocket, and he managed to blow it up before it fell in the wrong hands), it seems that the next few episodes will feature some antagonistic feelings between Akai and Seikichi, something which the first episode of the series indeed seemed to foreshadow. Overall, I’ve only found one strange thing of Ooedo Rocket: where the heck does Seikichi get so many supplies, gunpowder and clocks? You’d suspect that these things are quite hard to obtain in the Tenpou Era. Anyway, apart from that Ooedo Rocket turned out really good. It’s great to see that another group has started to sub the series. Keep an eye out for episodes three and five to get out, as they show how this series excels in both drama as comedy.]]>

I have reason to believe the creators were on crack for this episode. Seriously, though, it’d be the only explanation for such a weird yet utterly brilliant episode. This episode also convinced me. Most anime feature battles, but for great battles, something needs to be added. The two anime with the best battles that aired in the spring-season are: Seirei no Moribito Ooedo Rocket Seirei no Moribito belongs in this list because of the incredible amount of detail that’s been thrown into them. Ooedo Rocket got in because of the sheer creativity of some of the attacks. This was already showed a few episodes back, where the group of hunters unleashed their skills on the unfortunate alien, but the fight in this episode, between Ginjiro and Akai just made me cry from laughter due to its awesomeness, even though the scene was just too wrong. xD Anyway, the rest of the episode focused on another side-character: Junpei. It’s a bit different from your usual Ooedo Rocket-episode, though, as the amount of puns, references to modern times, parodies and symbols has been increased tenfold. I’m not going to list all of them, but there are parodies on dating-sims, RPGs, Maid Cafes, porn, manga, tv-bloopers and many more. Basically, it features Anui helping Junpei to find his “Najenaje”, or the reason for his worries. Through the course of the episode, they visit various characters who can’t help them. In the end, though, Junpei realizes that his “najenaje” is “nazenaze”, as he likes to ask questions. Near the end of the episode, we also see another romance starting. It starts when Junpei starts telling a story about when he was young, about how he used to play with a puppy who talked at one point. If you watch the episode, you just can’t deny that this dog was Anui, since this isn’t the first time this anime went and changed people from animals and vice versa. I’ve also got reason to believe that she was born as a dog, since her human form has so many similarities to that of a dog, instead of the opposite. Seriously, I’m rooting for Shinsen-subs to continue subbing this series. Ooedo rocket DESERVES to be watched, and it’s definitely the funniest series that arrived in the spring-season. It’s such a huge shame that comedies like Hayate the Combat Butler, Seto no Hanayome and Nagasarete Airantou get so much attention while this gem passes by completely unnoticed!]]>

The scenes involving Genzo were truly epic! During the previous episode, I never even wondered why he suddenly became a bird, but now everything becomes clear. Remember the machines that turn people to cats? Well, there are other machines as well. xD I laughed so hard when I finally realized this. Genzo probably is one of the most pitiful characters in the current spring-season. A neglected character in a neglected anime, how much worse can it get? ^^; Anyway, it seems that Ooedo Rocket isn’t going to be 13 episodes long after all, and we’re in for at least 24 of them. This episode shows this as well when it again continues to develop its characters. This time, the focus lies on Seikichi’s relationship with Sora, and Ginjiro who realizes that he wants to protect Sora. Oh, and Tetsuju returns! It first looks like we’re dealing with another love-triangle, but I don’t think that Ginjiro is after Sora in that way. He just wants to protect her because he knows her secret. Seikichi, however, thinks that Ginjiro is acting way too suspicious, and during this episode Sora shows him that she does have interest in him when she saves him after Kagiya blows up his boat (long story, let’s just say that Tetsuju had something to do with it ^^;). The rocket-development also progresses in this episode when Seikichi manages to find a new ingredient for his fuel: poo, as disgusting as it sounds. It works quite well, actually. In this episode, we get to see him do a test-run and the firepower greatly increased. Unfortunately though, Tetsuju was still able to catch up to them. Seikichi indeed needs these extra thirteen episodes if he wants to have a chance to send Sora to the moon. Overall, I loved the episodes. Episodes 6-8 had a few lesser moments, so I began to fear, but it seems that these fears were unnecessary.]]>

Seriously, the episodes for Ooedo Rocket keep getting weirder and weirder. Unfortunately, this also means harder to understand. The current episode focuses on Tenhou and Tenten (finally I know their names), when they search in Hezo’s house (that was his name, wasn’t it?) after Seikichi and Sora have been missing. It seems that at one time, they were street-performers, and quite good ones. Then, however, the law started to forbid them to carry out their practices. When they wondered what to do next, they got picked up by an official named Toyama Kinshiro (not to be confused with Ginjiro). They then started to work for him, to defeat criminals. Then they met Seikichi, and got inspired by his innocence, so they decided to watch over him. That’s why we’ve been seeing the two of them talking whenever Seikichi was in trouble. That was about the part that made the most sense. For a majority of the episode, we follow them spying on Hezo because of what he did in the previous episode, commanding cats and all to take back the flyers revealing the location where Seikichi always carries out his fireworks-tests. Furthermore, Seikichi and Sora have been missing, and they suspect the guy behind this as well. So, what’s his secret? Well, he’s got a machine that changes people into cats. The cats from the previous episode probably all were his servants who went into these machines. Seikichi and Sora went to his house for some Ohagi, got lost and accidentally ended up in these machines as well (by the way, seeing Tenhou, Tenten, Seikichi and Sora in cat-form were SO cute. Tenten with nekomimi also was just awesome ^^;). This episode also introduced yet another new character: Mizuno. So far, he’s unimportant, though he could play a considerable role in the next episodes. He seems to be Kinshiro and Torii’s superior. We see the three talk with each other for a bit, and that part was just impossible to understand, since they toss all kinds of big words at each other (most of which I couldn’t even find in the dictionary), not to mention that Mizuno explores new depths of the word “Giddy”. In any case, judging by the reaction of Kinshiro and Torii afterwards, though, he probably meant to tell them not to go after Hezo. Torii sends Ginjiro to go after Akai, who’s searching the guy’s house as well, while Kinshiro tries to find Tenten and Tenhou, but gets into trouble with the locals. This does result, however, in Tenhou and Tenten finding out about what Ginjiro has been up to and vice versa when the two parties notice each other. One thing that still puzzles me was what happened when the townsfolk found out about Kinshiro’s identity. It was probably filled with bad puns and references. Still, now that I wrote things down a bit, the episode makes much more sense. It really was a fun one, despite its strangeness. Now all that’s left to hope is that Shinsen will continue to sub this series for more than just one episode. Anyway, to close off this post, I got an interesting comment on the last entry I wrote for this series, by Bomber D Rufi, who claims that this series might actually take up 26 episodes. While the series looks like it’ll just finish in two or three episodes, things could get very interesting if this rumour turned out to be true. After all, the OP-single gets released on July 4th, which is after the anime finished.]]>

I have no idea what happened during the majority of the episode, but I liked it! Lots of things happened, and the climax was one of the most enjoyable climaxes in this series yet, but I definitely missed a few details. Below follows an attempt to understand it. The townsfolk with funny faces prove themselves useful when the episode starts with a variation on a catapult that they managed to build, launching a barrel high in the air. Another step in the direction to get Sora to the moon (was I the only one who found it funny that Sora excused herself afterwards by looking on her watch? ^^;). Remember the woman from the third episode? Well, she gets another major role in this one. It seems that she actually runs an important store, and has quite an amount of money, judged by the way she is transported. She first runs into Ginjiro, then into Seikishi. Apparently, they know each other, as she forces the latter in her carriage and offers him some dumplings. Next, Sora and Ginjiro talk about what happened last episode. If I’m not mistaken, Sora explains why she came to earth: exterminate the blue monsters and then return to the moon. Then, Seikichi and the woman (what was her name again?) notice the two of them talking, and take the wrong conclusions. Seikichi then spends a lot of the episode looking stupid in front of Sora, whom he thinks has an affair with Ginjiro. The really incomprehensible part started when the strange notes appeared. Apparently, the woman spread them as part of a plan to get revenge on Ginjiro. Akai seems to be after them as well, and to make things even stranger, we later see every cat in the neighbourhood collect these pieces, bring them to the rich and popular old man, after which he burns them… what? Anyway, the climax was lots of fun. The bickering between the woman and Ginjiro also was quite touching. The wooden barrel proved to be too much for the gunpowder to handle, so Sora went and got herself a rather large metal bell. When combined with the wooden structure, mentioned above, and it does reach a considerable height without breaking. But then a problem arises: the gunpowder inside the bell makes so much noise when it’s in the air that everyone in Edo can hear it. All kinds of methods are tried to get it down as fast as possible, as its parachute is going way too slow. Shinzo fires a missile, it hits the bell and bounces off again, people scream, Sora cheers and the episode ends. I have no idea what went on, but it was definitely fun to watch. 😛 Just as Wellber no Monogatari, Ooedo Rocket is going to build towards its ending in the next month. I really wonder if they’ll be able to get Sora to the moon in the end. Let’s see whether the final parts of these two series manage to become even better than their first parts. June is promising to become especially interesting for these two series, as they don’t have the luxury of thirteen more episodes, and they have to prove what they build up to now.]]>

Heh, for the first time, I actually managed to pick up a word pun in anime while watching raw, At the beginning of the episode. It’s indeed the best if you’re able to pick them up yourself, instead of having fansubbers do this for you. ^^; Anyway, the current episode was more of a serious one, and unlike the disappointing episode 7, this one was well worth the watch! Akai turns into an even more pitiful character than he already was. He really is a loswer with just a high position, and I still like him, despite the things he’s done. I mean, he’s killed a bunch of females so that he can please the human form of the blue monster, he indeed nearly drools over her when she gives him attention, but at the same time, she just loathes him, unlike any other tsundere I’ve seen so far. She just knows that he’ll collect women’s blood for him, and that’s all. Heck, Akai even realizes this, and he still continues the killing. Ginjiro and Sora also get quite a bit of development this time, especially Sora. She must probably be struggling with her feelings and all, since she’s asking such a request from Seikichi, because of this, she tries to help in some interesting ways, to provide the parts of her spaceship. The best part, though, was Ginjiro finding out that Sora is the white monster. Sora, meanwhile, manages to kill off the second blue monster, who’s been residing in the first one since a few episodes. Overall, the episode was quite good. Not the best yet, but definitely one of the better episodes of the series. It’s quite obvious now that the series will consist out of twelve or thirteen episodes, and I’m interested to see how this anime plans to end its story. Especially Akai should prove to get even more interesting in the future episodes. PS. These black knights, or however they may be called, have got some awesome fighting-moves. ^^;]]>