Category: Himitsu ~The Revelation~

Short Synopsis: Maki rushes in to find the hidden pieces of Suzuki’s memory.
Highlights: A bit over-exaggerated, but an incredibly tense ending.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Okay, so this episode loses points for over-exaggerating a bit too much, but thankfully it turned into that over-the-top ending that I’d hoped for. In the end, it didn’t beat RD’s ending, but it really took second place. If it had a bit more subtlety, this episode really could have been incredible, but that field of flowers really was a bit too much. The hypnotism also was unrealistic, and the episode’s end was a bit too theatrical for its own good (why didn’t the MRI explode the way it did when Suzuki shoot it?).

But really, that climax between Aoki and Maki was SO intense that it made up for everything. Now everything really is clear: Kainuma’s final plan wasn’t to just proclaim his love for Maki and go for just the shock factor. He wanted to shock the guy, and then hypnotize him into murdering the entire of Daiku. Because Suzuki saw it, he went berserk instead.

The final bad guy? Daiku’s boss. It turns out that he’s been trading people’s memories for money. Now he’s had enough and wants to close it off by having Daiku kill off each other. He probably sealed Suzuki’s memory of Kainuma, because that’d be the perfect way to time their deaths. Unfortunately, this went wrong because Aoki realized in time that Kainuma was trying to hypnotize them.

Short Synopsis: Someone is trying to get rid of Daiku, and uses some very extreme measures to get his way.
Highlights: Awesome set-up for a finale!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10
Ah, okay. This and the next episode may have different titles, but they turn out to be the two halves of one big arc that is going to be the finale of this series. But really, it’s promising to be an awesome finale, and with this, we can really see the power of the decision for this series to go into a different path than the manga: because of that, the creators could plan exactly what they want to place when and where, and thus they have managed to save the perfect story to close off this series. I’m really excited, seeing how this series is about to avoid the number one mistake made with manga- and novel-adaptations: the fact that the length of the manga and anime don’t match. Seriously, more series should do this, instead of creating an artificial ending that was pasted together in the last minute.

In any case, what happened in this episode: Maki turned out to have a heart-attack, but he managed to restore quite quickly, although a next attack would be fatal to him. In the meantime, someone has put some sort of virus in the main computer of Daiku, causing Kainuma’s face to pop up like it did in the previous episode, which points to the fact that a certain someone who knows about Maki and Kainuma is trying to get rid of Daiku. The main chief is also getting followed by someone.

Maki also discovered that a certain piece of Suzuki’s memory has been erased by someone. It is revealed that Michiru looked up to Onogida and that’s why she ended up joining Daiku. Onogida then DIES afterwards, and Maki is also nearly killed by a mystery attacker! Talk about plot twists!

Oh, to think that the creators had no intention to stop the massacre. It does make sense, though: what better time to attack Daiku when the members are already confused by the death of one of their comrades? But what bugs me the most is that missing piece of memory of Suzuki: that means that he saw something inside of Kainuma’s brains that was even MORE SCREWED UP than kissing his dead victims while scraping off their skin while proclaiming his love for Maki. Bloody hell!?

I’m not sure what exactly it is, but I’m very cynical about this season’s endings. I hardly look forward to any of them, and most of them just seem destined for a straightforward and predictable ending, but for Himitsu I’m willing to make an exception. The finale of this series has so far been downright excellent, and there are no signs at all that this series won’t finish with a huge climax. This is exactly what I look for in a good climax!

Short Synopsis: There is NO WAY I’m going to spoil this episode in front of the blog aggregators. MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW. READ AT OWN RISK!
Highlights: Why did I ever say that this series was bad at characterization?!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10
That was one AWESOME episode. It really fitted for a finale, it packed a punch, and it wasn’t afraid to go for the worst-case scenario. After the previous episode, I really expected the creators to find some way to revive Amachi. Guess what? She actually didn’t make it! She’d goddanmed died!

Basically, what happened is the following: after Amachi saw the extra set of footage that got saved from the victim’s brains, she went to investigate on the research facility of that woman that came to claim the body. That’s the reason why she was captured and her brains taken away from her. It turns out that the woman had a personal vendetta against Daiku, and that’s why she brought back the brain, in order to lure more Daiku members who’d come rushing in to save her.

Which Aoki does, of course. She captures him, but she didn’t take into account that the rest of Daiku would also chase after Aoki, and after that, her practices of human experimentation are brought down quite quickly, so she kills herself and destroys her brains. Amachi, unfortunately, had already died. Her body stayed away from her brains for too long. The thing is that when Aoki got captured, she actually was still alive! The two of them shared a dream, if I recall correctly.

I’m really impressed by how this series turned out. At first, it may seem like a strange idea to just go with anime-original stories, instead of keeping to the manga, but in this way, the creators were able to plan EXACTLY the sufficient airtime for each character, so that each one of them got enough attention. The result is an absolutely awesome cast in the end, even though there were enough times where I lost faith in this series.

And I’m really curious: what the heck did the creators have planned for the final two episodes? The first one will be another aftermath to the Kainuma-case, but what is the second going to be? Ooh, so many possibilities!

Short Synopsis: Two dead bodies are found at a love hotel.
Highlights: SEARCH MY BODY
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,75/10
OMG!

Now THIS is what I’m talking about! THIS is exactly why I like this series so much!

Himitsu’s multi-episode arcs have always known exactly how to use their time, rather than dragging on endlessly, they’re focused and try to tell a story that would be impossible to tell in only one episode. Some focus on complex stories, like the one with the biological weapon, others focused on politics, like the case with the murderous girl who killed her family, and others were downright shocking, like the one about the bald mass murderer that caused Maki to shoot Suzuki.

This arc seems to go for both the shock and the complex story. It starts out simple enough, when two dead bodies are found at a love hotel. It seems that one of them committed suicide, but his girlfriend also turns out to have been pregnant. Then however, a high-placed person of a hospital comes to claim the body. Amachi resists, but fails. Only a few days later, her BRAINS pop up in a container, with the note “SEARCH MY BODY”. I think that this is the first time were any main character had his/her HEAD SLICED OPEN like this…

If I had to guess, then the doctor wanted to prevent Amachi from finding out too much, but that doesn’t explain at all why she left Amachi’s brain right in front of Daiku, nor the “Search my body”-note. Also, what was the significance of those numbers that were written on the babies’ feet, in the memory of the guy who committed suicide?

In any case, this episode was just awesome, as it also provided for a lot of new insights into the characters. The characters in this series are already excellent, and this series is still fleshing them out, which only is a good thing. I really wonder whether Amachi is able to return, because Maki did say that her body may still be alive. Who knows, perhaps in this age, there’s some sort of technique that can separate people from their brains without killing them? Still, we have to wait for that until the next episode, I guess.

There’s also one thing I noticed, while looking at the list of episode titles: the final two episodes of this series are going to be standalone stories! In a way, it’s very much possible for the next episode to contain the dramatic climax for this series, only for it to finish with two shorter stories. I personally LOVE these kinds of endings: they’re so much better and less predictable than the “the bad guy dies”-endings. A lot my favourite endings are actually episodic, rather than those with a continuous storyline. Series as The Third, Night Head Genesis, and in a way Bokura no too, they all finished with an episodic final episode or final two episodes, and their endings have become some of the most memorable endings for me. In a way, it does make sense, because it’s much harder to plan everything right in a final episode if you’re going with a continuous storyline, and it’s very easy to rush things, or just finish things with a predictable blow. Some endings of series that I did love, despite their continuous storylines: Haibane Renmei, Crystal Blaze and Revolutionary Girl Utena.

Short Synopsis: The members of Daiku have a day off when a rather urgent case pops up.
Highlights: Just about everything in this episode!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10
What an awesome episode! Really, I can’t believe that in the end, this series is coming together wonderfully. Seriously, it feels like this series has only just started for real after the biologica-weapon arc. It really feels like the cast’s introduction finished there. The past two episodes have that hard to describe feeling, where you really feel the chemistry between the different characters. If that makes any sense. It’s that very vague point that the characters reach, when they just feel like normal people, instead of two-dimensional ones.

I must really say that the creators have a very interesting way of fleshing out their characters. It’s very strange, I first labelled it as bad characterization, but as it turns out, this series has shown us many sides of the Daiku team. This episode fleshed them out even more, by showing how the Daiku members are on their days off. You really see different sides of them, than when you compare them in their business suits.

And the new character who kept bugging to join Daiku was hilarious, especially after the way he got pwned by Maki like that. But then again, just about every scene in this episode stood out in some way. From the light-hearted moments, to the amusement-park bombing that turned out to be just a simple fireworks show. I’m probably just rambling here (which usually happens when I run into a series I really, really like), and this episode definitely isn’t the easiest to explain why it’s so awesome. I think that it’s one of these episodes that has the x-factor.

I’m really curious: are there still people apart from myself that are watching this series? It really feels like everyone seems to have given up on it, either after the first episode with its gay undertones, or after the subs stalled. It’s a real shame: out of all the episodes the creators could have chosen, they stopped right before the best episode of the entire series.

Also, it’s strange, but I’m starting to really like Madhouse’s sense of visuals, especially in this series, even though the graphics budget is incredibly small. It’s the way that the creators use their filters and lighting-effects, along with the down-to-earth character-designs (no girls with hair in rainbow-colours = win). A great example is the gorgeous shot with the fireworks.

Overall, there were often times where I lost faith in this series, but now that it’s finally coming together, I’m confident that after Kaiba, Himitsu is my favourite series of the past spring-season.

Short Synopsis: A previously unmentioned Daiku-member is found dead.
Highlights: Finally the cast in this series feels complete!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Oh boy, they should have done this episode much sooner. It’s strange, but it finally feels that the cast has been introduced, and that with only three more episodes to go! With this episode, we learned a bit more about the final member who always remained in the shadows a bit (the red-haired woman whose name I forgot), and strangely enough, the cast also felt very complete with this episode. Screw the statement that this series isn’t good at characterizations. Sure, the characters don’t develop nearly as much as with other series, but at least with this episode, they’re fleshed out well.

I can’t believe that it took me this long to notice, but even though this is an incredibly inconsistent series, there have been two major themes throughout the episode: the first is the obvious Suzuki-storyline, and the second is a theme that you hardly get to see in anime in this form: the relationship with your wife that actually isn’t overblown. It’s one very realistic aspect in this series: each member of Daiku has his or her own love-life that doesn’t have anything to do with their job (apart from Aoki and Maki, perhaps. Ironically, still single).

But this episode did convince me: a second season for this series would rock, and the creators still have so much more to play with. Unfortunately, this is Madhouse we’re talking about. They nearly always go for new premises, instead of continuing old ones. And in a way, in the long run I like this approach better. Okay, it does leave a number of unfinished stories that way, but the other extreme is just as bad: just continue to make series of premises that already exist and which you know will rake in cash (like what Sunrise is doing right now, or even more blatantly, those recently introduced Haruhi spin-offs). The gaming-industry is currently showing what happens when such a mentality gets taken to the extreme: only sequels and hardly anything original. In the end, I do prefer the variety, so I can understand it if Madhouse would just end this series with a bang and then move on to other fresh premises.

Short Synopsis: Aoki tries to catch the culprit of this arc’s crime red-handed.
Highlights: A solid conclusion.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
This arc really took its time to tell its story, and it worked out pretty well. The thing I liked about this arc wasn’t the characterizations or the intensity that some of the other arcs of Himitsu showed, but rather the complexity of its storyline. The previous episodes showed lots of question-marks, and this episode answered them very nicely, even though I had trouble as usual, trying to understand those elaborate dialogues. ^^;

So in the end, it was indeed the bald guy with the hat. The first incident on the train wasn’t because of him, but a girl he really liked was assaulted by a knife. When he tried to stop it, the girl got stabbed, and a bottle that contained the disease got slashed open, spreading the disease through the various people on the train. The following murderers were him, trying to erase the evidence. I didn’t like it when the characters started talking Chinese, though. It was already hard enough for me to grasp what that dialogue was about without some Japanized Chinese translated in Kanji…

I also liked how this episode addressed the sardine-can syndrome of the Japanese trains and subways. They are notorious for how nobody ever seems to talk there, and when such a major incident happens as someone getting threatened with a knife or something, most of them try to ignore it, instead of trying to do something to resolve it.

Then there’s that idiot Aoki. As it turns out, he never kissed and got himself infected, but he just made his fingernails look like they were infected. He did jump right in front of a train in order to save the culprit, though, in a desperate attempt to save Miyoshi from her disease. In the end, there was a romantic tension between the two, but Aoki reminded Miyoshi too much of Suzuki. That doesn’t really work when he wants to get a relation with her to make her forget about the guy.

I think I also finally get why this series feels weird at times, and I can’t seem to fully enjoy it like I did when it first started. I first thought that it was because of bad characterization, but that’s not quite right: even in the first half, this show has seen some great cases. The thing with this series is that it’s incredibly inconsistent: one episode focuses at characterization, while the next focuses on mystery, then the next one is all about horror, then there’s one that aims to disturb, then there’s a thought-provoking one, et cetera. The things that made a previous episode great aren’t the focus of the following. The best example of it is episode eight: possibly the best episode of the entire series because it was so bloody disturbing, but it also caused me to expect the same of the rest of the series.

In other words: this series is incredibly unpredictable: you’ll never know what an episode will be about. It’s both so in the good ways and the bad ways. On one hand, those bloody expectations don’t always cooperate you expect tension but instead get a fairly quiet episode that aims to be more thought-provoking, et cetera. On the other hand, it does show great writing to be so incredibly versatile with this series. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, that’ll probably cause Himitsu to never really make it to my favourites, but it’s a great series nonetheless.

Short Synopsis: Whoa! The train-massacre-arc is going to take up three episodes!
Highlights: Talk about a change in plot-direction.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Ah, so that’s what it was! The previous episode was supposed to be a huge question mark, only for this episode to shed light on what happened back there. The big twist: this arc is dealing with bio-terrorism: all the passengers in the train were somehow infected with a disease that first shows up on your fingernails. THAT’s why the killer looked at the fingernails of his victims, and THAT’s why the same symptoms showed up at Miyoshi: she’d been sleeping alongside these dead bodies (no, really) and carelessly caught the disease.

And I also knew something was fishy: Miyoshi and Suzuki used to date together, and Maki killed Miyoshi’s lover. There seems to be more than that, though. This episode did show a time where both of them were having a fight. And that Aoki: in this episode he actually tried to hit on (and kiss) her. That idiot caught the disease that way as well. I didn’t quite catch why he did such a thing, but we’ll probably learn that in the next episode.

I remember once noting that this series wasn’t good at characterizations. And yet I was shocked when Aoki revealed his fingernails. And at the same time, Aoki sure changed a lot in this episode, and became much more mature. I feel like this arc was really meant to show how his experiences with the MRI have influenced him, and he’s much more confident now than he was in the first half of this series. I think the first sign of this we saw was in the “don’t reach for that neck”-episode, where he just cut off the head of the dead guy.

I originally thought that it would be best for this series to keep to short arcs, and yet at the same time this is the longest arc of this series yet and it’s looking very promising. I’m really interested to how the creators plan to end this series, and this episode showed me that the best way to end was with a long arc, like this one. This is no Jigoku Shoujo, and for most of the time, it really needs its time to build up, it seems. The surprises worked great in the first half when the concept was still fresh (as shown by episode eight which STILL NEEDS TO GET SUBBED), but when talking about the second half, by far the best stories have been those that had two episodes.

Let’s see whether the next episode can surpass episode thirteen.

Short Synopsis: This case is divided over two episodes, and it’s about a serial murderer who has been killing people near train tracks.
Highlights: A new interesting character from Maki’s past.
Overall Enjoyment Value:8/10
Hmm, let’s see what this two-episode arc can deliver for this series. It’s been a strange episode so far, and I’m having a bit of trouble understanding it. At first sight, it seems like a simple case: a guy kills someone on the train and then kills all eye-witnesses. But then the episode pulls out all sorts of weird stuff like the culprit looking at fingernails and an old acquaintance of Maki. Seriously, this episode kept changing focus: you first thing it’s about a high school getting murdered, then it’s about Aoki’s wedding, then it’s about the serial murderer, then the stabbing on the train… Plus… there were much more people on that train who watched it, and the killer suddenly disappears and a bald young man with a hat shows up.

This episode was surprisingly more complex than it appeared at first… if I understood correctly, Miyoshi (Maki’s old friend) is the head of the autopsy department and she often sleeps right next to the corpses. Somehow, her fingers are related to the case… At one point, she also mistook Aoki for the real culprit of the case, but why would she think that the culprit would visit her at the police, of all places? Does that mean that she’s related to the case or something?

Especially the last of the episode has me puzzled… her fingers seem to be the same as the ones, seen from the brains of one of the victims, but what would that have to do with anything? Then at the same time, the guy who committed the first murder shows up dead in a train cabin, having killed himself.

Argh, I need to watch that next episode in order to get what the heck is going on here… my money right now is on the bald guy with the hat being the culprit, but don’t ask me why.