Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

Okay. If this isn’t a mindfuck then I don’t know anymore.

I have one question about this episode, but that is for below. First, I just want to praise this series for its absolutely wonderful rendition of Aika, who in two episodes really has become my favorite character of this series, with already an incredibly strong cast. The way she just blew Hakaze away with both her logic and powers was amazing.

In fact, this episode was so damn logical. That she killed herself: it was given the circumstances by far the most logical possible cause for her death, considering that she’s incredibly strong and the complete and utter lack of alternatives. But the reasons why really blew me away. The irony was wonderful: the way in which she decided to kill herself in order to be able to set the story in motion, in order to be able to defeat the tree of Genesis. Time travel is always tricky to write, but I really like what this show did with it. I also really liked the details at the end of the episode: Yoshino running past Hakaze, not knowing what will happen after half a year.

I just wonder: was suicide really the only way? What if Aika did not commit suicide, and instead used her knowledge to make things progress smoother? Could they have stopped the Kusaribe clan? Wouldn’t that have lead to a bigger chance of being able to stop the Tree of Genesis? Or was there some other kind of risk that I didn’t take into account here?
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Omg wtf!

This epsidode had it coming, there is no surprise here, and yet it managed to completely blow me away with how this episode was delivered. The guy who wrote this? The author of Spiral. This guy is amazing. I mean, spiral itself was smart, but with this series, he really managed to create something amazing.

The build-up for this series is juust brilliant. Aika being the Mage of Exodus? That was the first theory I had about the identity for this person. And then this episode just kept throwing red herrings at the viewers, and it kept distracting from this little fact to focus the attention on other people. Now that’s just amazingly well done.

Aika was awesome. Again, this is because of the build-up. For the entire series we’ve been talking about her, even though she was dead. Now we finally got to see her outside of a flashback, and she shows a completely different side of her. After all, everything we’ve seen of her so far was from the perspective of Yoshino (and a bit of Mahiro). It makes perfect sense for her to be able to sense Hakaze, and het yer directness in this episode took me completely by surprise.

Also, Samon. I love you. Your jokes are awesome.
Rating: 6.5/8 (Amazing)

Here is why I love Zetsuen no Tempest’s new direction: a second half transition is tricky, and most shows just head into the usual roads: be more dramatic. Zetsuen no Tempest however decided to add more comedy here. My question is: what’s wrong with that? As a story transitions and changes, it needs to use the build-up of the start and head into the most logical direction, while still being interesting. Nobody said that it had to be more dramatic or anything. In fact, Sakurasou is currently showing that that can also hurt a show in a way.

The point of Zetsuen no Tempest’s change of tone is not to just give it more romance. Instead, the romance is a tool to get the other areas to shine: Aika’s death is the center of the story. You really need this well developed. And the characters. I don’t know about you, but I find them hilarious. Their chemistry in this episode again was really fun to watch.

Also, here we have a series that makes excellent use of its main characters being teenagers. A lot of the charms of this series is watching adults go crazy by having the fate of the world dependant on the hands of a bunch of impulsive kids. And the big difference with the usual: despite all their hormones, they remain intelligent. Samon in this episode was hilarious again when he found out that all his plans were foiled again.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

The past autumn season had a lot of really good series. But at this point, I think that my favorite series of the bunch, is Zetsuen no Tempest. It nearly edges out Jojo and From the New World, but in the end it was this show’s twisted logic that hit me on an emotional level the most. This show is the best at what it does from all of those series for me.

it definitely was a season with so many series with a lot of thought put behind them: Psycho Pass, Robotics;Notes, Shin Sekai Yori. This reduces this to the essence with its complete mindscrews. The thing I noticed is that I just keep getting surprised by the twists that this show takes, combined with how well the characters have been fleshed out for the past season. This series has the right combination between characterization, character-development, and acting, and the plot makes brilliant use of them. It’s the series that succeeds best at bringing everything together and amking everything a whole. It all just fits! The other series this season all have a few areas in which they are really, really good. Tempest does it in all of them.

This episode again: I loved the aftermath of the revelation of Yoshino’s girlfriend. Everyone had their own reactions that were just awesome to follow, even though the pacing or intensity might not have been as high as with other series (compare that to other series which have to resort to killing people, this show managed to do it in an entirely different, yet equally exciting way).

Another thing that quite surprised me about the upcoming spring season: Bones is not in it. It’s a pity, really. They always come with very creative premises and ambitious series. Like this one.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Zetsuen no Tempest, I admire your guts. I really do. You went into a direction that has caused so many other series to crash and burn horribly, and you pulled it off wonderfully. Creators who try to forcefully insert romance into a story have failed in so many different ways. It often has no place in the storyline, and while it’s normal for characters to fall in love, it somehow has to take control of the entire story and characters while feeling horribly uninspired.

Here too the romance has taken control of the story at this point, but dear god, it’s glorious! This show analyzes its romance with the same amount of detail and mind-games as it did with its other subplots. It does not feel uninspired at all, and in fact this episode was hilarious. Not to mention that the depictions of love were really well done, and not cheesy like you would expect.

It’s the episode in which Yoshino finally reveals his big secret. He has been dating Aika. This needed a lot of build-up to work well, considering what a huge part it plays in this series. The past few episodes did this really well by using Hakaze on one hand, and Samon and Mahiro on the other.

Especially the characterization in this episode was amazing, though. Hakaze’s attempts in order to find out more about Aika were awesome (not to mention that this gave us even more excuses to know more about that girl who really has been dead for a year). What I expected even less was that hilarious discussion in which Samon and Mahiro started guessing why Yoshino would hide his girlfriend from him. That really made me laugh.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

The past few episodes were weird in how they suddenly focused so much on Hakaze’s crush on Yoshino. Compared to the first half of this show, it contrasted completely: here we have this serious series full of mind-screws and world-shattering conflicts… that gets followed by a happy romance story. This episode I think forms the conclusion to that.

Hakaze once again was hilarious, but this episode carried it even further. It showed how Yoshino indirectly used Hakaze’s powers because she was worried about him. From the outside this looks like a cheesy scene, but there is something that just does not add up: Yoshino is no idiot.

I love how, even though he’s the main character, we are not allowed to fully look into Yoshino’s head. The way he used the chain in order to slide to the other side, and just “ran” into that easily avoidable burning building… it’s like he was asking to be saved with magic or something. So we’re now at the point at which a person like him has full control over the end of the world. Hakaze confessed her feelings and will now be very, very heavily influenced by his actions. Oh boy. The question is now: was this on purpose? This show is evil enough to not give any confirmation or denial about this.

There are two series that are referencing classical literature this season: Psycho Pass and Zetsuen no Tempest. They both use it as symbolism, but in completely different ways. Psycho Pass occasionally mentions a classic and compares its own setting to it. Zetsuen no Tempest meanwhile is all about Hamlet and Tempest, using this symbolism to show the difference and similarities between the two works.

Also some really good animator was working on the scene where Yoshino rescued that child. Lots of creative movements!
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Most of the second halves of the series of the past Autumn season have changed into predictable directions: Jojo got more epic, Sakurasou got more dramatic, Psycho Pass started to delve into its setting, Robotics;Notes started to tie its various subplots together. Zetsuen no Tempest though… I did not foresee this change… The show has actually gotten much more light-hearted.

And yet, it still rocks. This episode shined in the details. From various small hints to indicate the building chemistry between the characters, ranging from subtle to hilarious (Samon buying Mahiro some flashy underwear?), to people dressing up that mage of Exodus guy as a superhero and having him destroy the tree of Genesis. This episode was stuffed with those fine moments that just made me smile. The dialogue was just brilliant here.

Best of all was the romance, though. I loved both Exodus-kun making fun of Mahiro’s sister complex (and how everyone knew EXACTLY what he was talking about), as well as Hakaze realizing that she has a crush on Yoshino, complicating Aika’s death even more because she, if she wants to, could have easily killed Aika unconsciously with her Genesis powers. Yes, Hakaze, wanting to couch his earlobes is perfectly normal. Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

So, after last week’s recap Zetsuen no Tempest is back for real. And it has already started building the intrigue by hinting at stuff that might or might not be true but when true could mean one heck of a baffling plot twist. The thing is that in this episode, it presents two theories that both are completely inplausible.

So previously, it was established that only a mage of exodus could have killed Aika, in order to be able to escape Hakaze’s web. This episode presents us two mages: Yoshino and this wimpy kid who can’t control his powers yet. With the information we have right now, there is no way in which any of those two could have killed Aika. Yoshino may be crazy, but he’s not crazy enough to just kill his own girlfriend. That wimpy guy too: he can’t even control his powers yet.

So… someone is hiding something… either the wimpy guy (sorry, I can’t remember his name right now while typing this) is putting up an act in order to get close to the Mage of Exodus… which is pretty likely considering he just bumped into her (although that could have been one of the trees as well…). Or Yoshino is a complete bastard who murdered his own girlfriend for some kind of really, really important reason. It’d explain why he is not as mad as Mahiro for her death. It would not explain his ties to the army, his oblivion to Hakaze’s crush (which was an awesome plot twist, by the way).

Also, new OP and ED. For the OP… I don’t like the OP. It’s a song that is copy pasted from all other ops out there, and in a bad way. The ED is a bit cheesy, but it works. But producers, come on. You’ve got such an awesome soundtrack. Then why skimp on the OP and ED?
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

Recap. And it’s the kind of annoying recap that you can’t fully skip because it contains some new material at the beginning and at the end. I did fully watch it this time, though. The reason for that is how important flashbacks are for this series (heck, one of the main characters has been dead throughout the entire series’ airtime thanks to that). Still, it is just copy-pasted, so in that aspect, this individual episode doesn’t win many points….

Having said that though, there was a significant amount of content at the end of the end of the episode, much more than usual. It’s meant to be an aftermath to the previous episodes. And holy crap, two billion people died!? The series then proceeds to tell how the world has been “saved” by the tree of genesis (killing people whenever a fight breaks out between them), and they pick this episode of all things to show what happened when Mahiro found Aika’s dead body.

What I liked best was the intrigue that popped up at the end of the episode, though. Apparently Yoshino has been running off on his own, dowing all sorts of things with probably Hakaze (although this was not mentioned), and the next number of episodes will focus on Mahiro running after Yoshino for this. I know that the first half of this provided hints that this would happen (how he had ties with the army and all). The delivery of this twist was also really good: the entire recap was told through Mahiro’s perspective, even though the first half was told in Yoshino’s perspective. That made me glad that I watched the recap in order to prepare for this change. Watching the same thing you’ve already seen before remains annoying, though.

EDIT: I just realized this after I nearly went to post this, but damn you Bones and your after-ED content. You keep pulling these scenes after your EDs and it’s damn misleading. Not to mention that it was a huge scene that it revealed there….
Rating: 4/8 (Good)

Oh no, the world will be destroyed! Just like in 50% of all other action series! Yeah, if you want to do this, then you need to make it count.Just putting the world at stake at this point is adequate, but standalone it just doesn’t make enough impact, to the point where it can even feel shallow. Zetsuen no Tempest is very good at avoiding this.

In this series the world is at stake, and you really feel like the world is at stake. It keeps driving home that this can pretty much happen on a whim: it’s unknown what will happen, and wrong move will just blow everything up. The characters are just thrown between two huge trees, either of which is trying to make this happen. In this episode things started to get really out of control, and even though this series doesn’t show many people gathered at the same place or huge crowds, it did drive home that something really big is so easily about to happen. The shots of the businessmen trying to map everything that the tree was doing was enough for that.

Beyond that, I still love this series’ style of storytelling. It just takes what it has, and then uses one of its characters to completely turn over the logic in this series, again and again and again. I also love the way this series plays with logic: normally this is something that can’t be influenced, but here there are these two giant trees that are playing russian roulette with it. Very good depiction of the utterly hopeless situation that the characters are in.

Also, the soundtrack! The godly soundtrack! Really, I am going to write a post on my favorite soundtracks of the year. I can’t believe how many great soundtracks 2012 had in comparison to previous years. I just need to find a good way to publish it…
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)