Episode four continues to introduce new things, most importantly a few new side-characters and Dennou-style warfare. The newly introduced characters are basically classmates of Yasako and Fumie. We’ve got the henchmen of Daichi, who consist out of a few geeks and one wimpy boy who follows them everywhere, but basically is too scared to do anything. There’s also this girl that lunches along with the two of Yasako and Fumie.
We also get our first clues on Yasako’s past as well. She tries to befriend Isako, but the latter declines. When Yasako keeps asking, Isako reveals that she knows that caused some kind of trouble in her old school. What she actually caused is either never said, or I didn’t pick this up. But the fact remains that this can become very interesting for the future. I could have sworn that Yasako also said that she likes to be friends with everyone, perhaps she acts like this because of her past experience. She also seemed troubled when “Michiko-san” was mentioned.
Most of the episode focuses on Daiichi&co trying to attack Isako, Isako getting back at them, and Fumie taking advantage of the situation to launch a surprise attack on Isako. The boys use another new kind of weapon to attack: teleportation holes, by lack of better names. The shoot cyber-bullets in them and these teleportation holes then shoot these bullets to wherever they’re pointing at. In this case: Isako. The latter, though, proves to be way too skilled for Daichi to handle.
By the way, you have to love the visuals. Certain scenes in particular looked really beautiful, despite the simple character-designs. While Daichi and his friends tried to attack Isako, Fumie meanwhile hasn’t been standing still herself, and once the former have been knocked out, it’s Fumie’s turn to take action, and she actually provides a challenge to Isako, collecting a small piece of information. I’m not sure what kind of information that was, but neither has Fumie, since Fumie, since it turned out unreadable.
Yasako, however, notices one word which rather startles her: Michiko. Who is Michiko-san, and could she be related to the boy that called out Yasako, a few episodes ago? She’s in an interesting position in this anime, by the way. I mean, she’s surrounded by people who are extremely good with the cyber-world, and compared to them, she knows nearly nothing about this, yet she is the main character. Will she get some special role in the future?
This episode also showed how dangerous the virtual world can actually be. It seems that if you overload the glasses, you get hurt yourself as well. Is this some kind of weak point in the whole cyber-world? It’s kind-of freaky that these “toys” can actually become dangerous when used in the wrong hands.
Ah well, this episode was mostly meant to show some stunning visuals and flesh out the characters a bit. It’ll be interesting to see how the characters will react to each other after this episode, and there’s also this matter of why Isako came to the school in the first place. Is the case just as simple as “parent moved”, or is there something in the school she’s looking for?]]>
Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense
Death Note – 33
I love how this episode had lots of different focuses, instead of just spending all of its twenty minutes on Near. I’m really glad to see that despite its bugs in the middle, the ending is shaping up to be something really good. This episode also introduced lots of questions, which actually can all be resolved in the final four episodes.
Near, while silent in the previous episode, finds out quite a few things in the current one: all of Light’s plans, up to the end of the previous episode. Now all that’s left is for him to catch the him, though Light isn’t sitting still either, as Near was arrogant enough to inform Kira that he knows all about him. Light’s plan was to turn Mikami in yet another decoy. He would walk around with a fake Death Note, while Takada cleans the world of criminals with five pages of the Death Note she received. At the end of the episode, we get a small demonstration of how well this works, when Mikami seemingly kills someone in front one of Near’s henchmen, while he in fact made a phone call to Takada, who really killed him. But then again, it probably won’t take long for Near to figure out about this as well. What’s going to be your next step, Light?
Near also showed something very interesting this episode, apart from his doll fetish: he thinks that L would never use murder in order to solve his cases. He never knew that L was actually about to use human lives as a guinea-pigs for his investigations. Heck, he never knew that L’s very first move on Kira was made possible by the sacrifice of Lind L Taylor.
Another surprising focus of this episode was Misa. I believed that she was just written out of the show when she lost her memories, but she’s actually still important to the plot. I’m not sure how, but her little date with Takada must mean that something is going to happen to her in the future. I was quite surprised by all the things Misa said while drunk, and on second watch I realized this too was all a plan by Light. I first thought that this was meant for Takada to give Misa her memories back, but it was actually to confuse Near, since Takada had one of her bodyguards, whom she knew was one of Near’s henchmen standing right next to her. The question remains: why was this necessary?
Another question: what has Mello been up to?]]>
Ayatsuri Sakon – 21
Hah! It’s just as I hoped, now that the ending is coming closer, the arcs are getting better and better! This episode reminded me again why I started blogging this series, and it’s quite possible that the current arc will be able to match up to the first two arcs. One thing’s for sure: this is one of the most touching arcs yet, only rivalled by episode seven. I especially loved the climax.
The case this time centres around a young woman (Hoshie). Sakon, Ukon and Zenkichi (I was surprised seeing him among the main characters, he works perfect as a side-character, in my opinion) run into her, and it seems that her sister (Tsukiko), who used to be a nurse committed suicide after making a mistake that killed her fiancé’s sister. Right now, her “ghost” haunts the local graveyard.
There are lots of juicy details to this mystery. For starters, Tsukiko was a strong person, who according to her sister would never kill herself for such a thing as accidentally killing someone. She endured a lot of hardships in the past, while she had to take care of her sister as well after her parents died. For her to commit suicide was just highly improbable. In fact, I actually believe that it was Tsukiko herself who committed the obligatory “first kill” at the end of the episode.
Hoshie also has her own problems. Remember the fiancé? After the tragedy, he started gambling and accumulated quite a bit of debt. He then kept begging Hoshie for money to pay these off. During the episode, this guy really looked like a miserable fellow, and he also was the first to fall victim to the plans of the killer, possibly killed by his former girlfriend.]]>
Bokura no – 08
This episode once again was amazing, even though I can assume that the manga-fans will dislike it. The greatest parts of the episode were the revelations at the end of the episode. Chizuru’s story was toned down from the things I’ve heard about her. I think this was to be expected, though. Gonzo does remain notorious for not keeping to their original source-material. I’ve yet to see one of their adaptations that wasn’t frowned upon by the fans of the originals.
But, having not read the Bokura no manga, I don’t care. This show rocks!
Chizuru’s downfall may have not been as shocking as Masaru’s, but certain parts of the episode were really touching. I originally thought that the flashback of episode seven happened before the events of episode five, but now it seems that Chizuru found out about her teacher somewhere in-between episodes 5 and 6. She still hates the guy, and in fact she plans to use Zearth to kill the guy. Her sister manages to save the guy, and even then he leaves the show with a bad impression, fleeing away like a little coward while his girlfriend can die any minute now.
Chizuru raises some interesting questions, reminiscent of the end of Jigoku Shoujo. If you’re going to die, why not take someone along with you? The only difference here is that Chizuru has ten people around her, who see her do these things. In the end, though, nobody can find a good reason to stop her from nearly killing her teacher.
The things that happen afterwards, though, are even better, when Yoko convinces Chizuru to fight the enemy. Especially when she told her that everybody’s going to have to do the same thing, which is quite ironic, see below. The then finishes off the enemy, and turns silent, while holding her hands around her belly.
And then the aftermath comes, with a really disturbing revelation. If you look at Zearth’s face, you could see a number of lights on it. When Chizuru died, two of these lights disappeared. In the end, these lights turned out to be the life-energy of the different children. When Chizuru died, the baby she carried also didn’t survive, which caused two of these lights to disappear.
But now the strange thing: there are eleven children left, but Zearth’s face only has nine lights left burning. This means that Kana will be surviving this whole drama, since she never enlisted. That, however, leaves another child who will be spared. One child will remain alive, while witnessing all her friends die in front of her eyes. There’s still the problem of Kokopelli, who seems to have mentioned that there will be fifteen enemies. Now that four of them have died, eleven will be left. This problem, however, can be solved, when it seems that the army is willing to offer sacrifices for the last two enemies. But who could the person who will survive be? After looking at some screenshots of the first episode, I think I know.
It’s Yoko! Remember, every one of the children enlisted properly, though she refused, and Takashi took her hand and forced her to sign up. I have no idea why, but that seemed not enough for her to become a pilot. Hence the irony when she told Chizuru that every one of them will be piloting Zearth and dying afterwards as well: everyone will, apart from herself. That’s why the OP features her, standing right next to a destroyed city! Obviously, this is 100% speculation, but it makes by far the most sense from all of the children.]]>
Dennou Coil – A Circle of Children – 03
That was another excellent episode, if I had to say so myself. It’s meant to develop the other character called “Yuuko”, or Yuuko II, as I’m going to refer to her from now on. This probably is one of the few anime that dares to feature two characters with the same name. Anyway, this episode still continued to introduce new things, how more extensive can this world get? Anyway, my favourite new feature was the phone, which you use by putting your thumb near your ear and your pinkie near your mouth. That really would be so cool if we had this in the real world. ^^;
Anyway, the chase which started in the previous episode comes to an abrupt halt when Mega-Baa’s back starts complaining. She gives Kyoko, who happened to be passing by the feature she displayed at the previous episode, but instead of catching the fur-balls, Kyoko starts zapping everything she runs into. ^^; The fur-balls then finally manage to catch Densuke. He’s quite a smart dog, by the way, outsmarting these fur-balls for so long. Him, crying in the trashcan does show that he’s got a few human traits.
With the help of Oyaji, Yuuko and Fumie are able to track down Densuke, though. But then two Sacchis appear, I think that they’re after both the illegal and the fur-balls Yuuko II set free. I’ve been wondering, though, what happens if you get seriously hit by a Sacchi? I mean, it is the virtual world after all, but the reactions of Fumie, Yuuko and Yuuko II seem to suggest that these huge moving child toys are actually very dangerous.
Anyway, eventually Yuuko II gets her hands on Densuke, by tricking Yuuko. She then gets the illegal out of the creature, and then sticks a key inside a keyhole that just appeared on this illegal. I first thought that she wanted to destroy it, but in the end, her goal doesn’t seem to be getting rid of all illegals in the world (but then again, we’ve got Sacchis for that). It seems that there was something inside of that illegal, but it blew up before she could get this out of the creature. The explosion did quite a bit of damage to the surroundings as well. Heck, it looked like a virtual earthquake had just occurred. Quite interesting.
It’s also quite interesting that Yuuko II doesn’t need any meta-tags. Instead, she just has to draw lines on the floor with chalk. The simple, Full Metal Alchemist-like ones create shrines, while the more complex (and very interesting-looking, by the way) ones are able to halt creatures like the Sacchi for a while. It’s interesting that unlike FMA, the drawings themselves actually have a lot in common with their functions. The four lines, symbolizing a shrine, with a closed circle drawn around it makes perfect sense for if you want to protect yourself, after all.]]>
Death Note – 32
When I first learned about Mihael and Near, I feared that the two of them would be the only two new characters for the anime. The past episodes have really surprised me with Takada and Mikami, two new major characters. So far, I like them better than the two of Mihael and Near. It’s probably because they really do what they believe in, and they stand for that. M and N are just playing a treasure hunt, trying to beat each other while using finding Kira as a goal. They don’t really have ideals that they stand for, unlike L, for instance. But then again, they are just children.
Perhaps that’s why I liked this episode so much. Mihael only appeared for two seconds, and Near was entirely gone. Instead, it focused on flashing out Mikami and Takama. It’s interesting, Light may have found an ally with Mikami, who is completely on his side, the fact does remain that the guy is obsessed with justice. The scenes where he wrote down his victims’ names showed this, and his background, which got shown at the beginning of the episode, does explain the source for his behaviour.
Takama also turned out very interesting, it’s a clever trick for the first half to have shown a bit of her, only to really use her in the later half. I wonder what turned her to side with Kira so easily. We know Mikami’s background now, but I’d like to know a bit more of her as well. I do hope, though, that she won’t turn into a damsel-in-distress. Remember that Near is currently suspecting Light Yagami. He’ll probably rejoice when he finds out the guy has a girlfriend. It’ll be quite easy to get information out of her, unless she somehow proves that she knows what she’s doing in the future episodes.
This episode did an excellent job in building up. Even though it wasn’t anything exciting, it set a good base for the finale to begin. It’s hard to imagine that there are only five episodes left. I’ve already been spoiled about the ending, though I do wonder how it’ll happen. If I had to guess, then this was the last of the slow episodes, and the pace should really start kicking in, in all shounen-series fashion.]]>
Bokura no – 07
Okay, it seems that my theory of two episodes per pilot still holds, it’s just not as static as I thought. This probably was the most focused episode of Bokura no yet, when it focuses on just Chizuru, with a bit of Isao and Yosuki. The rest of the cast never even appeared. I originally believed that Chizuru would be the pilot in this episode, but it’s entirely focused on a flashback of her, explaining her background and making her the most fleshed-out character so far.
Chizuru’s case: she wants to do her best in school, but her parents just think that she’d go to the same school as her sister did. She doesn’t really feel appreciated by anyone, and believes that nobody cares about her. Then she meets a teacher (the one she spoke about two episodes ago) who does support her, and the two start to have an affair. The only problem is that Chizuru fell in love with the wrong person, as he’s one of these guys who posts pictures and videos of the two of them doing “it” on a website. Not only that, he also has an affair with her sister at the same time.
So far, I liked this episode a lot, but somehow I feel that the juiciest details have been saved for the next episode. It should focus on Chiruzu’s turn to be the pilot, but something tells me that the fight isn’t going to take a massive 20 minutes. And after all, a still of her background is still missing: the reason why she returned to the guy, even though she knew he was hitting on her sister. in episode five, we clearly see her remember her teacher without any feelings of hate, so some things are still about to happen.
The question also remains: what will she do once she’s going to pilot Zearth? It’s not like she has a reason to kick the enemy mecha’s ass, like Masaru and Takeshi did. Also, this episode has been the perfect example of lazy animators. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that the same animation-teams from NHK ni Youkoso worked on this anime.
I like the way this anime is going, so far, by the way. Apart from Masaru, the pilots chosen so far have been the least interesting ones at first glance. I’m really curious to seeing a bit more of Yosuki, what was in his mind when Isao bullied him. I’d also love to see Aiko and Takami break down when their turn begins, and I’m really looking forward to finding out more about Jun and Kana. In fact, the only meh-character remaining would be Maki. We’ve seen a bit of things from her, but so far she seems like the most normal character around.
Finally, I’ve been wondering something… I finally realized in this episode that each new pilot gets a marking. But why didn’t Takashi, Masaru and Kokopelli get this mark? Or was this mark on their bodies, instead of their faces so that we’d never get to see it?]]>
Dennou Coil – A Circle of Children – 02
That was the coolest old lady ever!!
Seriously, though. This episode showed that Dennou Coil doesn’t only have a huge amount of imagination, it also showed that this series is going to be heaps of fun. Most of the episode was standard character-fleshing out, but I loved the climax. It starts with Yuuko and Fumie escaping from the strange red creature called “Sacchi” by hiding near a shrine. Apparently, shrines and schools are off-limits to them.
Then we see a bit more about the girl we saw briefly in the previous episode. She seems to be after the black speck, which seems to be called an “illegal”, or computer virus. It seems that this virus has entered Densuke, and isn’t planning to let go of him soon, as later in the episode showed. She sends a bunch of strange furballs to track it down.
We then get to see the rest of Yuuko’s family. Her grandmother runs a cyber-tore, where all kinds of strange items and cyber-items can be bought. She and her daughter (aka Yuuko’s mother) seem to be arguing a lot, though, so I wonder what made them move in to this city in the first place. Yuuko’s grandfather seems to be dead, but notice the picture she has of him on his death altar and understand why the two ended up married with each other. 😛
I also wonder, if you pet a cyber-pet, do you feel anything? I mean, Yuuko touched Densuke like it was an actual animal. And if you can feel it, what happens if a cyber-pet bumps into someone who doesn’t wear glasses? I also kept wondering what “unchi” meant, so I decided to look it up….
I wish I didn’t. It seems that Kyoko learned a new word recently…
This episode, I also noticed the use of papers for all kinds of purposes. One version attempted to cure Densuke (either that, or to stop the virus from downloading stuff), and one was even able to change the lights in a traffic light. They seem to be produced from these strange crystals that were introduced in the previous episode (sorry, forgot their names), which does explain why Fumie charges these crystals instead of money for her services.
When Yuuko’s grandmother also sells something to her, she seems have gotten a number as well (8). Fumie herself is 7, while grandmother herself is 0. I’m not sure what these numbers mean, though.
The awesomeness in the episodes begins with a strange dream Yuuko has, which suggests that the mysteries in Dennou Coil go way deeper than what meets the eye. Inside this dream, someone who claims to be Yuuko’s brother and stuck in one of the shrines asks her to free him. The next day, Kyoko gets the “interesting” idea of using her cyber-crayons on Densuke, with hilarious results. The furballs then make their move, though, and when Kyoko grabs one of them, it actually manages to zap her, which causes her arms to get all… cybered up, by lack of proper term.
Yuuko’s grand mother, however, then shows that she doesn’t run a cyber-shop for no reason, as she starts chasing them and the episode ends. That was really nice, and I feel that there are many more mysteries that will be introduced in the next couple of episodes.]]>
Death Note – 31
Okay…
I didn’t see that coming…
You know, that new plot twist was quite good, and surprising as well. I never thought that Light would give away the only Death Note he had left to someone he didn’t even know personally. I suspect that he’s found a way to continuously keep touching either a couple of pages torn out of it or just a snippet, but the fact does remain that he doesn’t have the faith of the world in his own hands anymore.
Especially Misa shocked me. She’s horrible when she’s not serious, but when she gets involved with serious events she turns out very interesting. I can’t believe she’s just returned to a regular housewife like this. And suddenly, she wrote herself out of the show. We probably won’t see any major role from her until after the aftermath, or something.
Still, I’m glad that Light finally made another move like this, that is risky but brilliant at the same time. I can’t believe he actually believed that he’d get Near with the plan he came up in the previous episode. Even when Near didn’t have the possession of such an amount of money, or even if he didn’t manage to contact the police, he just could have used a secret underground stairway, or some kind of helicopter and Misa would’ve never seen his face. Luckily, when he realized that Near actually got away Light fortunately got a bit back to earth, and finally acknowledged Near as an enemy he should take serious. Near’s going to have a hard time proving that Light will be Kira with the notebook gone.
Also, we’ve got a new hair-colour: green! I think that this shows that Aizawa is on neither’s side. I do wonder what he’ll do from now on, after Mikami killed everyone on Demegawa’s show. After all, Light could never have known the names of the people Demegawa selected, since they were shown on TV for the first time.]]>
Bokura no – 06
I just don’t know how to start this entry… it just was so… disturbing. Bokura no is just grabbing me like no other series this season, and at this point, it’s become my personal favourite of all the anime I’m currently watching. You can really see that the same mangaka for Narutaru worked on this, and Narutaru already was amazing.
This episode can be best described by a quote from Takami: “if we do find him, what should we do?” Isao had been missing since the previous episode, and it’s only natural for the others to try and find him. Yosuki, Takami, Moji, Chizuru, Aiko and Yoko did, at least. I’m not sure about the others. Jun probably didn’t care enough, and Kana didn’t have something to tag along with. Kanji has shown that he’s got a relaxed personality, so he probably doesn’t worry too much, which is probably why he didn’t come. Daiichi feels a bit distant from the group, somehow, which could explain why we didn’t see him. I’m not sure where Maki and Mako went, though. I can see Mako being too shy to come, but Maki did show in the previous episode that she definitely cares about everyone.
Anyway, this pretty much is a Chizuru-episode, in which she tries to find Isao, who has been turned crazy by the premonition that he’s going to die. I kept wondering how he’d pilot Zearth in a state like his, but this episode showed that he’s probably one of the few to actually die without having piloted Zearth when Chizuru kills him after he tried to assault her.
The only bad point about Bokura no that I can really think of is that we just know that Chizuru will be the next pilot. While it would be awesome to see someone else in the pilot’s seat, she’s the only one whose background is fleshed out enough for it. Still, I loved how Chizuru blamed herself for killing Isao, and that she didn’t try to find some kind of excuse.
Another thing I just realized is that the OP indeed shows little blurbs of what’s to come. I really noticed it after watching this episode, as it shows both Chizuru and Isao in the aquarium, and I actually recognized these scenes. Based on this, I’m especially curious as to what Yoko’s scene means, when she stands in front of a burning city.]]>