Category: Bokura no

Recap. Strangely enough, though, I didn’t mind it at all. It was the perfect chance to get a bit nostalgic over all the characters that lost their lives throughout the show, and it sure as hell reminded me why this is one of my favourite shows of the season. Especially seeing the first episode back, when everyone was still alive with Kokopelli had impact. I also loved the use of insert songs throughout the episode. As far as recap-episodes go, you can’t get any better than this one. Another thing is that we only really understood that people were really piloting the other robots since Maki’s fight. Seeing the other children beat up the enemy robots, and knowing that they were actually destroying planets also was really creepy. The only thing that I didn’t like about this episode was how it yet again didn’t focus on Kirie, for the third time since he got assigned as the next pilot, and I’m really interested to see some more attention focused on him. Gonzo’s productions may be either a success (Red Garden, Master of Epic), or a failure (Getsumen to Heiki Mina, Kaze no Stigma), and Bokura no is one huge success. 🙂 (Oh, and in case you wondered, yes I’ve recycled screenshots from previous entries, since I got lazy and this is a recap anyway ^^;)]]>

Seriously, I can’t believe I cried at the end of the episode. I was ready to call this episode a failure, when it spent more time on Ushiro’s uncle than on Kirie himself, and then it comes with such an incredibly mean plot twist! I’m still not sure whether it was incredibly cheap or incredibly brilliant, but I’m really edging towards the latter. Seeing the enemy commit suicide shows even more that there are real people inside of it. They’ve got the same worries as everyone else. This was a pilot who was even worse off than Kirie himself. I don’t know what his reasons were, and the sad thing is that we’ll never know them. He could have hated himself, perhaps he was suicidal, perhaps he got into a fight earlier, who knows. I also love Kirie now, after this episode, now that it seems that he still has time left for development, especially considering that he doesn’t have the intention to fight, and the fact that he lives with Jun, now that his mother lies in the hospital. I’m anxious to see how this problem will be solved. Still, what was up with Jun’s uncle? I’m not sure why Tanaka invited the guy.]]>

And so, Bokura no has stopped being a case-based series, and it’s currently on its way to develop its storyline. While the main theme of the first half of the series focused on children, saying goodbye to their lives, this episode showed that the main theme of the second half will be: saving the children. Personally, I really like this, and it’s definitely one of the most realistic directions that could have been chosen Out of all the series to have come out in the spring-season, I have to say that Bokura no is the most realistic one. One thing, though, is that it’s going to be much more difficult to follow this series due to the complex dialogue that was used by the adults. The children’s language is pretty easy to figure out, though these adults use lots of big words. The question that remains now, though, is whether the director will pull a Mai-Hime ending or not. At least the children won’t be saved with the help of magic, and I’d actually love to see the final children saved, but if the director really wants to save every child, it’s going to need a lot of development. At least this episode made a good start. ^^ Also, is there a reason why Tanaka never really started to investigate about Ushiro’s mother? At least, that’s what I understood from this episode. Kana keeps impatiently asking Takana how progress is going, but Takana lies to her every time. Did she perhaps find out something she didn’t want Kana to know? One thing I loved, by the way, was how Kanji manages to keep the entire group together, and yet he’s incredibly cold towards his mother, due to the fact that she’s continuously busy with her job of researching Zearth. It’s interesting how his mother has still feelings for him, and something tells me that she can’t see that Kanji needs more attention. Kirie’s role was very surprising. Even though he’s the next pilot, we don’t really get to know him, and his most important role was as a victim. He had the most priority to be saved. I really can’t wait to see him as a pilot, because I feel that almost everyone has the most pity for him. And I’m really in love with the new ED. Unlike the OP and the previous ED, it needs a bit of time to get used to, but it closes off an episode perfectly The overall background music also is as good as ever, and even though the art isn’t as flashy as with the other anime, I love the realistic look. And finally, can someone PLEASE tell me what that cliff-hanger in the end meant? I can understand a bit of Japanese, but my kanji is horrible. -_-]]>

Oh. My. God. That was more shocking than I ever imagined. This episode introduces the second half of Bokura no, and holy god…. that was awesome, disturbing, touching, exciting and I couldn’t help but love it. Bokura no already was my favourite show of the spring-season, and here it comes and turns even better!! I knew that the other robots were piloted by other children as well, but actually seeing these people, who were about to be killed by our group of kids made a huge impact on me. Fighting against other robots and planets is easy, but once you know who’s inside them, things go a whole lot different. Apparently, judging by the fact that this episode featured a new ED, Bokura no will be 24-episodes long, and that with only five pilots left (seven, if you count the adults). I really wonder about the surprises that the second half of this show will bring us, and the next episode is promising to be awesome as well, since it’ll be focusing on Yosuki, whose case I’m really looking forward to. Also, what was up with the guys that tried to kidnap the females? They looked a bit different from your usual drunk guys assaulters. Oh, and Maki! Her ending was so sweet, even though her case was relatively simple. In the end, she died, right after seeing her new brother.]]>

A light case this time, and it’s also the first episode of Bokura no to incorporate humour in its storytelling, it worked well, but I don’t think Bokura no needs it. It’s good enough without the humour, unlike other anime, as it distracts a bit from the things that are really important. The creators make use of the current case to develop the storyline a bit more, and they make sure to do it thoroughly, since she gets two episodes for this. The biggest revelation probably came near the end of the episode: there indeed is a war between planets going on, and similar machines like Zearth are fighting each other. Zearth is just a bit stronger than the others. This does ask a huge number of questions: – Where did the technology come from? – How many planets are fighting each other? – Is Zearth actually destroying the planets of the robots it destroys? – Is every planet against Zearth, or are they destroying each other as well? Also, I must congratulate this anime for coming up with the most original alien civilization I’ve seen in a long while: one that’s actually on about the same technical levels as the earth, with a few subtle differences. There really is some kind of party that’s been handing out robots to different planets, and Kokopeli and Koemushi work for them. What purpose do they have? In any case, I’m glad to see that the creators keep eliminating the least-interesting characters. Let’s take a look at the ones who still are alive: Kanji Yosuki Jun Takami Aiko Yoko Kana Takana Seki Where Kana and Yoko will remain alive. At least, I assume this. The amount of development that Jun is getting suggests that his character is special somehow. Is this because he, in fact, is the child that’ll live, or are the creators building up for his story that needs more development than the others? In any case, I’m looking forward to the stories of these children, and I’m especially curious to when we’ll see Aiko (due to the fact that she often gets emotional), Yosuki (I’d love to see his case), Jun (after this episode, I’ve become really curious about him, see a bunch of paragraphs below), and Takana (what will she do when she finds out she can’t protect the children anymore, and what kind of effect will this have on the children?). Maki’s case this time was cute, but it was rather overshadowed by the developments we saw about Jun and the story. Still, it’s by no means bad. Her problem is that she barely misses the birth of her new brother, and her story is about how she can support her mother, and accept her rather strange father who constantly watches anime and buys mecha-figurines. I wonder how much the next episode will focus on her story, since she’s not dead yet, and she’ll probably die until the end of the next episode. Obviously, a lot of development will be spent on the plot, but it’ll be interesting if the creators bring another twist to Maki’s mother. There’s also this matter that somehow Zearth’s name has been leaked out. It’s interesting to see how far Zearth’s influence goes, and it’s obvious that companies would try to exploit it somehow. The fact remains, though, that Zearth was not publicly known. I assume some guy in the military accidentally let it slip, but what if the information that Zearth is piloted by children becomes known to the public? And holy god, Jun. I really want to know more about him. He doesn’t go to school, he slacks off all day and he lets Kana do all the housework, and in this episode he even went as far as kicking her in everyone’s presence. Now I see how special it was for him to come out in episode three, since he never comes out anyway. Still, I love Kana’s bed. I do wonder how she put that together, since it obviously can’t be Jun’s work, and you don’t see such a thing in the stores. It’s interesting to see such a shift of focus when compared to the first eight episodes, by the way. While these episodes were dark, the current ones are light. If there is a pattern, we should see another change of focus after episode sixteen, where I’ll assume that the story will be providing some more darker elements. The thing I liked about Maki’s case was, by the way, that it shows that we’re dealing with normal children here. To compare, Narutaru only had one normal child, with the rest of the cast being composed of outcasts. Narutaru had an excuse to make these characters outcasts, and thus providing some dark story-elements. Bokurano’s kids are not all outcasts, they’re just random children on a summer-camp, which means that you can’t just go and give each of them a twisted background. That’s why I really like the subtle ones we’ve been seeing for the past few episodes. Was this the same in the manga? PS. Another reason why I liked this episode so much: for some reason, it’s giving me a huge amount of inspiration to write about. This is the perfect example of an entry that I really enjoyed writing. 🙂 PSS. (See, I keep adding things ^^;) After thinking a bit more about this episode, I realize that my opinion of Bokura no is similar to that of The Third. It isn’t really as emotional as other series, but somehow I’m drawn to it way more than with other series. Now THAT is a sign of a good show! For The Third, it was Honoka who created this effect, but I can’t put my finger yet on what it so intriguing about Bokura no, though. ]]>

Bokura no continues to impress me like no other series this season. Even though the past few episodes haven’t really introduced new elements, and they’ve just been focusing on the children whose backgrounds could be told in just one episode, I still love this series. Heck, it’s exactly what I want, seeing different people react to the same fate, when they have to say goodbye to their daily lives. It’s interesting, the first few episodes killed off the weakest characters (especially Masaru and Isao), and the past few episodes have been eliminating the stronger ones, the ones who put other’s lives above themselves (especially Daichi and Moji, who we get to see in this episode). While this episode wasn’t as excellent as Daichi’s, it still was a really good one. In this episode, we get to see why he’s been so calm, when compared to the others. Just like Daichi, he had to be strong for someone else. In this case: a childhood friend with heart problems. For a change, this friend is male, instead of the sick female that other anime often stereotype. What makes this case so interesting is that Moji wants to have his heart put in his friend (Nagi was his name, by the way), so that he could get better. Through especially the first half of the episode, we see Nagi get more depressed by the minute, thinking that he’ll be dying while Moji and his other friend, will live, while Moji in fact knows that it’s going to be the opposite. I’m fearing for Kanji in the next episode, as he seems to be the strongest of the current cast, with his laid-back attitude. (If you didn’t guess already, I tend to always skip the next episode-previews due to possible spoilers.) Of course, it’ll be also interesting to see one of the two adults in the pilot’s seat. Regarding the other children, it seems that the girls have developed a strong bond through the episodes. Jun also causes some trouble again with his whining.]]>

I may be wrong, but I think we’re currently at the quietest part of Bokura no, in which the children whose backgrounds can be taken care of in one episode are featured. I think we can expect Kirie next time. Because of this, Bokura no has temporarily become a case-based show (a series which features one character per episode). The thing with the case-based show is that you’ve got the phenomenal and awesome cases (episode nine), and the normal cases (episode ten). This episode was by no means bad, but the previous episode was just so incredibly good, that this episode just doesn’t live up to it. The episode features Mako, and we get to see the reason why she’s so shy: her mother works as a hostess. Because of that, all her classmates think that she’s some kind of weird girl, Mako got ashamed of her mother, and she started to get bullied. She basically spends the episode, trying to understand her mother a bit better. One thing I did like was how Mako tried to be useful somehow, by making outfits for the different pilots. She only had the time to finish four of them, but I like how she turned out to be a very good tailor. Tana also made sure for a nice surprise in the end, when she asked Tanaka to look for Jun’s real mother. This does mean that the two of them have different parents, and that Jun’s mother divorced his father at one point. The father then kept Jun, remarried, and they got Kana. After that, they either died or disappeared. I didn’t expect this, though. A few episodes ago, Sasa noted that she might kill Jun at one point, but right now it looks like she’s trying to save him, despite the hard time he gives her. I think that with this pacing, we can expect Bokurano to be either a 24-episode-series or a 26-episode-series. I’m glad to see that the creators realize this. We’ve got 14-16 episodes left, with eight pilots left. This means that there will be enough time left to give each character enough background without rushing it, and the fact that the creators are turning up the pacing already at this point must mean that they’ve got a rather interesting ending in mind. I can’t wait to find out. ^^; Interestingly enough, this episode also cut back on the animation-budget a bit. Mako looked a bit weird during a few of her shots, and the fight was rather short and meaningless, when compared to the others.]]>

Oh my god… that was such an amazing episode! This time, it focuses on one of the more overlooked characters in this series: Daiichi. And the timing couldn’t have been better. After all the hate and paranoia of the past few arcs, it was SO refreshing to see someone with a personality, entirely opposite of Isao’s. The results turned out amazing. Finally we have a pilot who doesn’t have any grudges at all. He lost his parents at early age, so he’s had to take care of his two sisters and brother for a few years now. He basically spends most of the episode, living his last days with his family, and he asks the others not to try and interfere with him. I can’t believe how mature he was, with the prospect of dying! Seeing all the other children cry as Daiichi tried to take care of the enemy mecha also was too sad. It’s also interesting, with most series where random monsters have to be beaten, their strength keeps increasing. With Bokura no, though, the strength of these mechas remains the same. It’s just their destructive capabilities that increase. That definitely got clear with this episode, when Daiichi has to beat a strange kind of steam-roller. This episode definitely was one of the highlights of an already amazing series, and it should definitely not be missed! Anyway, regarding the plot, the two people from the military sign themselves up, so that each enemy can now be taken care of. We also see Koemushi in another discussion with his mysterious conversation-partner. The dialogue was a bit hard to understand, but it seems he’s pissed off that the military people signed themselves up. Ushiro also gets mentioned, though I don’t really picked up why. By the way, this anime is quite mean towards its male character. Four of them are left now: Moji, Kanji, Yosuki and Yuno.]]>

This episode once again was amazing, even though I can assume that the manga-fans will dislike it. The greatest parts of the episode were the revelations at the end of the episode. Chizuru’s story was toned down from the things I’ve heard about her. I think this was to be expected, though. Gonzo does remain notorious for not keeping to their original source-material. I’ve yet to see one of their adaptations that wasn’t frowned upon by the fans of the originals. But, having not read the Bokura no manga, I don’t care. This show rocks! Chizuru’s downfall may have not been as shocking as Masaru’s, but certain parts of the episode were really touching. I originally thought that the flashback of episode seven happened before the events of episode five, but now it seems that Chizuru found out about her teacher somewhere in-between episodes 5 and 6. She still hates the guy, and in fact she plans to use Zearth to kill the guy. Her sister manages to save the guy, and even then he leaves the show with a bad impression, fleeing away like a little coward while his girlfriend can die any minute now. Chizuru raises some interesting questions, reminiscent of the end of Jigoku Shoujo. If you’re going to die, why not take someone along with you? The only difference here is that Chizuru has ten people around her, who see her do these things. In the end, though, nobody can find a good reason to stop her from nearly killing her teacher. The things that happen afterwards, though, are even better, when Yoko convinces Chizuru to fight the enemy. Especially when she told her that everybody’s going to have to do the same thing, which is quite ironic, see below. The then finishes off the enemy, and turns silent, while holding her hands around her belly. And then the aftermath comes, with a really disturbing revelation. If you look at Zearth’s face, you could see a number of lights on it. When Chizuru died, two of these lights disappeared. In the end, these lights turned out to be the life-energy of the different children. When Chizuru died, the baby she carried also didn’t survive, which caused two of these lights to disappear. But now the strange thing: there are eleven children left, but Zearth’s face only has nine lights left burning. This means that Kana will be surviving this whole drama, since she never enlisted. That, however, leaves another child who will be spared. One child will remain alive, while witnessing all her friends die in front of her eyes. There’s still the problem of Kokopelli, who seems to have mentioned that there will be fifteen enemies. Now that four of them have died, eleven will be left. This problem, however, can be solved, when it seems that the army is willing to offer sacrifices for the last two enemies. But who could the person who will survive be? After looking at some screenshots of the first episode, I think I know. It’s Yoko! Remember, every one of the children enlisted properly, though she refused, and Takashi took her hand and forced her to sign up. I have no idea why, but that seemed not enough for her to become a pilot. Hence the irony when she told Chizuru that every one of them will be piloting Zearth and dying afterwards as well: everyone will, apart from herself. That’s why the OP features her, standing right next to a destroyed city! Obviously, this is 100% speculation, but it makes by far the most sense from all of the children.]]>

Okay, it seems that my theory of two episodes per pilot still holds, it’s just not as static as I thought. This probably was the most focused episode of Bokura no yet, when it focuses on just Chizuru, with a bit of Isao and Yosuki. The rest of the cast never even appeared. I originally believed that Chizuru would be the pilot in this episode, but it’s entirely focused on a flashback of her, explaining her background and making her the most fleshed-out character so far. Chizuru’s case: she wants to do her best in school, but her parents just think that she’d go to the same school as her sister did. She doesn’t really feel appreciated by anyone, and believes that nobody cares about her. Then she meets a teacher (the one she spoke about two episodes ago) who does support her, and the two start to have an affair. The only problem is that Chizuru fell in love with the wrong person, as he’s one of these guys who posts pictures and videos of the two of them doing “it” on a website. Not only that, he also has an affair with her sister at the same time. So far, I liked this episode a lot, but somehow I feel that the juiciest details have been saved for the next episode. It should focus on Chiruzu’s turn to be the pilot, but something tells me that the fight isn’t going to take a massive 20 minutes. And after all, a still of her background is still missing: the reason why she returned to the guy, even though she knew he was hitting on her sister. in episode five, we clearly see her remember her teacher without any feelings of hate, so some things are still about to happen. The question also remains: what will she do once she’s going to pilot Zearth? It’s not like she has a reason to kick the enemy mecha’s ass, like Masaru and Takeshi did. Also, this episode has been the perfect example of lazy animators. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that the same animation-teams from NHK ni Youkoso worked on this anime. I like the way this anime is going, so far, by the way. Apart from Masaru, the pilots chosen so far have been the least interesting ones at first glance. I’m really curious to seeing a bit more of Yosuki, what was in his mind when Isao bullied him. I’d also love to see Aiko and Takami break down when their turn begins, and I’m really looking forward to finding out more about Jun and Kana. In fact, the only meh-character remaining would be Maki. We’ve seen a bit of things from her, but so far she seems like the most normal character around. Finally, I’ve been wondering something… I finally realized in this episode that each new pilot gets a marking. But why didn’t Takashi, Masaru and Kokopelli get this mark? Or was this mark on their bodies, instead of their faces so that we’d never get to see it?]]>