Death Note – 10 – “L, do you know love apples? Shinigami”

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One thing about Light and L irks me a bit. They’re great characters, which match each other perfectly, though I’m beginning to fear that the creators went a bit too far into making them as perfect as possible, aside from a few flaws. I can understand that Light has to be rather smart in order to carry off his plans, but making him end up with perfect scores of one of the most prestigious universities in Japan is going a bit too far. Also, making both Light and L tennis champions does the same thing, and it’s not like these things add anything to the story.

Anyway, apart from that, this episode was as fun as usual. This time, it focuses on L’s attempts to unmask Light. It was interesting to see small flaws in both their deductions and Light’s acting. One thing the tennis game was good for is to symbolize the constant dialogue between Light and L. It’s also interesting to see that Light does care about his father. As the episode progresses, Light keeps making small flaws, which raises L’s suspicion of him. Until his father has a heart attack. Because of this, Light’s acting skills suddenly turn up a level, and L’s suspicions of him actually decrease. This’ll be interesting for later.

The new arc, introduced at the end of the episode, seems pretty interesting, as in I’d love to see Light and L’s reaction to the sudden announcement, made by the fake Kira. Furthermore, who made that tape in the first place? It also seems that another climax is going to arrive in about two or three episodes again, in comparison to the last three episodes, which mainly focused on Light and L’s relationships. I’ll be looking forward to it. 🙂

Red Garden – 08 – A Light Mood

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After the events of the previous episode, Hervé takes a step back again and disappears in order to make way for the most light-hearted episode yet. The girls finally have formed a real team. This does make you wonder about this anime will continue. Kate, Rose and Claire will probably get their moments in which their surroundings turn against them, just like the case was with Rachel, a few episodes ago. But will the girls remain friends, or will they turn against each other at a certain point?

The one who surprised me the most this time was Rachel. It’s only been eight episodes, and she’s already had a huge change of personality. More than any other character probably ever managed. It’s really awkward to see the once angsty and rebellious Rachel in a care-free, friendly and cheerful mood. But that makes her character even better to watch. I also loved it when she picked out the high heels, and started commenting on whether they would make nice weapons in front of her friends. I actually laughed along with her as the scene evolved. ^^

I’m also wondering about Paula’s role in this. What exactly are her motives? Why is she so nice towards Kate? I think it’s got to do something with the reason why she picked out Kate in the first place, though something tells me that there’s something deeper behind this. Claire’s secret weapon also was a very nice touch. If you want to relieve your anger on your phone because it’s been cut, why not take a zombified guy along with it in the process? Something’s also telling me that she’ll be having some problems during the next episode, due to the fact that she quit her job, and can’t find any other. I’m interested in how she’ll develop.

Jigoku Shoujo – 32 – A bike, a cell-phone and a bowling-ball

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Hah! The best episode in the second season so far, for the first time in these six episodes, the creators really managed to make me sympathize with this case. They managed to put down an touching case about a rather overweight boy with health problems, which forces him to attend classes in the school hospital. Because of this, his mother acts overprotective, his father yells at him, he gets bullied in the middle of the class, people laugh at him, and because of this, he rather lost his will to live. Then he ran into one girl, who didn’t laugh at him. Ever since, he’s been stalking her.

I liked how at first, the guy appears to be some kind of stalking idiot, who’s been obsessed over a girl for no reason. But as the episode progresses, we get to know him more and more. After a while, it really becomes clear that he doesn’t have any friends, and has given up on socializing with others. Then the arrival of this girl came as a real godsent.

Though the real good part of the episode came when he finds out that the girl is in danger. His only solution is to ask Ai, though she refuses. This means that if he wants to save the girl, he has to act on his own. In the end, he’s too scared, and the girl gets raped. Only the day after, he finds out that because he didn’t interfere, the girl sent the bad guy to hell herself, and he’s finally decides to start acting on his own. Great twist, loved it. Awesome episode.

I also liked the small girl during this episode, even though she mostly served as comic relief by calling Hone Onna and Wanyuudo Grandma and Baldie. It’s good for them to have a bit of comic relief, as it does develop them, in a away.

Death Note – 09 – “This Damn Death Note is Totally Useless.”

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As with episode 7, we have another episode solely dedicated to one event: L, walking up to Light and telling him that he’s L. It’s an interesting tactic, as this now makes sure that Light can’t just kill L, even if he knew his name, as L figured that Light figured that L would tell the police about his plans. Still, I’m not sure he did. We never see him, in any case.

In a way, L is acting very irresponsible. Right now, he’s acting purely on his instincts, instead of common knowledge. Okay, he’s right. But what if he were wrong? It’s almost like he’s got some kind of Shinigami on his side as well. Speaking of the devil (pun intended), what will the role of the Shinigami be in this story? We see quite a few of them in the OP, but so far, all they’ve been doing is sit around and playing cards. Will they perhaps become relevant in the later parts of this anime? I could imagine that one would tell L about the Death Note out of boredom.

I’m looking forward to the next episode, as then, the real cat-and-mouse game between Kira and L will begin. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of tricks they’ve got up their sleeve. I’ve also been wondering… how old is L exactly? He must be pretty old in order to be able to build up such a large reputation, but he looks like he’s about Lights age. Or has he been a genius detective ever since he was a child? Which reminds me… I’d love to see some scenes about Light and L when they were young. 🙂

Night Head Genesis – 18 – Awesome Episode :)

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Haha! That was an awesome episode. I can’t believe how good Night Head Genesis turned out. It had a few bumps in the middle, but right now, the episodes have been getting better and better. This definitely was one of the best episodes of Night Head Genesis yet.

The episode has a fast pacing. So many things happened at once, but the great thing is that this episode develops so many different side-characters of this anime. Especially the ones who were introduced in the previous episode. The episode already starts out great with the video-tape. Futami Yoshiki’s case did seem a bit boring when I saw him at the end of the previous episode, but now he starting to tell about himself and his own history, he suddenly turns very interesting. It seems that he has two kinds of powers: to see things at places, miles away from him and to enter the internet itself, sort of like Serial Experiments Lain. He then got caught up in these powers, though Natsuko, the girl from the previous episode, changed this, and turned into his only support. Great scene. 🙂

Then, Asano-kun comes, and the episode takes a strange twist when he invites them to the Ark-company. Another new character is introduced there, Okuhara Akiko’s assistant. He seems to have the power to cancel all other psychic powers, making him very reliable. He seems to chain the Upheaval to total destruction. Here, Naoya once again displays how much he’s grown when he actually tries to prove the guy wrong. This is something he wouldn’t be able to do at the beginning of this anime.

Overall, it was a very interesting conversation, full of thought-provoking elements and references. But what followed really was awesome as we first see Naoto really get serious with his powers. 🙂 The three antagonists from the Mikuriya-arc play a strange role in this, serving only to be killed off by him. Boy, he looked scary when he did that. Great fight, and it actually gave a lot of answers. Later, the scenes only turn even more awesome when Shoko appears. She’s getting more lost in her powers, and now she even won’t be able to return to the temporary dimensions she creates. I don’t know what it is, but she’s turning more awesome every time she appears on the screen.

The episode closes with another very interesting confirmation. The reason why Ark exterminated the persons they did is because of Okuhara Akiko’s predictions. She saw that they could form a thread, so she ordered their extermination. Surprisingly, Hirose Reiko also possessed psychic powers. That’s probably why she reacted so strongly when touched by Naoya. Great to see how pieces of the puzzle are slowly being solved. 🙂

Seriously, if the rest of the anime turns out as good as this episode, we’re really in for some awesome finale. One detail I also loved was the balloon. We see it several times in the episode, one time when it’s been stuck on a pole, and during later scenes, we actually see it float upwards in the background. Love the symbolism.

Red Garden – 07 – What is Cruel?

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The major character in this episode? Surprisingly, it’s Hervé. This episode was really meant to introduce his case a bit, and some interesting things are revealed about Lise. Still, it’s not yet clear why he killed the other four girls.

It seems that he and his family are different from normal humans. The episode starts with a flashback, in which his mother dies, and turns into one of the monsters we’ve been seeing. I think the creators were better off showing some of his experiences with his mother first, before they killed her. It would probably have made this scene more emotional that it is now.

In any case, he’s got a good reason to act as Lula’s antagonist. I’m not sure with how many they are, but his kind has the tendency to transform into monsters as soon as they die. Right now, his little sister and his cousin are about to suffer the same fate. It seems that his grandfather is in charge of the research, attempting to cure them, though Hervé is getting more impatient by the minute. He also starts singing, at one point. I really have to pity these voice actors. They’re really doing something they aren’t used to, but the effects are great.

Two other major characters in this episode were Claire and Kate. Claire seems to be the next one to break down, seeing as Rachel cooled down a bit. Right now, she’s starting to shout to random people as well, which made her lose her job. Kate, meanwhile, moves into the opposite direction. She’s actually getting active with her Grace-responsibilities again. It’s indeed a good way to distract yourself, but I do feel that this won’t last forever, and that she’ll have her time to break down as well.

Red Garden – 06 – Keep Winning

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The previous episodes haven’t really been focusing on one character in specific, but this really was a Rachel-episode. At one point, she was even at the verge of committing suicide. I think that she’s the only one acting like this because she believes that she doesn’t have anyone to rely on. Rose has to be strong for her siblings, while Kate can feel, in a certain way safe, when she’s with Paula and Claire has found methods of distracting herself from these kinds of tensions, not to mention that the three have found support in each other.

Rachel actually has the most friends of all of the girls, but she doesn’t seem to realize this. Because she’s been living with such a rebellious attitude, she never really understood the support that friends can give at troublesome moments. Lula gets to be the one to bring her out of her suicidal tendencies with an interesting revelation: she can be able to get her old body back, as long as she keeps winning. When everything is over, she’ll be able to return to her previous life.

Still, the other characters also got their share of screen time. The most important probably were them, discovering their old bodies, and an interesting find by Kate. For some reason, when the girls are building up power when they feel stressed, they start to get an extremely dry throat. Eating a lemon actually helps to cure that. I’m suspecting that Kate will force Rachel to eat one of these in the next episode, as it’s really obvious that she’s extremely bothered by her dry throat. The blond guy, apparently named Hervé, will probably also benefit from these lemons. It seems that he’s got two little sisters who suffer from a similar problem. It’s probably one of the reasons he’s doing the things he does, though I feel that we have yet to reach the bottom of his problems.

I also like the meaning behind the ED a lot. We first have an episode full of tragedy and sadness, and afterwards all characters just go to a rock concert, and have fun like nothing ever happened. Nice contrast.

Death Note – 08 – Weirdness

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When I accidentally read a few facts about this episode, it seemed that this episode would feature some potato-chips-bag-opening-action. I didn’t think much behind it, though it’s almost scary how Light ripped open that bag and started eating. Death Note surely has some of the more creative “action”-scenes I’ve seen in a while.

In any case, this was a fun episode. As the previous episode featured a big climax, the current episode takes a step back again, and the creators start to introduce even more strange quirks in the characters. This episode was really meant in order to flesh out all of the different characters. For starters, Watari treats every member of the investigation to a cone of strangely coloured ice-cream. After a lot of searching, L finally found something suspicious with the surveillance tapes where Ray Penbar was captured: the envelope. Therefore, the ones who were investigated by Ray Penbar have gotten cameras installed in their house.

Then, back at Light’s side, it seems that Ryuk starts acting very weird when he suffers from a lack of apples. Very weird, though very funny as well. Because of this, Light has found a good way to manipulate him and now knows the location of every camera in the house. Light meanwhile displays his extreme chips-eating skills and Light´s father shows some interesting reactions when it seems that his family might be under suspicion. Quite good. After seeing the surveillance on Light, L also gets his first suspicions on Light himself. It seems he’s reminded of himself. ^^;

Also, this episode also showed a good example of lazy animators. It’s been a strange episode this time, in contrast with the previous ones. A very good one as well, mainly due to the weirdness and L’s reaction to Light’s behaviour.

Jigoku Shoujo – 31 – A Helmet, a Phone and a Wallet

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Ooh! An episode which deviates from the standard Jigoku Shoujo-episodes. As usual with these kinds of episodes, it offers a very nice perspective. For the first time in the second season, we’ve got a cast of male characters, instead of the usual females. The victim this time is an otaku, who’s being bullied by the resident streetpunk. Still, for the first time, we actually see someone refusing the straw doll. He hates the guy, but he actually isn’t willing to go to hell for it.

Then it seems that the streetpunk has troubles of his own. There’s this high school girl he’s fallen in love with, though his superiors have taken her hostage, planning to rape her. Because of this, he sends the guy to hell. Still, the fact remains that he’s an idiot. The twist of the episode was a bit forced, though. He had to die right after his revenge was carried out.

Wanyuudo also got his moment in the spotlight, though in a different way from Ichimoku-ren and Hone Onna in the second and third episode. Wanyuudo behaves more like the resident old guy, who keeps complaining how people nowadays lack any sort of respect and dignity. While he is right about one point – some humans really need to get a smack in the head – he doesn’t look at the normal people, or the fact that evil in humanity has always existed.

Night Head Genesis – 17 – Sayonara

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Quite a fast pacing. In one episode, the creators ended the parents-arc, eliminated Sonezaki from the main storyline and introduced two new arcs: The Ark-arc and the Futama Yoshiki-arc.

The episode starts like it’s turning back to episode 12 and 13, and it seems like the series returned towards mediocrity again. Sonezaki plays mind games with Naoto, Naoto gets angry, and Sonezaki basically has Naoto in the palm of his hand, the usual stuff. Luckily, Naoya changes this, when he accidentally calls his father “father”, which makes him suspect that he really is her son. Sonezaki then gets interesting when he uses his powers to do something again, but is engulfed by them before he can actually use them. Inside his mind, he gets confronted by a number of people important to him: his mother, his father and even Kariya. In the end, he sees Shouko, before he turns mad.

Still, the damage is done. Naoto and Naoya’s parents have seen Naoto use his powers, and had the same look in their eyes as when they were young. I think that this will be the last we’ll see of them. What follows is a small note from Shouko, passed on through Naoya’s dream. “Men hate conflict, men love conflict. But if you don’t experience either one of them, you won’t be able to overcome the warlike instinct.” An interesting message, though what symbolizes it? What is Ark trying to do?

Then we finally see mastermind behind Ark. It’s an old woman in a wheelchair. She seems to be incredibly powerful. And just when you think that we’ve found our main villain, she claims that a certain “they” will make their move tonight. Does she refer to Naoto and Naoya, or another, third party? The events which followed suggested that the latter, as Naoto and Naoya don’t really have plans for that night.