Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

xxxHolic – 09 – Pipe Fox

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic



A woman who has a bad habit, her little finger has been stiff, and smoke has been coming out of it. Seems familiar, no? Still, xxxHolic manages to turn it into something worthwile once more. The main theme of the episode is “pinky”, as all of the rituals and symbols introduced have got something to do with the little finger. The red strings of destiny, the “Pinky Swear”, the Pipe Fox who imitated a red string of destiny and the amusement park attraction which involved a guillotine which would attempt to cut two lovers’ embraced pinkys, but missed (sorry if this sounds a bit vague).

The woman in this episode does tell lies, though her real bad habit is running after too many men at the same time, fakely promising them eternal happiness and “manipulating the red strings of destiny”, as Yuuko tells us at the end of the episode. It’s good that the episode only focused on three of these men, instead of trying to show too many at the same time, so the show can focus on the three individuals.

Domeki and Watanuki are also getting more interesting as every episode passes. On the surface, Watanuki dislikes Domeki, and Domeki finds Watanuki weird. But still, the two of them end up taking the same route homewards. Domeki doesn’t turn his mind on something else when Watanuki suddenly runs off, and Watanuki isn’t scared to tell Domeki about things that happened. Oh, and the little dance that the Pipe Fox made Watanuki perform in front of Domeki was hilarious.

Despite all of the themes introduced in the series, I have one small problem with these. Or rather annoyance. As this show is takes place in Japan and is focused at a Japanese audience. This means that only Japanese customs are being dealt with. I’d love to see some habits and symbols from other countries pass the spotlights. There definately is enough material for it. But then again, this show has specialized like no other on the area of spirituality, so it’s also nice to see such an in-depth explanation of them.

Another little detail I loved: Mokona actually drinking almost half a bottle of liquor. Who ever said that cute and fluffy animals couldn’t enjoy themselves? ^^ I’m also wondering about the price that the woman was supposed to give Yuuko. And what was the meaning of the ring? These parts were a bit neglected, unfortunately, though I loved the way the climax was executed. Nothing was said at all, but you knew that if the knife was to go down, it would be hitting, and cutting their fingers off. Overall, I liked this episode. It’s not the best xxxHolic had to show, but I had a really good time watching it.

Ergo Proxy – 10 – Raoul vs Daedalus, yay!

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy



Ergo Proxy returns, and it returns with another great episode. No Vincent and Pino this time, but the story focuses mostly on two side-characters: Raoul and Daedalus, along with a little bit of Real. (Yes, my way of spelling these names keeps changing. I like Ril and Dedars more than Real and Deadalus, but it seems that we’re dealing with a couple of official names here).

Even though the episode wasn’t as action-packed as the previous one, I still loved it. Especially Deadalus was great. The episode starts with Raoul and Kristeva (his autorave) checking up on him. Ever since that accident from episode seven, Real has been viewed as dead and he’s been labeled as the murderer. He’s been stripped from all his authority and just remains in his apartment doing nothing. Raoul also mentions that he’s finally gotten over Tasha’s death. It’s here where my memory left me a bit. Tasha either is one of the people who was killed while Monad Proxy chased Vincent in the second episode, or she is a yet to be introduced character who now is dead.

Raoul mentions the fact that Daedalus has lost his Raison d’Être, or reason to live. A term which will be showing up more in this episode and probably make a few more comebacks during the rest of the entire anime. Daedalus threw away both Real and Proxy, which were the only things he lived for. Then we get to see the scene we’ve been suspecting ever since Real got killed: Real being alive. It couldn’t have been avoided. I mean, she’s the main characters. Main characters only die at the last episode. Anyway, I’m glad that the creators realize this and just show the scene immediately.

Raoul then pays a visit to the city-council. It seems that Monad Proxy was some kind of important energy source for Romdeau. Now that she’s gone (I’m calling Monad a she because of one of my theories about something that happened later in the episode, look below), the city might face danger. Not only that, but Raoul is also blamed on this by the council. Something that doesn’t make him very happy, as he later punches his reflection in a mirror to pieces (the mirror, I mean). He also brings up a famous quote from Descartes, which fits the scene perfectly (“I think, therefore I am”, though he lets out the last word).

Later, when he leaves the council’s tower in an elevator along with Kristeva, The two of them talk a bit, Kristeva mentions Raoul’s wound as a result of his fight with the mirror, and suddenly, the power falls out, locking the two of them up inside the elevator. Later, when he’s leading a team to discover the meaning behind this power outage, he discovers something interesting. The power outage took 2 minutes and 17 seconds, which is indeed Daedalus’ trademark. Raoul’s been talking about this before, though I never knew what it was. But apparently, they were referring to Daedalus. Before the long power outage, there also a large number of small outages. Most of them took just a few seconds. It seems that Daedalus had been using these outages as testings, and he clearly used the last one as something to get attention. In any case, Raoul decides to go and pay Daedalus a visit.

Daedalus, starts by pulling up an act, but then again Raoul does as well. Raoul wants Daedalus to check up on the wound he got, while Daedalus keeps telling him that he doesn’t examine anymore. Though Daedalus does reveal something interesting: his life indeed was devoted to taking care of Real. This has been suggested before, though it has never been directly comfirmed like this. Though why was Real so important?

In any case, Raoul and Daedalus find themselves a spot to talk, at which they won’t be overheard, and their conversation turns less cryptic by the minute. Still, it remains cryptic. The thing Raoul was after (Daedalus’ research) is gone, hidden somewhere. Raoul then reveals that he knows that Daedalus used Monad in order to hide the existance of Ergo by forcing all of the council’s attention on the former. He also reveals that he knows that Real is alive somewhere. Daedalus wanted to use Real in order to lure out Ergo, but at the last minute, he got his doubts, as this would obviously mean Real not surviving it. Because of this, he seemed to have sent Raoul the cryptical message. I don’t understand the reasoning behind this, though I think that Raoul thinks that Daedalus planned to ask him to team up with him.

Still, Daedalus denies. He doesn’t want to partner up with the one who tried to kill him. Then, Raoul reveals another interesting fact. It wasn’t him who sent the autoraves to kill Real, it was the Council. The major is even wiling to kill his own granddaughter who indeed committed a crime, in order to keep up the law of Romdeau. Then things really get interesting when Raoul reveals that he knows that the power outage had another purpose. Daedalus replies that he was trying to resurrect Monad (after all, by causing a power outage, you can use a tremendous amount of energy). Raoul then offers to let Daedalus work for him again, in order to resurrect Monad. Daedalus hasn’t got much of a choice, so he agrees.

When everything is settled, Raoul really is in a good mood. He’s apparently hiding what he’s doing from the council. He also tries to burn some fear into Daedalus by intimidating him. At first sight this works. But then, when Raoul left, Daedalus has a very interesting monologue. He talks to the dead body of Monad as if it was Real. Raoul also has no idea what his real goals are, and Daedalus really gets exited. This is where I got an interesting theory. Real, of course, couldn’t be Monad Proxy. But what if the two are linked somehow? What if she originally was Monad Proxy, but the two split apart at some certain time and space. Remember Senekis? We also saw a weirdly behaving woman, locked up inside that fort. Then the infected autoraves from Kazkiz came, and freed her. Then this woman died at about the same time as Senekis. What if the two of them were linked in the same way that Real and Monad are? In any case, Real is someone special. Otherwise, Daedalus wouldn’t have devoted his life to her and Monad.

Real, meanwhile, has an interesting experience. It doesn’t really contribute to the plot, but it introduces some very interesting phylosophical questions. She ends up in a town, abandoned by people, but with robots seemingly left behing, doing their ordinary work as if there actually were some people around. For what purpose do these machines work? I mean, there aren’t any people left, so it would seem that they are obsolete. She also has a dream about a younger version of herself, who tries to warn her, I guess. Ergo Proxy indeed is cruel. And yes, Real is indeed chasing something extremely dangerous. But still, she believes that Vincent holds the truth. The episode ends with the strangest cliffhanger ever. Something you indeed did not see coming, let alone understand. Real and Iggy leave the humanless city. The robots perform their work as usual, until one of them break from its routine and walks off.

xxxHolic – 08 – Getting Better and Better

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic



It’s just as I hoped: xxxHolic continues to get better and better. I guess I’m really into shows which tell a different story for each episode, as I just totally loved Mushishi and Jigoku Shoujo as well. Okay, there are no such things as cliffhangers, the endings of the episode don’t make you feel curious about what is going to happen afterwards. But still, I find myself wondering about the next story to be told at each of these anime I mentioned. This works just as strong as cliffhangers, maybe even stronger. Especially if you consider that a cliffhanger’s power mostly lies in the moment it happens. The minute the story continues takes its power away again, in most cases. When you have shows like xxxHolic, Mushishi and Jigoku Shoujo, this power doesn’t get taken away at all.

This episode probably was the best xxxHolic episode yet. It already starts with great references, both to Tsubasa Chronicle and the xxxHolic movie. Watanuki is bringing all of Yuuko’s stuff outside, in order to thoroughly clean them, just like in the movie. He encounters Mokona again, this time not in a box, but disguised as a stranded pillow. Maru and Moro are meanwhile hitting a rug, stitched with a couple of butterflies. Maru uses a bat (if I do recall it correctly, it’s the same bad as the one Yuuko bought in the sixth episode, after which she labeled it as a sword), while Moro uses Fye’s staff. To make things even better, The butterflies on the rug seem to be avoiding the bat and the staff. This truly was one greatly excecuted scene. So many things happen at once and Watanuki’s reaction was just perfect.

Then, the real story of the episode begins. It’s about a woman who’s collecting all kinds of rare and ancient stuff. She then notices a closed, cillindric, ceramic box-like thingy, and she asks Yuuko if she can have it. Yuuko warns her not to open it at all costs, and she gets pretty serious when she does this. The woman eventually gets to have the box, though I wonder what she had to give Yuuko in order to get it. I think that Yuuko’s advice was enough of a price, as the rest of the episode shows.

The woman appears to be a new teacher on Watanuki’s school. This means that Domeki and Himawari also are a bit involved in the case. The woman immediately recognizes Watanuki when she sees him, along with Domeki and Himawari. Then, Himawari accidentally opens the box, and a sealed monkey-pawn shows up. The woman tests this out by asking for a day of rain. She hears a loud “knack”, and the rain starts. The next morning, it appears that in order to make it rain, the monkey pawn took all of the water from the school pool.

What follows is a beautiful story about the woman who begins to lose herself more and more. She first wishes for a mirror she wanted to have for a long time. This mirror is probably the most valuable mirror in whole Japan, so once she wishes for it, the monkey pawn goes to steal it for her and brings it to her. She then notices that every time she makes a wish, one finger of the pawn breaks. She makes her next wish when she’s in a writer’s block, and wishes for a great paper for her to turn in. Of course, the pawn steals this from another brilliant student. In the meantime, she happily tells Watanuki, Domeki and Himawari about what she did, and doesn’t even realize she’s going into the wrong direction. Watanuki gets more concerned by the minute, as well as Domeki, although he shows less signs of it. Himawari doesn’t notice anything, while Yuuko remains as serious as she was when she handed the pawn to the woman.

Then, she misses her train, and just like all ordinary people, she wishes for an accident to happen. She really breaks when she sees a person getting ran over by a train, right in front of her eyes. To top this, she gets to pay the price of plagiarizing, and this makes her think that she’ll also be accused of the person being ran over, and she begs the pawn to undo all the things she did. Then, it strangles her, leaving no trace of her, it returns everything like it was before, and so it comes back to Yuuko. I so loved this story. Especially when she saw the person being ran over. Even though it was just a colorless figure, it did make an impact.

I’m also beginning to love the art more and more. Okay, so what if the long limbs aren’t natural. You never hear anyone talk like that about chibi-characters, do you? The facts that the art is messy and illogical are really starting to grow on me, and I’m really beginning to like the character designs more and more. Even normally dull-looking characters like Watanuki and Domeki look more interesting by the minute, and Himawari looks less annoying after every episode passes. And yes indeed, the “extras” aren’t even bothered to being colored, or given a face in the first place. Still, it’s better than method that most anime attempt: every “extra” has the blandest clothing, the most common face ever, and an extremely dull haircut, while the main characters suddenly have hair in the wildest colors, in huge amounts, and each have something unique. Though they still try to simulate some realism while trying to be as natural as possible while spending as little budget on it as possible. xxxHolic at least recognizes that the anime isn’t about these unimportant extras, and just gives them a quick outline and places a number of these on the scenery, in order to fill the screen a bit. In fact, this works so much better than those cheap attempts at realism.

Jigoku Shoujo Review – 92/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Jigoku Shoujo



The concept: somewhere on the net, there exists a website. When you access that website, you can enter the name of a person you want to take revenge on. This person then gets sent to hell immediately. There is a catch, however. When you die, you also get sent to hell. Your soul will never find peace, and it’ll burn forever. In some anime, concepts like these never work. Jigoku Shoujo, however, somehow manages to turn this into something awesome.

Each episode is a standalone episode, except for the latter ones. In each of these, a person wants revenge on another person, and struggles whether it’s worth it or not. While some of the cases may look like each other, the majority of these cases manage to produce a unique standalone story, with beautiful characters, beautiful motives and furthermore great storytelling. I especially liked episode 7, 16, 22 and 23.

The characters are amazing. Each of the main characters has a unique personality, a good background (in most cases great) and really adds to the story. There were no annoying main characters at all. The characters who only appeared for one episode, even though there were a lot of them, all had something different from each other, and each of them had some kind of background. At the end of each episode, we could really enter the mind of these characters.

The art looks amazing. Especially the character art is among the most crisp ever seen in anime. The music also has turned into a masterpiece. The storytelling also couldn’t have been done better.

Overall, Jigoku Shoujo is an amazing anime. I’ll definately recommend it to anyone. Although, I have to say that there were a number of episodes which didn’t really seem too impressive. Apart from that, I have no complaints about this series.

Final Rating: 92/100

Jigoku Shoujo – 26 – Ending

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



And it’s over! The ending definately was interesting. It doesn’t belong to the collection of amazing endings, though I did enjoy it. A lot.

Especially the first half of the episode is worthwile. I’ll say it again: WARNING: HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD!

The spider! The spider was behind all this. He forced her to become Jigoku Shoujo, in order to repent for her sins. Anyway, Ai isn’t satisfied, as Hajime, who indeed is a descendant of Sentarou, hasn’t been sent to hell yet. She then uses Tsugumi, she gives her the black doll with the string, she shows her the accident at which her mother died and tries to make her paranoid. Tsugumi actually believes this.

Then the infamous scene occurs, at which Tsugumi’s saved by Hajime who enters just at the right time, but let’s ignore that, shall we? Hajime then finally begins to break down, and Tsugumi comforts him. A bit overdramatic, but it works. Tsugumi was too cute at this once more. Ai sees this, and she decides to cease hostilities. She takes a moment to destroy Sentarou’s temple, and she leaves, along with her dolls, in order to just play Jigoku Shoujo again. Like I said, it was nothing special, but I definately enjoyed this ending.

This also gives a lot of room for the second season of Jigoku Shoujo, which has been announced. There are a lot of unanswered questions left, like who the hell was the spider? What is the meaning of the candles, which get shown at the end of each episode? Where did the grandmother come from? And does Hell-boy make another appearance? I wonder whether Tsugumi and Hajime will continue to try and stop Ai. The tension concerning the three of them certainly has died, so there has to be something else to take their place, while the two of them get to play another part. In any case, I’ll definately be looking forward to the next season. Does anyone have an idea when it starts to air? The concept just so totally rocks.

Jigoku Shoujo – 25 – Amazing Flashback

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



Like expected, this episode deals with Ai’s past. And holy god, it’s even better than the previous episode made it seem like. We start with the aftermath of the previous episode. (WARNING: HUGE SPOILERS COMING UP)

Ai goes berserk, and manages to hit Hajime and Tsugumi. The dolls try to stop her, but they fail. A huge lightning strike follows, demolishing a nearby tree, and sending Ai on the way to hell. She exits with saying that she doesn’t care about herself again. Hajime and Tsugumi, meanwhile, fall into a spring, and they enter Ai’s past. They get to see a vision of what turned Ai into Jigoku Shoujo.

Could it have been done better? I really don’t think so. Emna Ai really has the most awesome backgrounds ever, along with Ginko and Alice. For starters: Ai was being viewed as a monster back in her childhood-days. These ideas were based on total nonsense, but when an idea slips in, it isn’t possible to get it out of the villagers. Her only friend is Sentarou, and the two of them played together a lot. Sentarou protected Ai as much as he can, though he often loses his temper when she gets called names. Sentarou’s father also is a special person. He’s incredibly weak, so he can’t go and do work on farms. He volunteers to make straw slippers for the villagers in order to repay them. He also encourages Sentarou to play with Ai.

Then, Ai gets the message that she has to be the next victim in the ritual of Sending Seven, in order to appease the mountain god. Sentarou suspects that the villagers chose her on purpose, in order to get rid of her, which might actually come very close to the truth. They however, rely on their stubbornness and authority to ignore these facts. Sentarou gets even agrier when he hears this.

At the day of the Sending Seven, Ai’s parents come to Sentarou and beg him to help her. During the ritual, they hide her inside some kind of temple, and try to make the villagers think that she actually died. An interesting note: when Ai was picked up from her house, the ones who came to take her only thought about themselves, and acted impatiently. This shows that they really wanted her gone.

Anyway, the plan works, and for six years, Sentarou hides Ai in a well disguised place. He heads for her every night, and the two grow up together, and they begin to feel more and more for each other. Until one night, at which the villagers discover him, and the true awesomeness starts.

In these six years, the village has been dying. Harvests have been bad, and everyone’s complaining. When everyone finds out what happened, they immediately blame the cursed Ai for bringing misfortune to the village. Everyone demands the mistake to be corrected, by killing Ai once more. All they use are incredibly selfish arguments. Sentarou tries to do something, but none other than his father is the one who stops him from doing so. Ai gets chased and beaten down by the villagers, including them trying to drown her.

Later, both Ai as her parents have to be burried. They’re blindfolded, and all three of them get hit by a plough. When the villagers think they’re all dead, the bodies get thrown into a pit. Ai, however, remained alive, and she wakes up and sees hears Sentarou. Sentarou, however, is put under such enormous pressure, that he gets forced to be the one to burry her. Ai sees this, an then (while covered in blood by the way, an incredibly sad sight) she gets filled with hatred as the villagers finish filling the hole in which she lies with earth. Talk about horrifying scenes!

Anyway, a couple of years later, Ai arises from the earth, goes berserk and sets the village on fire. Sentarou sees this, and he flees. Tsugumi and Hajime wake up. Tsugumi doesn’t understand why Sentarou acted the way he did. Hajime, however, does. Does this have something to do with his former relationship? Anyway, as Hajime and Tsugumi didn’t get sent to hell, Ai hasn’t been finished either. We end the episode with her opening her eyes again, in a boat leading to hell.

Still, what role does the grandmother have? She hasn’t been shown at all during these flashback scenes. How did the dolls end up in hell in the first place? All questions, waiting to be answered in the last episode. The flashback was just amazing. This also explains what happened in the previous episode a bit better. Ai somehow seemed to have forgotten why she became Jigoku Shoujo in the first place, and thought that Hajime and Tsugumi could help her to understand this, and tell her what happened to Sentarou. The both of them are probably related to Sentarou in some way. The question remains: how?

xxxHolic – 07 – Getting saved by people you hate

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic



The element I like most about xxxHolic definately is the deepness of all the different messages featured in the episodes. This episode probably was the deepest yet. The show really is getting better and better. Today’s episode starts off pretty lenient, but it really gets more serious by the minute.

Rain is falling during the entire episode. We start off with Watanuki walking outside, carrying an umbrella and complaining about the rain. He then gets punished by a very talkative and easy ticked-off red haired girl, the same we saw in the OP. She appears to be a rain-sprite, and needs Watanuki’s help for something.

This girl is very amusing. Especially her look when, back at Yuuko’s, she gets to see a special performance by Maru, Moro and Mokona. Then Yuuko talks to her, immediately annoying Watanuki by defining him as her “property”. It appears that this girl wants someone saved. According to Yuuko, Domeki plays a key-role in solving this, so Watanuki goes to pick him up, against his will, of course.

The rain sprite then sees that the combination of Domeki and Watanuki could be the key to helping her special person. But first, they head to Himawari in order to borrow something that she’s wearing. Watanuki really freaks out during this scene. Anyway, the two of them manage to get Himawari’s ribbons.

The problem lies with an hydrangea-flower. It’s grown to be huge, its flowers have turned red, and Watanuki can clearly feel that there are evil spirits roaming inside this thing. We see a couple of minutes of Watanuki and Domeki investigating, until Watanuki gets caught inside the flower.

Inside the flower, everything’s pure black. Here, Watanuki meets up with a crying girl. She wants to go somewhere, but she’s afraid to do it alone. Then we meet the fatherly side of Watanuki, as he tries his best to cheer up the girl. She accompanies him through the darkness, until a they reach a point which looks like some kind of entrance to some dark and gloomy place. The girl wants to go in, but Watanuki gets his doubts.

Then we see a very interesting way of dialogue. Beams of light appear, and each of them represents one (japanese) letter. I really liked this, and it gives the overall atmosphere a really nice dark undertone. We then see a number of raindrops appear, along with Himawari’s ribbon. Watanuki then uses the ribbon he carried with him, and he gets out, after comforting the girl once more, in a really fatherly way.

He wakes up under the hydrangea from before, now with blue flowers. He holds hands with the girl, though she seemed to have been dead from the beginning, and then he sees a very pissed-off Domeki. And this is where the great part of the episode begins. It was really nice to see Watanuki this calm, though it was definately nothing special. Just another case which had been solved.

Though then it appears that Domeki had been standing in the rain for a massive TEN hours, waiting for him. Yuuko explains what happened afterwards, when both of them have taken a shower. His wound from the time with the Angel-san has also gotten a lot worse, though Domeki isn’t the one who’ll mention it. That means that Watanuki owes him big time for saving him. (after all, Domeki used Himawari’s ribbon in order to get Watanuki out). This brings up so many interesting issues. It’s definately clear that Watanuki hates Domeki. The two of them make a nice team, but that fact remains.

But what happens when Watanuki suddenly finds out that Domeki’s willing to go through such lengths, in order to save him? Would he have done the same thing? Especially if you consider the wound. And what if you also consider the fact that that little girl was actually heading for the netherworld for people who tortured and killed others and persons who commited suicide? This means that she was actually leading Watanuki to his own suicide if Domeki hadn’t shown up. And what about the precious item Domeki had to give Yuuko in order for her to give the information on how to save Watanuki?

The rain sprite also was interesting. It appears that she didn’t want to save the girl in the first place. She wanted to protect the hydrangea. She doesn’t care about humans at all, though the hydrangea seemed to be an elemental spirit, corrupted by the deeds of the little girl, whom it actually tried to save (the beams of light from before belonged to the hydrangea, it seems). She ends with an interesting statement: humans don’t save elemental spirits, then why should elemental spirits save humans?

I liked the use of umbrellas, this episode. Each of the characters had one fitting their style of clothing. The rain sprite had one to match her dress, Watanuki’s umbrella was an ordinary blue one, and Domeki had one in the style of feudal Japan. I also loved Domeki’s methods to ignore Watanuki whenever he got into one of his hyperactive moods (which happened a lot this episode).

xxxHolic – 06 – Addictions, and how to lose them

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic



Okay, no in-depth for this entry, as I have to leave in a minute (mothers day, and all). For the first time, we see a case in which Yuuko is the one in the spotlights, and Watanuki acts as a viewer. There’s no Domeki or Himawari in this episode, thought the case makes totally up for this. We have a case that might appeal to a LOT of different people: a woman, who’s addicted to the internet wants to quit. It was really scary seeing her struggle with herself, Yuuko also helped in this.

I also love the open ending in this episode, not to mention the red baseball-bat which got turned into a sword by Yuuko. It was basically a pretty predictable episode, but the little details totally managed to save it. The warp-tunnel was great again, just as Yuuko’s ethical monologue.

Jigoku Shoujo – 24 – Scary, scary, scary!

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



No case this time. In fact, I think that the nurse from the last episode was the last person to be carried to hell. The last three episodes will probably solve Emna Ai’s problems, and this episode gives a really awesome start. And then to think that we’ve got two episodes left!

This episode basically consists out of two parts. In the first part, Ai invites Tsugumi to the place everything began. She and Hajime take about three quarters of the episode reaching that place, while at the same time they get to know what really went on in Ai’s past, and how exactly she became Jigoku Shoujo. Everything seems to be the fault of a boy named Sentaro, and a ritual named Sending Seven. Our two protagonists stop at a local inn. During the evening, when Tsugumi pays a visit to the local hot springs, Ai suddenly shows up. That really was a scary experience, especially if you combine this with the look Tsugumi had during this visit.

We also see the reason why Ai contacted Tsugumi in the first place: in order to discover what happened to Sentaro, and why she became Jigoku Shoujo. Apparently, she didn’t know this as well. She finds the answer, though. And it’s horrifying. The Sending Seven involved offering a girl at the age of seven, to the gods in order to please them. Ai was this girl. In order to be sacrificed, she needed to be burried alive. She got burried by Sentaro. When Ai finds this out, for the first time in the entire series, she loses her temper.

During the second part of the episode, Hajime and Tsugumi arrive at the place with the Sakura-tree, only to be confronted by an extremely scary-looking Emna Ai. Seriously, when she’s gloomy over the entire series, when she never smiles, or shows any kind of emotion, and then to see her angry like that, truly was SCARY. She didn’t even need to pull the Higurashi-emo-face in order to achieve this.

Her dolls manage to find out in just in time, and manage to temporarily save Hajime and Tsugumi from being sent to hell themselves. At that time, we also find out that Ai’ll be sent to hell herself if she uses her power for her own, personal gain. She then again comes with the statement that she doesn’t care about herself (*shudders*), and she finally manages to avoid her dolls and hit our duo. What happens afterwards? We need the next episode in order to know that.

This episode surely had some incredibly awesome parts. Especially seeing Ai angry for the first time was just absolutely terrific, not to mention if you combine it with her absolute opposite of egoistic type of character. My guess is that the two of Hajime and Tsugumi are the only descendants left of Sentaro, which makes me wonder about Hajime’s parents. Nothing is mentioned about them in the previous episodes, is there? And what is the role of the grandmother?

Ah well, two episodes left. The ending promises to be awesome. It’s just too bad of the irregular releases of the show. Then again, irregular releases have a good point and a bad point. The bad point is that you have to wait so damned long before another episode gets released. The good point is, however, that whenever it’s released, the episode suddenly becomes uttenly incredible. This episode certainly was no exception to this.

Ergo Proxy – 09 – Finally some answers

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy



This episode answered a lot of questions about the show. And suddenly, everything begins to make sense. Warning: major spoiler coming up. Do not read the rest of this entry if you haven’t seen episode nine yet.

Anyway, the reason we don’t see the dude which appeared at the end of the episode, is simple. He only was meant for these two particular episodes. It seems that he’s saved Vincent, and took him to his home: a tower in the middle of a green, Romdeau-like city called Asura. Apparently, this dude is named Kazkiz Hauer, and he was the one controlling the autoraves from last episode. He also was the one who sent Senekis Proxy to wipe out all of the residents of Haroth (the place from episode 8). Why? Because they lived for no purpose. They had to be wiped out, and someone had to do it. At least, those are Kazkiz’ reasons. I hated him already at this point.

By the way… how the heck to you spell Senekis… or is it Senex? The same with Ril… eh.. Lil… Real… Leal… Riru? There are about a dozen different ways to spell both of their names, though which is the right one? (Raul? Raoul?)

Kazkiz then confirms that he loved Senekis, and he claims that Vincent killed her. Then we indeed get the confirmation the previous episode had been hinting at: Vincent is indeed a Proxy, though he doesn’t know it. Kazkiz gets a bit angry when he finds out about Vincent’s ignorance. He then reveals that he’s used his robots to wipe out the entire population of Asura and Haroth, and that he’s in fact a Proxy himself: Kazkiz Proxy.

It then appears that Vincent actually loved Monad Proxy, though he killed him anyway. This would explain his actions in the first couple of episodes a bit. He also gave him a part of his memories, which explains his anmesia about everything. Anyway, Monad Proxy smacks Vincent, whose eyes begin to act like a couple of flashlights, and begins to transform. No offence, but that transformation scene was horrible. Afterwards, however the show catches up to its awesomeness from before again.

Then Vincent is in his Proxy-form for the first time while realizing it. Then, however, he loses control, he fights a bit with Kazkiz Proxy, and eventualy manages to kill him. This episode was mostly meant for Vincent to discover that he is a Proxy (Ergo Proxy, hence the name of the series). I just loved the creepy atmosphere that kept playing through the entire episode. The music, along with the creepy screenpans, the dark drawings and the twisted Kazkiz provided an awesome result.

There are still so many questions left unanswered.
– Why was Kazkiz happy that Senekis was killed? Why did he pick up the joker-card and smiled in the previous episode?
– In this episode, it gets revealed that Kazkiz Proxy is the emissary of Light. Ergo Proxy is the emissary of Darkness. What does an emissary mean? And which kinds of emissaries were Monad and Senekis Proxy? What’s the relationship with this and the deck of cards from last episode?
– Why did Vincent give his memory to Monad Proxy?
– What was Monad Proxy’s human form?
– Why is he so attracted to Ril?
– In fact, why was Ril absent yet again in this episode?

It’s also very intresting that at the beginning of the show, more emphasis was put on Monad Proxy, while Ergo Proxy was put a bit in the shadows. This makes you think that the anime will be revolving around Monad, only until you find his dead body somewhere in a dark alley. In fact, I only began to see Ergo Proxy as a main character until the previous episode.

Vincent may have been amazing in his role. But the true star of this episode was Pino. As an autorave, she finally begins to think a bit on her own, instead of copying others like she used to. The result is absolutely great. She knew about Kazkiz’ identity, but she couldn’t convince Vincent to leave, so she leaves on her own. She then tries to find the Usagi (the ship the two of them travelled with) on her own. Though she then realizes that she wants Vincent along with her. That was just too awesome to see. And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that she knew all anong that Vincent was Ergo Proxy. Absolutely beautiful, though I want to see Ril again. I’d better hope that she plays another major part in the next episode!