Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

Darker than Black – Ryuusei no Gemini – 11

by psgels, posted in Darker than Black - Ryuusei no Gemini



An excellent build-up for that final episode. My big worry right now is the pacing, because there is A LOT that still needs to be revealed. On top of that, the story needs to reach its conclusion, the themes have to be wrapped up, as well as the ton of side-plots that were going on. Oh, I really hope that the creators are going to be able to pull this off. I won’t mind a few questions left open, but I will mind it if the creators end up rushing though the ending.

And yeah, I was wrong: Suou is the only copy alive at this point: the original doctor survived and instead had a clone of his killed. In the meantime, the real doctor dies in this episode. From a shot in his leg. Seriously, I think that this is the first time in anime in which a character dies from such a minor injury, although it does make sense: he was treated poorly and ended up bleeding to death. Though it gets a bit hard to believe amongst anime where characters survive multiple gunshots without being treated for days in some cases. 😛

There’s just one thing… how did the golem guy survive? His fight against Suou doesn’t really make any sense: he was shot in the eye before and he was just fine, and then he gets shot in his forehead, where the impact is apparently strong enough to cause a flesh-wound and knock him unconscious, but nothing more…

I also finally remembered to keep watching after the ED, and those were some major scenes this time: Mao is the blond woman’s former lover? Heh.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Umineko no Naku Koro ni – 25

by psgels, posted in Umineko no Naku Koro ni



This episode was evil. The previous episode left with a huge cliff-hanger, so I was really looking forward to see what would happen with Beatrice next… and here this episode comes and focuses entirely at Ange. That’s definitely not what I expected for a semi-final episode.

It wasn’t exactly a major episode, though for some reason the characters kept using different names for older Eva and Maria’s diary. For some reason, old Eva now changed her name to Kasumi, though this was probably to escape the links she had with the Rokkenjima murders. Maria’s diary somehow is called Mariage Sorciere. We still don’t exactly know the how and why of this, but my guess is that it’s Maria’s magical alter ego who wrote the diary, explaining why the handwriting is different.

I think the most confusing part of this episode was right after Kasumi showed up from out of nowhere, as it took a while to sink in what the heck she was talking about. Basically, Eva refers to Kyrie as her older sister, meaning that she’s actually a part of the Sumadera family. Then really, what does this mean for the Ushinomiya-family? Is Hideyoshi actually Kinzou’s child? On top of that, Kyrie was about to marry this mysterious Hideyoshi, but instead married Rudolf, who then had a son called Battler who isn’t the same Battler as meta-Battler. Damn, and I thought the previous episode was complicated.

EDIT: Ack, I just realized that there are two old ladies in Ange’s timeline: her first aunt is Eva, who apparently did die a few episodes ago. Her second aunt is Sumadera Kasumi, who is Kyrie’s sister. And I kept thinking that they were the same person! Well, this at least makes things a little less complicated, and this episode much more straightforward. Which is a bit of a shame considering that there’s only one episode left!

Ultimately, this was an episode of building up. Which is a goddarn shame considering we have to wait around two years before actually seeing it being paid off.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Darker than Black – Ryuusei no Gemini – 10

by psgels, posted in Darker than Black - Ryuusei no Gemini



Hell yeah! This series is really coming together quite nicely. It both fits in with the first season and yet has created an entirely new style and mood. With this episode, you can really see that the build-up of the past number of episodes has paid off.

2009 really has been a stellar year for Bones. But yeah, now that we’re near the end of this series, their particular weakness pops up again: their seeming inability to create an actually good ending. I’m really not sure what it is with their series and adaptations, but during the previous summer, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 was the first series I’ve seen from them with an actually good ending. All of the others that I watched so far were either rushed, forced, or just completely ruined their series. And that considering that the rest of their series are often so well produced.

Still, if there’s any series that could break this trend, it’s this one. With so much build-up, it will be a disaster if the ending goes wrong, but you can see that the creators have planned out this series really well. they should have a great ending planned here, if this episode was any indication. The depth it gave to Suou’s character was really remarkable.

This episode also sheds a totally new light on Shion: it’s obvious now that the Doctor who was with him also was just a copy that he created: the real one really was killed by Hei. How he said that Suou needed to learn what pain was was very hypocritical: he himself has no concept of this, since he thinks that he can just clone anything that he loses.

And zomg: Mao’s backstory! it’s strange to see this guy inside a regular human body, but we finally get a good look at how he lost his original body. The question that remains now: why did the Syndicate betray Mao? Was it just because he happened to be on a place that they needed to bomb, (say, an unfortunate sacrifice), or was he specifically targeted?

Also, Hei has frustrations: it’s one thing to torture his victims for information, but to leave such a mutilated body behind… what the heck was he doing to her? O.o
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Umineko no Naku Koro ni – 24

by psgels, posted in Umineko no Naku Koro ni



Very nice, the plot twists just keep heaping up with this episode. While not as interesting as the third arc yet, there’s plenty of potential left for this in the final two episodes.

The first half of this episode was the usual slaughter-fest in which members of the Ushinomiya-family die rather one-sidedly, though there are several interesting questions raised here: has non-meta-Battler ever directly seen magic up till now? The only point I can think of is the end of the second arc, and that could easily have been an illusion. My guess has always been that what he saw with his eyes happened in real life, and this puts the three phone-calls he made during the first half in a very interesting light.

Right now, my guess is that the murderer used some sort of psychological attack to kill these people. Perhaps some sort of drug or mushroom that made them think that there are things that there actually aren’t. We’ve never really seen Nanjo check for any drug effects, and I can imagine how the killer could have created the flesh wounds afterwards to confuse people and hide the real causes.

A different theory is that the three characters in question found out who the murderer was, and why they were committed. As this seems to have been a very good reason, and simply resigned to their fate.

Because that second half gave a very interesting twist to the whole matter. Beatrice could have acted this again (I see her crazy enough to just ignore Battler like this), but I think that this was one of the first time in which her actions were genuine. Otherwise it would not have made sense for Lambadelta to have shown up.

So the way I see it, Beatrice made a mistake. Something happened six years ago that for some reason really upset her, and she believed Battler to be the culprit… and yet he wasn’t. This wasn’t a case of simple amnesia, he really had no clue what happened. The thing that would make sense is how Rosa killed Beatrice, but this doesn’t make any sense because Beatrice would know this, and she’d be going after Rosa instead.

My guess is that the creators have yet to reveal the exact reason, but I do believe that six years ago multiple things happened that set everything in motion, Rosa’s sin being one of them: I can very well imagine that Kinzou wasn’t really happy when he found out what happened to Beatrice. Also, why couldn’t Battler claim that he’s the son of his mother? Was he switched as a baby with someone else or something? In that case, what happened to the real Battler? And how did this create Battler’s “sin”, six years ago.
Rating: * (Good)

Darker than Black – Ryuusei no Gemini – 09

by psgels, posted in Darker than Black - Ryuusei no Gemini



I had my doubts when I heard that the goofballs of the first season would return in this episode. Especially combined with Hei, shaving his beard: the creators would have to very skillfully write these final episodes, even more than the previous eight episodes. The danger of this show turning into one that goes into its on direction, yet gives up in the end and simply decides to go with the tried and true formula of the first season would be disastrous.

Instead, what this series now has to do is instead of completely going back to the style of the first season, bring both seasons together: converge the two of them into one. And bloody hell, this episode actually did it.

Of course, this perhaps wasn’t the best episode of the second season, but the two goofballs were a lot less annoying than what I remember them to be. They again had a clear purpose: to form a contrast with the contractors in this series, and they went further than the goofball in this series by actually pushing Suou towards meeting her mother; something that she for some reason didn’t look forward to. It’s a really good episode that contributed to how she’s struggling with her own identity as a contractor, while brilliantly having her avoid the usual angsty indecisive teenager route.

On top of building upon the themes of the second season, this episode was also chockful of references to the first season: Amber seems central to the plot, Hei has cut off his hair and finally has another reason to act like the nice guy he pretended to be in the first season. What’s more, some of the characters of the first season seem vital to the plot of the second season. You can see that the creators have put a lot of thought into it.

That scene in which Suou met her mother surprisingly lacked impact for me, though. I’m not sure what it was, but I was much more interested in just about everything around it. There are still a few huge questions behind it that need answering: why that woman from the CIA direct Suou to her mother? What is she trying to achieve? What has Suou’s mother been up to anyway?

Also, colds in Japan are weird. Instead of taking quite a few days to blow over, you simply faint, sleep and it usually completely disappears after a few hours. Either that or a lot of Japanese mistake colds for anemia, which is also much more common than where I live…
Rating: * (Good)

Umineko no Naku Koro ni – 23

by psgels, posted in Umineko no Naku Koro ni



Oh wow, now this is indeed more like it. Talk about an intriguing episodes after the rather boring past three episodes. This episode returned Umineko where it’s good at: mind-numbing mystery. How the heck are the creators going to write themselves out of this? It’s a bloody shame that we have to wait for more than a year to get to see those answers animated.

The biggest question mark of this episode was obviously George becoming the demon king. While I have no idea what that meant, he now also has his own magical powers (a shield, which is something which he somehow learned from his mother, who I guess knows martial arts…), with which he pwned Gaap in this episode.

We still follow Ange as well, and the mystery gets yet another extra dimension: all of the children of the people who died on Rokkenjima received a key to a lot of cash, presumably the Ushinomiya family fortune. If it were just Ange who received it it would have made sense, but why did the son of Nanjo, who is totally not related to this case nor the headship of the Ushinomiya family, receive access to this fortune as well? Also, what was that thing that Ange saw in that plastic bag?

What also surprises me is that meta-Battler doesn’t make an appearance whatsoever in this episode. In this way, it becomes a bit tricky to see what Beatrice is planning with this incredibly elaborate set-up. I mean, if her goal is indeed just to keep the endless loop, couldn’t she simply show the first arc over and over? Something tells me that she’s really wanting Battler to acknowledge magic, and that this isn’t because of the job she received from Lambdadelta.

This also makes me very curious to see what Kinzou has in store for Battler and Maria. Battler will probably have the option to kill off Kyrie, while Maria just lost her mother. who is the one who is listed on her trial? On top of that, the two of them have a far weaker resolve than Jessica and George. Meta-Battler excluded, Battler has so far struck me as someone with a strong opinion, but also stubborn and not the most competent. To come with a comparison: Jessica doesn’t just talk about protecting her loved ones, she also acts upon it. Battler just talks. Now that I mention it, has he ever actually done anything significant?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Oh, and just a reminder: I don’t know exactly when chapter six, seven and eight will be released, but remember that I will unceremoniously delete any spoiling comments about them. I’m not repeating this message because the commends during the past few entries have gotten out of control, but rather for after this series finishes, in the case that some random visual novel player stumbles upon this page and finds it a good idea to let the anime-only viewers know about what’s going to happen in the end.

Darker than Black – Ryuusei no Gemini – 08

by psgels, posted in Darker than Black - Ryuusei no Gemini



Oh, the soundtrack for this series rocks. I consider it to be even better than the one from the first season. What I only noticed right now however is that Yoko Kanno didn’t write it this time. Instead, it seems to have been composed by a voice-actor, of all people. It’s the guy who voiced Hamdo in Now and Then, Here and There and Shou Taishi in Saiunkoku Monogatari, among many others. I’m really not sure where he got the idea of composing a soundtrack from, but he did a bloody brilliant job at it.

In any case, this episode yet again showed off this series’ wonderful style of storytelling, which is brutally direct, and also creative and very exciting during the action-scenes, even though the action itself is in no way over the top. In Darker than Black, fights rarely end with everyone retreating with minor wounds. In this series, battles are fought with the intent to kill. Take that, shounen-series!

But seriously though, I didn’t quite think that even Tanya was no exception to this rule. Here I thought that the creators were saving her for the big climax in which Suou manages to settle their differences, despite being contractors… and here this episode just unceremoniously kills them off. Her death wasn’t in vain, though: it was a great opportunity to show that teenaged contractors indeed have bugs inside of them. This series has mentioned it before, and it’s an interesting concept that in the world of contractors, there also still exist contractors that need to grow up. it also fits really well in the development between Hei and Suou, and you can see that the creators spend some time into this.

On top of that, the mystery has also thickened. What the heck was Shion doing there? I this some kind of double red herring? That their father needed Suou the most so he pretended that Shion was the most important one so that she wouldn’t catch suspension? Heh, some father.

Also, why does Misaki have a portrait of a black cat hanging on her wall?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Umineko no Naku Koro ni – 22

by psgels, posted in Umineko no Naku Koro ni



So now we’re back at the island again, and this episode portrayed a new character as the villain: Kinzou. Like all villains of Umineko, this guy is way over the top, but then again, that’s part of the fun. You don’t exactly watch this series for its realism. We also see a new servant introduced: Gaap (not the most fortunate name: it means “yawn” in Dutch, which makes it a bit hard to take her seriously).

What’s also interesting is that in this arc, we never get to see the corpses for the first twillight confirmed. All we see is Beatrice smirking and claiming that it’s the same as the previous first twillights, but the massacre scene was just like any other magic scene in this show so far: an illusion. Who is to say that these people really died? This is especially notable because one of the biggest suspects right now (Dr. Hanzo) could have used this to his advantage and pretend to be dead, killing everyone from the sidelines.

Still, this also supports the theory that there are multiple killers. My prime theory at the moment is that Kinzo is responsible for the first twillight (see the third arc, in which the murders had to be committed by one of the six people who died there), and after that Hanzo took over with the rest of the murders.

And boy, that scene between Maria and Rosa was intense. This also explains why the scene between the two of them in the last episode felt a bit incomplete, and now you can really see where the twisted personality from Maria came from. However, Rosa does raise a few questions: if this supposedly happened in every single arc (of which I’m not convinced of at the moment), then it doesn’t really fit with her behavior during the second and third arc. Having been killed more than a 100 times, Rosa should now be terrified of of her. I didn’t exactly get that impression from them, aside from the first arc, perhaps.

Now that the first season has nearly ended, I do have to say that so far, I do consider Higurashi to be better than Umineko. We’ve now seen 22 episodes, and while the potential for mystery on both series is just as interesting, Higurashi had far better characters at this point. And while Studio Deen’s influence really contributed to the creepiness and atmosphere of the first season, I’m not feeling the same as with Umineko.

Overall, I’ve been getting a bit disappointed by Studio Deen for the past year. They used to be one of my favourite studios, but their shows seem to have dulled, and ever since Amatsuki, their good shows have either been good shows because they had awesome source material, or because they were sequels of already good shows (Jigoku Shoujo and Higurashi Rei). I’m missing that typical Studio Deen-esque feel that can make already good premises even better.
Rating: * (Good)

Darker than Black – Ryuusei no Gemini – 07

by psgels, posted in Darker than Black - Ryuusei no Gemini



An interesting choice for an episode this time. In a lot of other series, this episode was surprisingly formulaic, and yet I only noticed this when the end-credits rolled. There are only two real plot twists in this episode. The rest can all be reduced back to character-building. But I have to say that this episode was very sneaky in trying to hide this.

This again shows that the contractors with the biggest powers are often the easiest ones to die: they get cocky, and think that their powers will protect them, even when they’re not paying attention. I really was fooled in this episode: I thought that that extremely powerful contractor would pose a serious threat for Hei and Suou, the way he just walked in and pwned everyone easily. But yeah: he forgot to prevent July calling Hei, and in the end simply got strangled. Hei on the other hand may also have powers of instant death, but that whip looks very hard to control: he must have practiced a lot to perfect this technique. Suou’s powers too have a major disadvantage: as soon as enemies get close to her, she’s screwed. And that’s another reason why I like Darker than Black: the lead characters kick ass, not because they have unlimited godmode powers, but rather because they spent a lot of time to fill in for their weaknesses.

Now that we’re seven episodes in, it’s about time that the climax of this show is getting in sight. At this point I have no clue at how the creators are planning to end this. All we got from this episode is that Suou’s father is still alive. It makes sense in a way: if he spent so much effort into hiding Shion, it’s not surprising that he also prepared some sort of fake body to throw the enemy off. The question also remains where Yin fits into all of this: she feels like a bit of a random element in the whole story at this point.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Umineko no Naku Koro ni – 21

by psgels, posted in Umineko no Naku Koro ni



Well, the third arc was awesome: it had a new twist in just about every new episode and kept holding the balls in the air with increasingly astonishing plot twists. In comparison, the past two episodes have really been a let-down. Especially considering how the creators have the arduous task of filling about 50 hours of visual Novel in just 26 episodes, they really could have used this episode better.

My problem with the past three episodes is simple: who the heck is Ange? Why the heck should I care about her? And why the heck does she have more background than nearly all of the other characters so far? This backstory of the past three episodes could easily have been squeezed in one episode, just like what the creators did with the first arcs. That would actually have left plenty of room for background on some of the other characters who deserved this, instead of this rather one-sided mini-arc that’s just there to show that Ange feels lonely and gets bullied by really, really, really stereotypical evil classmates.

The fun in Umineko comes from creating the theories and the crazy out of control plot in which you really have to guess what’s going on, and you can trust nobody. This episode… I just can’t make anything from it.
Rating: – (Disappointing)