Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

xxxHolic – 05

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic



This episode wasn’t as serious as the previous ones, it was a bit more relaxed. here weren’t any serious problems like in the previous episodes, and it basically consisted of telling the story of two supernatural foxes, a lucky arrow and Shiritori.

We start out with Watanuki and Himawari attending one of Domeki’s arrow-shooting tournaments. Domeki wins, and he gives Watanuki the end of his winning arrow, as a memento. Watanuki, of course, doesn’t like this. When he walks to Yuuko’s place in order to make her some food, he runs into a strange food-stand, and two badly drawn human-like foxes. One old, and one just a child.

He eats a bit from their stand, and gives the small fox Domeki’s arrow, which appears to be a strong fortune-bringer, keeping away evil spirits (this is logical, as it comes from Domeki, after all). The food appears to taste delicious. Watanuki then remembers that Yuuko’s still waiting for him to make her food, so he leaves. The foxes give him a little meal as thanks for the arrow.

Yuuko, of course, has run into the foxes before, as she’s totally excited when Watanuki brings their food. This has to be, of course, celebrated, involving lots of sake. We also see a couple of screens of a nearly full-moon, meaning that the next night’ll probably feature a full one.

The next day, Yuuko requests Watanuki to go back to the foxes and deliver a package (remember her policies? ^^). Though, as it will be full moon, such as hinted, in combination with friday the thirteenth, and Watanuki’s little problem, he has to be very careful. Therefore, she gives him a little backpack with wings. I don’t know where I’ve seen this, but I got a serious deja-vue with this item.

Anyway, Watanuki heads out, and indeed, he runs into evil spirits, cleverly disguised as poorly-placed shadows. The backpack seemed to contain Mokona, who starts playing Shiritori. Shiritori works like this: you start with a japanese word, and the person next to you has to say another word, beginning with the same letter the first one ended with. This seems to repel all of the evil spirits, though Mokona can’t resist to make Watanuki’s job hard by ending all of his (her? what kind of gender is Mokona actually?) words with “Ri”. We also see Mokona for the first time serious, well, at least semi-serious. I have to say that I liked this play of Shiritori, while running away from the evil spirits.

They arrive at the fox, and then it became clear that Shiritori originated from people who had to walk through evil forest-like surroundings. The Shiritori would keep away all of the evil spirits and danger. Yuuko’s package appeared to be two rare shadow-birds, who only seem to appear in the light of the full moon. The old fox seems to be quite fond of them.

For a laid-back episode like this, I liked it. xxxHolic seems to be following the same pattern Jigoku Shoujo and Mushishi did, only with a lot more emphasis on the main characters, so laid-back episodes seem to be perfect to have been included once in a while.

Ergo proxy – 08

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy



No Real! Blasphemy! Anyway, this episode was focused one half on Vincent, while the other half was focused other side-characters. A bit of new info about the Proxys is aquired, and Vincent gets to have his mental breakdown.

Vincent, while hungry seemed to have learned his lesson on his journey, as he acknowledges Pino’s existance at the beginning of the episode. They, they stumble upon other life-forms. Not Moskou, which I guessed, but a lonely army base ho’s been fighting off infected auto-raves. The members are suspiciously hospital, though it soon appears that they’ll make him fight in order to pay it back.

Then, a third Proxy appears. First, we only get to see its bandage-like hairs, killing, though it’s obvious what its owner is, mostly because of Vincent’s reaction. Anyway, because of the killing, Vincent is put in some kind of cell, right next to a crazy woman who keeps on muttering random sentences. Then Vincent begins to fall down, and mutter random sentences himself.

The autoraves, meanwhile, attack the base once more. This time, they’ve got help from the third Proxy, who kills off the commander of the base. She then crashes a helicopter right into the crazy woman, who managed to escape. Then, the second Proxy appears, beating the third one, taking off its mask, only to reveal the face of a woman. Then it absorbs the third, killing it.

We then see the dead body of the crazy woman, surrounded by cards. A strange man arrives, and picks up the joker-card, and he smiles. Who the heck is this guy? And why does he pick up the joker-card? Actually, why were those cards there in the first place?

Bluewacky also brings up an interesting issue. The face of the third Proxy bears suspiciosly close resemblances to that of the crazy woman. They also both die at the same time. Could they be linked somehow? If that’s the case, could Vincent be linked to Ergo Proxy (That’s how Bluewacky calls the second Proxy, I have no idea why, but it does explain the show’s name, as well as the fact that this will be an important character, I’m somehow reminded of Noein)? And who was linked to Monad Proxy?

This episode also explains why Monad Proxy was killed off. It was just being caught by Ergo Proxy and absorbed. And that crazy woman, right before the helicopter crashed on her, she made the infamous infected-autorave-pose. What the heck does that pose mean?

xxxHolic – 04

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic



The art is a strange thing in this anime. At one time, it looks very crisp, at other times, it looks messed up. The main characters look very good, though the side-characters, which only appear one episode could have been done much better. The animation, especially the supernatural looks great at some times, though it’s horrible at other times.

Anyway, this episode was about fortunetellers, fake ones and real ones. Yuuko decides to take Watanuki to one of them, but later it appears that she’s a fake one. She only tells you what you want to hear, instead of what you want to know. She uses common knowlegde and guessing in order gain the victim’s trust and tries to make it believable. And true, that’s how most fortunetellers run their businesses, although some people refuse to admit it. I’ve even heard of fortunetellers that tell the exact same story over and over again, without anyone noticing it.

Fake fortunetelling, by the way, seems to be a sensitive subject of Yuuko. For the first time, we see her dead-serious, instead of her usual cheerful, playful or explaining personality. She then takes him to a real fortuneteller, using an interesting technique of conjuring a hankerchief into a butterfly, which flies to its target, in this case, the fortuneteller. She indeed has no need of information from Watanuki, except for his name, perhaps, and she does tell him things only a person who knows him would know, and leaves a big impression on Watanuki.

I have to say that I enjoyed watching this anime. It follows the same pattern as Mushishi and Jigoku Shoujo, as in one story every week, though it’s more focused on the main characters than those two were.

Ergo Proxy – 07

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy



Where the previous episodes had a lot of Vincent and a bit of Lil, this episode has a lot of Lil and a bit of Vincent. The two are separated once more, and each have their own story in this episode. I’ll start with Lil.

She’s able to recover, and once she gains conciousness, she leaves her hospital-bed, looking for answers. She looks beautiful without her make-up, by the way. Anyway, she avoids a couple of doctors, while Dedars notices what she’s doing. The two meet each other in the nursery-room. In this room, all the people are born, and artificially raised to be perfect citizens. This was an interesting surprise for me. I knew that Romdeau was focused on total control, but I never realized that the control would be this total. People are truly raised to be perfect citizens, no more. Dedars is willing to tell Lil everything he knows, but before that, she’ll have to face her grandfather. When she does, he just doesn’t respond to her at all. I’m wondering whether this old guy really is the mastermind behind Romdeau, or that he’s just controlled by the statue-like things right next to him. Anyway, when she gets back to Dedars, he shows her a couple of things. First of all: Iggy. It seems he’s making a come-back, this time without being monitored by the police, as Dedars installed something nice in order to prevent it. Second, some info about Proxy, or more precisely: Monad Proxy. It seems that it’s not a bad thing after all. It served as some kind of power source for the humans, taken from Moskou. I’ll just wait a couple of episodes before declaring it along with the good guys, though. But just like Lil, I’m really interested. I want to know what it means. The creators did a fine job in this. Anyway, Lil says some things about her motivation, and then some infected auto-raves enter, trying to kill our two protagonists. The fun thing is: Raul sent them. He’s using the cogito-virus as a weapon to get rid of Lil. She manages to shoot all of the incoming autoraves, though one manages to slice her. Hard. We don’t see what happens to her afterwards. All we see is Dedars making up a death notice for Lil. This is fake, of course, but I do want to know what happened to her.

Vincent, meanwhile, spends the episode flying to his city of birth: Moskou. This was really interesting to see. His companions don’t survive the trip, and he gives them an honorful burial. Eventually, he ends up alone with Pino. This also means that the entire population of Outer-Romdeau is dead now. Nobody has survived. That’s not the first thing you’d expect after episode 4. Anyway, he spends most of the time monologueing about the harships of the journey and his loneliness. Pino’s an autorave, so she doesn’t count. She has a very small part in this episode, by the way. Though, the fulfills this part nicely.

It seems that the next couple of episodes will be revolving around Moskou. Lil will probably also be heading there, and she’ll probably arrive around episode nine. Episode eight will probably involve Vincent arriving in Moskou. About the episode: I really liked it. The dialogue between Lil and Dedars was just superb.

xxxHolic – 03

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic



Ah, finally Himawari and Domeki play a big role in an episode. Especially Domeki works very well along with Watanuki and Yuuko. The three of them just form a perfect team. The character animation still is as buggy as ever, but the special effects look amazing. This gives a very unique feeling to the show.

The case in this episode involves the school where a friend of Himawari resides. A couple of students have been playing with Angel-San, which seemed to have induced some very strange incidents. I had a bit of trouble figuring out what Angel-San was in the first place, but it appears to be an instrument with which you can call ghosts and make them say a message.

Watanuki and Domeki both arrive at the school, accompanied by the greatest Chobits-pun ever, and indeed, the entire building is infested with spirits. Inside the building, there’s a very strong smell, which only Watanuki can feel. The smell increases as they both go higher, until they reach the roof of the building. There, they see a couple of schoolgirls with an Angel-San which has totally gone berserk, threatening to kill everyone. When Watanuki tries to break them apart, it appears that the schoolgirls were supernatural themselves, as they change into a giant evil spirit. Then a gigantic snake arrives, and eats everything. Especially this part I loved, the choreography was just awesome, not to mention the music included.

We then see a little aftermath, in which Yuuko explains what has happened. That only shows that the dialogue in this anime is top-notch. Everything gets perfectly explained, I like it.

Ergo Proxy – 06

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy



I just love the way that Ergo Proxy takes its time to build up an episode, and then manages to finish it off with some of the most amazing scenes. This episode was certaily no exception.

We start off with Lil, who apparently got sick of the poisonous gasses which float around. All of the ‘villagers’ have had an antidote, and Vincent managed to recover on his own. With only one antidote left, in the possesion of Queen (who isn’t particulary on Lil’s good side), Vincent faces a dilemma.

Then Hude come with the idea of Vincent going back to Romdeau, in which Lil could be saved. Vincent plans to take the aircraft Lil used to get back to Romdeau, in order to accompany her. The other villagers, meanwhile, plan to move away from Romdeau as soon as possible, now that it has become clear that only death awaits them if they stay.

Both parties prepare, Pino says goodbye to Lil and Vincent, and both parties move to their destinations. We switch back to Romdeau, mostly in the long-haired guy’s point of view. He finds out Vincent came back, and he sets off as fast as he can. Only to find a pleasant surprise awaiting him. The death of a certain character afterwards also was amazing to see.

Queen and Pino, meanwhile, have a lot less luck. Along with them, about eight other guys are with them. They ride on some sort of weird boat, apparently named ‘Usagi’. Then they get attacked once more, by nine Romdeau-airplanes. After they get saved by the plan described above, only six people remain on the boat. A ‘certain’ person, Pino and four villagers who managed to not get killed by the gunfires from the Romdeau-airplanes. The deaths were a total surprise to me. I never expected it to go this way. It also shows lots of potential for the next couple of episodes.

Pino was once again, amazing. She now begins to understand the pain of losing someone dear to you. Just like a small child, who just realizes what happened.

Jigoku Shoujo – 23

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



I just love Jigoku Shoujo. This episode was again totally incredible.

We start off with Tsugumi who has another vision. This time, involvind a plane descending and a couple of random sceneries including a hospital. She tells Hajime about it and the two set off. The victim this time is a nurse who works at this hospital. Hajime investigates a bit and comes to the conclusion that we have a horribly nice person here. Everyone likes her. Tsugumi still choses Ai’s side, but has problems with it.

Hajime keeps searching, and finally finds someone who holds a grudge against this nurse: the widower of a woman who died in the hospital. He was cornered, so he decided to blame another party, which ended up being this nurse. Hajime pays him a visit. Meanwhile, Tsugumi has her worst attack yet. She begins screaming afterwards. It was just too horrible to see.

That was the good part. Now the awesome part begins. It appears that this person’s never heard of Jigoku Shoujo in any way. So that means that another person holds a grudge against the nurse. Before we’re able to figure out who it is, it’s too late and she gets sent to hell. Tsugumi was just too sad to see. If it wasn’t even enough, she ends up connecting with Ai at the end of the episode. Apparently, there was some boy in Ai’s memory with which she used to share lots of happy memories. Combine this with episode twenty, in which only the words of killing your family managed to penetrate through her memory, and we’re in for some incredible final three episode.

I so LOVED this episode. Especially Tsugumi. She just keeps getting better and better. And better. It’s aweosme to see her struggle like that. What is the right thing to do: revenge or no revenge? I can hardly wait for the last episodes.

xxxHolic – 02

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic



This episode consisted of two parts. In the first part, Watanuki’s classmates, which we already met in the movie, are introduced again. Their relationship is just like in the movie, including all of the feisty dialogue between the three of them. Anyway, they don’t really play a big role in the episode, as they leave afterwards to do their own things. Juuko, meanwhile, feels like she wants to eat some very peculiar dishes. Guess who gets to do it.

Then the second part begins. What we have here is a story of a woman, who’s been lying so much, that she’s become used to it and doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. She suffers from a black smoke-like something, which gushes out of her every time she lies. As she lies more and more, her body becomes more and more paralyzed. Yuuko lets her figure out her problem on her own, which results in the girl ending up in the hospital. Watanuki isn’t really happy with Yuuko’s way of acting, so he asks her a couple of questions, at which she gives a satisfying answer, only to be followed with even more insane food-orders. Then, we see a serious side of Yuuko when she monologues about Watanuki’s usefullness.

The great point of this series is without a doubt the incredible dialogue. Whether it’s meant to be serious or comedy, this anime delivers. In the first case, there’s just so much room for debates, and moral questions. In the second case, seeing each of the characters just annoy the hell out of Watanuki and him responding back is just too funny to see. The mystery-department also is interesting to see, but it could have been better. Though I’m guessing that the creators just start off with the small cases, and end with the large ones. I’ll be waiting for those.

Ergo Proxy – 05

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy



Holy god, Pino’s just too innocent. That certainly became clear after this episode.

Anyway, we start with Vincent, trying to figure out what to do and the other people around him who begin to get angrier by the minute because of his prescense. Hude saves him for a moment by telling some quick lies, about how Vincent is the savior of the ousiders and he’ll bring Romdeau to fall. He carries these lies, however, way too far, until they quickly get out of hand. You can realy see he was having trouble with this. Pino meanwhile finds a friend to play and draw this. That was just too cute.

Then Ril arrives, with the intention of taking Vincent back. From this moment on, Hude gets to play a great role. We get to see that he’s desperate to go back to Romdeau, so he does whatever it takes to get Ril to take him back. Pino and her new friend also played a great role in this by annoying the hell out of him, which includes painting his face with some nice red colors. (she takes off her bunny-suit as well). Ril, of course, isn’t impressed with this, and takes Vincent back, while she suddenly gets the message that Romdeau is aiming to clean up the outside world, in other words, they intend to kill everyone.

They get out too late, so Ril and Vincent get attacked by Romdeau’s Techibi. Then it appears that Proxy isn’t dead after all, Ril gets hit by one of the Techibi projectiles and Vincent loses his concience. Pino, meanwhile gets taught a small lesson about doing what you like most, instead of copying others. We then switch back to Ril and Vincent, back in Hude’s hut. Ril’s now also stranded in the outside and begins to get a bit desperate and collapses. Pino, meanwhile takes a dive in the water (which looks too cute, by the way), and then she gets a first-in-a-lifetime-experience. I won’t tell what happens because of the spoiler-ness of these scenes. Pino still doesn’t understand this, and goes to take Queen. Then the episode ends. (And yes, I know that this was a crappy episode summary)

Overall, this was an amazing episode. Especially Pino and Hude were great. Although I’m also very happy about Vincent, Ril and Queen. I’m very curious about the next episode now.

Jigoku Shoujo – 22

by psgels, posted in Jigoku Shoujo



Ooh! Awesome episode! We finally get to see a bit of Hajime’s background, and it turns out to be a magnificent story. I always thought that he and his wife just didn’t like each other and divorced, but it appears that there’s so much more. It seems that Hajime used to be a total workaholic, and always chose his work over his wife. This went on for a couple of years, his wife got more miserable by the minute. This just kept going worse when Tsugumi was born, up till the point that she abandoned him and chose for another.

The way Hajime found out about this was beautiful to watch. He was a real hothead in those days, so he immediately divorced her, including taking Tsugumi away, and saying the most horrible things at her. That may be great in itself, but the creators cleverly came up with a Hell-Hotline-case, that so resembles Hajime’s past. It was so great to see him struggle like that, and the way his wife eventually died was just great to see.

Overall, this was an amazing episode. Probably the best yet, apart from episode 16 and 7. This makes me even hungrier about Ai’s past. Muaha!