Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

xxxHolic – 30

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


Okay, here’s something I didn’t expect: instead of developing Kohane, this episode decides to ignore her for now and instead focuses on taking care of the spirit we saw in the previous episode that came to live in Doumeki’s sakura trees. It’s basically one big Mah-jong-game (with obvious references to Akagi). While it doesn’t beat the epic snowball-fight of season one, it was quite fun to watch.

There’s nothing much to say, really. This is one of these episodes you need to watch for yourself. While the rain and vestal sprite came rather from out of nowhere, their chemistry with Watanuki was really enjoyable. This is really the beauty of xxxHolic: you’ll never know when it’s going to be serious or laid-back, and it’ll be enjoyable either way.

I do want to use this opportunity to say something about the nature of parodies, though, because I felt that the appearances of Akagi were rather useless. I personally really lke parodies, but they only work when they make the thing they parody look ridiculous. Just including a reference to another series here and there gets boring, especially when overused (yes, I’m talking to you, Lucky Star). Take Master of Epic for example: it did an excellent job in creating an entire setting out of a parody. Or take Ooedo rocket with its FMA-references. It’s quite humorous to see the voice-actors of FMA playing completely different roles, and that’s why these “Nii-san!”-references worked so well. Watanuki’s Akagi-face was actually one of the least funny jokes in this episode, and I see more series that try to just include a reference in an attempt to be funny.

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 05

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~


This is going to be another two-episode arc. I like how the creators have managed so far to relate Aoki’s ordinary problems to the extreme cases that we see portrayed in the cases that have to be investigated. This episode is all about privacy and the intrusion of it.

In this episode, a girl murders nearly her entire family, and her father ends up taking all the blame and smashes the victim’s heads while the daughter hides for three years until the case dies down. The father then passes away (I didn’t quite catch how), and Aoki how the girl had murdered these people. The problem however is that for some reason, Aoki is not allowed to reveal the information he discovered. I didn’t exactly understand the reasons, but I think it has to do with the fact that Kinuko (the girl) claimed a loss of memory, and she would end up being released anyway.

Aoki basically doesn’t want a killer like that to go unpunished, but at the same time, Maki reminds him how acting like this won’t bring the dead ones back. There’s one thing I don’t understand, though. I mean, what guarantee is there that the girl will never kill someone else again? If I’m not mistaken, then one of the purposes of throwing killers in jail is to make sure that they won’t repeat their actions in the future.

In any case, in the next episode we’ll probably discover why Kinuko ended up killing her parents. We already know that her father invaded her privacy once, when she was “spending time” with her boyfriend, but that doesn’t yet explain why the father was the only one surviving and the rest of the family died.

Kaiba – 04

by psgels, posted in Kaiba


Okay, so while the introduction of weird accents didn’t exactly help my ability to understand this episode, I still loved every bit about this episode. Really, I’m trying to think of one part of this series that doesn’t stand out, but so far this series couldn’t have progressed better. I absolutely LOVE the pair of Kaiba and the guard (I think his name was Vanilla) as they travel through various world. They stand so incredibly far apart from your usual travelling-companionship. The two of them are without a doubt my favourite characters of all new shows this season, apart perhaps from xxxHolic.

I originally thought that Kaiba would switch bodies with every new episode, but this episode proves us wrong. He just has two bodies: one of the stuffed animal and one of the girl. Both bodies are very different from the Kaiba we saw in the first episode, and it felt especially weird when the stuffed animal suddenly started talking. It turns out that normal rules don’t really apply when you’re into the mind of a person.

What’s also interesting: we see Vanilla into Kaiba’s mind this time, and there, we saw the body he was in when we found him in episode 1. The thing is also that this doesn’t seem to be his original body (because yes, this episode also gives us a small shot of Kaiba when he still had his memory). There’s nothing of that fancy outfit we saw. And really, what the hell has happened to Popo? He hasn’t appeared for four episode, and yet he seems like a vital character in all this, after the previous episode showed some hints that he was connected to Neiro.

In any case, this episode is about an old woman, who refuses to share her dead husband’s “treasure” with her two sons. They may be poor, but they’re always causing trouble for others, and don’t ever pay attention to their surroundings. Of course, the “treasure” turns out to be an ordinary memory-box, but still. The interesting thing is how this episode went into this old woman’s mind, as she’s still trying to forget her deceased husband. He fell off a lighthouse, but she never knew why. Inside her memory, she then finds out that he was just trying to pick a flower, in the hope of making his wife smile again. I probably missed the important point of this episode again, though, due to the above-mentioned dialect.

The art this time was also different from usual. It looked much more like Kemonozume than ever. While it’s usually not that good of an idea to have an episode with a different animation-style than usual (just take a look at Gurren Lagann 04), for Kaiba it works surprisingly well. Perhaps it’s because the changes are there, but not quite radical.

xxxHolic – 29

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


The big improvement, aside from the increased graphics-budget, of the second season is the inclusion of foreshadowing. The first season was very good, but the stories all felt a bit disconnected from each other, aside from the occasional appearances of the Rain and Vestal Sprite. The second season however has cleverly been inserting small introductions of the upcoming arcs in the past few seasons. My guess is that this second season will feature three major arcs: the spider-queen, the current one with the psychic girl and the final one will be Himawari’s background, with in-between small stories like in episode four. It really gives the viewer something to look forward to, and brings more unity to the whole series.

This episode mostly introduced the young girl, and her relationship with her mother. The mother is a typical case of a parent who’s become too obsessed with how famous her daughter has become, and starts seeing her just as a tool, and she’s clearly suffering from a lot of stress. The atmosphere about this episode was just perfect.

In this episode, she was asked to remove the spirit of a dead woman from a sakura-tree. I believe that with the help of Watanuki, she managed to move the spirit to one o the sakura-trees around Domeki’s house. The big questions for the next episode are of course: why does Watanuki feel so drawn towards her and why does she feel so drawn towards Watanuki?

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 04

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~


Really, this is clearly the cleverest series to have come out this season. Kaiba may be good at other points, but Himitsu is a master in dropping hints that might solve the mystery. This series really draws you in like no other, also with the help of the terrific soundtrack. You really need to watch an episode at least twice in order to fully understand it.

The way the creators also revealed that Nanako fancies Aoki was also quite creative. Most series just show a very obvious and unsubtle blush, though Nanako instead just misses her chair, and you can also constant see her around Aoki, without him noticing it.

And the theme of this episode… it was really pushing taboos, as it reflected an issue of modern society that even Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei didn’t want to enter: the bother that elder people are to their younger generations. The culprit is a guy who ritualistically kills off older people who aren’t wanted by their families due to poverty. That one scene where the kid asks when he can get his own room: “you’ll get your room as soon as grandfather dies”. “Oh, I hope he dies soon then”.

On a side-note: there’s something I’ve been wondering. It rather annoys me a bit how many people are dismissing this series because it looks “gay” (what’s wrong with homosexuals anyway?). But at the same time, you don’t hear anyone saying this about Death Note (a series that shows quite a few similarities with Himitsu, by the way), even though that too featured a number of *ahem*”bishies”, that even ended up washing each other’s feet at one point.

Kaiba – 03

by psgels, posted in Kaiba


Oh for Christ’s sake! This episode took freaking ages to show up on Share, and even longer to download. I really wonder: how popular is Kaiba in Japan anyways? I remember how even Kaze no Shoujo Emily didn’t run into these problems, and that series probably was one of the least viewed anime around at that time…

Still, this series is pure gold, and I love every single bit of it. I’m an absolute sucker for good series that show how random people deal with its concepts, and Kaiba combines it plot with these random stories in an excellent way. What I especially like his how Kaiba meets the random people, he watches them, but he never interferes with them. He just tries to understand them, and that’s all. The stories of these people would have ended in the same way if Kaiba was never there, and that’s REALLY rare in this genre. It’s a great way of symbolizing the whimsical nature of memory in this series.

I’ve probably said this before, but PLEASE let there be more series like this one in the future. 12 episodes is just criminally short for a series with such a terrific concept. This episode shows a girl who sells her body in order to feed her family. Her memory then gets sent into space, in the hope of someday reaching a new body. Kaiba then steals her body, and ironically enough gets a free ride from the guard, who was sadistic to everyone only an episode ago.

This episode masterfully explores first this case from the perspective of the girl, and once she’s dead it’s the perspective from her stepmother, who was probably the one who suggested the girl to sell her body. The mother first was happy that the girl went, but very soon afterwards, she was full of guilt about what she did.

Kaiba definitely is my top-recommendation for the spring-season. It’s got everything: great graphics, an excellent concept, a fitting soundtrack, terrific characterization, it’s thought-provoking, short enough for a quick watch, and I can go on and on with this list.

xxxHolic – 28

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


And this episode is exactly why I fell in love with the first season! This episode features Watanuki and Yuuko, exploring a certain concept again, just like many episodes in the first season did. Now that I’m watching this series raw, I have even more respect to the fansubbers of this series. Not only do they have to translate, they also have to find out the different jargon that’s used to denote all the different spirits. It took myself quite a while that “Zasshiki Warashi” basically means “Vestal Sprite”.

There aren’t many series that take an in-depth look at their own themes, but the ones that do nearly always turn into real gems. Jigoku Shoujo, Ghost Hound, Mushishi, just to name a few. At first sight, the episodic format of Jigoku Shoujo, Mushishi and xxxHolic might seem distracting, but it’s much easier this way to explore your theme from different angles, rather than through one continuous storyline. That’s also another reason why Ghost Hound deserves so much credit with its looks at psychology.

This episode is about dreams, and about transferring the dreams of others to yourself. In this way, the creators also manage to slip in a bit of foreshadowing about Himawari’s upcoming story-arc (I have no idea what’s up with her, but the manga-readers seem to love her background). There must be at least something wrong with her, if she’s dreaming of giant one-eyed spirits that swallow her. We also manage to see for the first time Domeki’s grandfather, who reveals something interesting about Domeki as a child: he used to dress in girly kimonos. I can’t wait for the next episode to see Domeki’s reaction when he finds out, and even more to Watanuki’s reaction to Domeki’s reaction.

Himitsu ~The Revelation~ – 03

by psgels, posted in Himitsu ~The Revelation~


I must say that Maki has a great personality as a leader. He’s scary, but not in the way that he loses his entire personality. This series has done really well to show that the guy’s got experience. I’m really glad that this season came with so many series with adult-characters. I mean, teenagers are nice and all, but seeing teenagers in every single series does go too far. The picture that these offer is just too one-sided.

In any case, this series really knows how to deliver its mystery well. The picture that the president shredded turned out to be the one of his daughter’s fiancée: Ross Macaulay, who turned out to be a terrorist. The president didn’t know any of this, until the guy delivered a note to the president, telling him to meet at the lighthouse. When the president got stabbed, he realized that his daughter was dating a wrong guy, and yet he tried to protect both her and her fiancée by shredding the picture of him that he carried right before he died, in order to lay as little connection as possible between him and Ross Macaulay.

Aoki realizes this, because he’s in the same situation with his sister. She too is dating the wrong guy, and yet he can’t get himself to separate the two, and he’s always watching from a distance. The great thing about this episode is how everything comes together, and yet it does force you to think about the case. And that’s EXACTLY why I like mystery so much.

Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji – 26

by psgels, posted in Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji


And it’s finally over. I’ve decided not to write a review about this series, though. I’ve watched this series the wrong way, and it turned out to be a big disappointment, save for four or five episodes. I feel that I’m way too biased to give an objective view about this series. It already was difficult to give this series a fair rating during my monthly summaries. Kaiji is a series that you need to marathon, in order to pump yourself up with adrenaline. It’s not something you can watch casually. Having said that, if you haven’t seen this episode yet, you might want to close this window, as SPOILERS will follow.

Overall, this episode disappointed, especially considering the enormous build-up that preceded it. This arc was in no way as intense as the E-card arc, simply because the creators refused to show Kaiji’s reaction after his hands got cut off. And to think that the gore was actually one of the best parts of this series. The raw emotions when seeing Kaiji, cutting off his own ear, and my favourite moment of the entire series: seeing Tonegawa punish himself: even though this series mostly bored me, I have to admit that these moments were truly unrivalled. It was a real downer that the screen just blacked out and we saw Kaiji’s hand wrapped in bondages. If one wants to gamble online they can always see a guide for players here and know how to get better at gambling.

What also disappointed me is that we never really got to look in the mind of Hyoudou, but that’s only natural, since the manga went on for much longer. This episode also hinted at a second season (although with Madhouse, you never know; yes, I’m looking at you, Shigurui), though it that ever comes, I don’t think I’ll end up blogging it.

Having said that, I at least like that this episode wrapped up this entire arc well enough. The aftermath wrapped up all of the loose ends of the storyline, and it didn’t really leave a bad taste behind, apart from what I just mentioned. At least we got to know a bit more about Hyoudou when Kaiji figured out how he won. I like how Kaiji himself figured it out, instead of in regular anime, where the opponent just brainlessly tells his opponent all of his plans. The guy is smarter than he looks, and I like that.

Kaiba – 02

by psgels, posted in Kaiba


Make no mistake: the drawings of Kaiba may be very simple but it’s also the show with the most mature themes of the spring-season. It’s only been two episodes, and we’ve already been treated to nudity, sex, adultery, murder, privacy violations, you name it. At the same time, it has also turned into my favourite series this season, along with Himitsu. The thing I love most about the current spring-season is that it features a few series with the most amazing ideas. This is really what anime should be in my opinion: a medium to explore creative ideas. Not to magically give a cute girlfriend to a geeky guy. (Yes, I’m talking to YOU, To Love-ru!).

This episode showed indeed what the OP suggested: the main character changes bodies throughout the series. In this episode, he changes into the body of a giant plushie, while the woman from the previous episode uses his old body as a sex-object. The main character basically spends the rest of the episode, trying to not get caught as a stowaway on the ship (and he’s not the only one, it seems), and wait until the ship arrivees at its destination. We also get another hint about the female lead, as she seems to be some kind of criminal in that place. Is she the same girl as in the locket that Kaiba (the main character) carries? They sure look similar, apart from some colour-changes, perhaps.

This episode also shows him alongside a companion. Was that the same one-eyed bird we saw in the previous episode? It would make sense if the bird threw its memory-chip inside the ship, so that it could continue to follow Kaiba’s progress. I think it’s clear that Kaiba is a special case, since the body he was in when he woke up is quite a rare one.

Another thing I love about this series is how it explores the lives of different ordinary people. This is one of these series where even the smallest side-characters have themselves a personality. This episode was mainly about one of the stowaways and her boyfriend, as he turns out to have been playing around with many women (among which one huge-breasted one).

The guard also intrigues me. The guy is sadistic towards everyone, and not just the main characters, like in most other anime. I’m interested whether he’ll appear in the rest of this series, because I like the guy so far. He’s really been one of the more interesting evil characters.