Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

Ergo Proxy – 19 – Smile!

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy


I loved this episode! It was another wacky one, but seriously, I kept smiling over the entire episode. Heck, I’m even smiling as I type this. Pino was SO awesome during this episode. Not to mention the huge wave of symbolism. If you ever need to smile for one reason or another, watch this episode!

The case is like this: we have a Proxy, in yet another dome. This one has created his own world: Smile World. It’s a world in which everyone keeps smiling continuously. But now, Vincent is approaching. In a last desperate attempt, he contacts Pino, in order to find out his weakness. Instead, she opens up his eyes with her smile.

Pino starts out in the local garbage dump. Smile World is full of all sorts of fun attractions, though the unpopular ones get discarded. In the garbage dump, Pino meets up with two discarded cartoons: Hanapeko and Pure. They’re incredibly happy and carefree, even though they’ve been considered trash. An interesting note is that they’re actually auto-raves. They then begin to make a wish, in order to get out of trouble: meet the creator of the world: Will B. Good, aka, the Proxy.

Something very interesting is a poster, advertising a movie about the end of the world, in which Vincent in Ergo-Proxy-mode is destroying a huge number of buildings. What if these prophecies actually have some truth into them? What if Vincent is destined to destroy the world? In any case, every Proxy seems to know Vincent, and his reputation.

Then, a strange cricket appears. He’s very serious and goal-oriented, in contrast with the care-free Hanapeko and Pure. His name is Hopper, and he tries to get Pino to dump her new-found friends and take her to Will B. Good. This doesn’t really work. The foursome escapes from the garbage dump, which gets filled with water afterwards. Hopper gets annoyed by the carefreeness of Hanapeko and Pure, as they seem to have changed their goals yet again: go to Will B. Good and find out the reason they were created. Interesting questions, coming from them. I especially like the way their personality seems to clash with that of Hopper’s. He just can’t accept that there are people who live for the moment.

Hopper then begins to ask Pino about Vince’s weaknesses, which indeed reveals that she’s with some kind of Proxy. What happens afterwards is Pino, Hanapeko and Pure discovering the surface, and they get to see the amusement park of the Smile World. As they’ve got no tickets, they’re in trouble and some dogs with very large heads appear. Pino has great fun evading them in one of the attractions. While she does this, everyone begins to notice that she has an incredibly sincere and real smile. Something everyone in Smile World is lacking. She was SO cute at that moment.

Later, the foursome has been captured after all. Pino also mentions Raul for a moment while Hanapeko and Pure change their goals yet again: become real customers and have real smiles. They then get interrogated by the same guards as before. For some reason, the reason for the dogs to have such big heads is that they were wearing masks. In any case, the interrogators are so impressed by Pino’s smile that they forget their initial reasons.

Hopper then loses his patience and sends them directly to Will B. Good. Will reveals that it’s extremely difficult to give people a constant smile. That’s why he needs total control, in order to protect this perfect smile. It’s ironic that all these smiles are fake. Each citizen of Smile World is ignorant about everything happening outside of the surface. That’s why they can remain to be “happy”.

Will then starts asking Pino about Vincent’s weaknesses, and his treasure. He does this by putting up a fake smile. His creations recognize the fakeness of his smile, after having seen Pino, and they turn against him. Will then resorts to his last option: beg Pino to stop Vincent. If Vincent and him meet, they’ll have to fight. When they fight, Will will lose, and everyone in Smile World will die. Including the friends Pino made. Pino then wakes up, and she manages to convince Vincent to stay away from Will. Especially the way the episode ended was awesome.

It’s a happy end, isn’t it? On the other side, the citizens of Smile World still have all of their freedom taken away. They still know nothing. They still keep smiling forever, with a fake smile. Unless Will has learned something from Pino. It’s interesting to wonder what he’ll be doing afterwards. I don’t think we’ll ever get to see what happens with Smile World after this episode.

Also, the fact remains that Pino is an Autorave. Just what is the Cogito-virus anyway? Why has it been released? If I remember it correctly, it was released to stop the Proxies, but it backfired. Still, Pino showed how the Cogito-virus can work effectively. She got love and care from Vincent. Iggy got ignorance from Real. That’s why they ended up the way they did. But to think that Pino would be so life-like. She’s actually making her own decisions during this episode. She doesn’t copy from anyone, like she did in the earlier episodes.

Ayatsuri Sakon – 11 – Kyouichi, Futaba, Miho and Shiho

by psgels, posted in Ayatsuri Sakon


I now realize that most people don’t really know how to obtain this series. The easiest way is through the link below, in which the Ayatsuri Sakon Project has provided downloads for episodes 1-10 and fifteen. Episodes 11-14 can be downloaded through regular bittorrent.

http://asp.dryfire.org

Anyway, about the episode. It promises to be a great arc once more. This time, it’s about a man with a mask, who’s been killing random villagers with a cursed blade. Sakon’s visiting the family who plays a major part in this murder drama. Let’s get on with the characters:

Sakon. He’s been rather cute at the beginning of the episode, when he got so much appraisal by the different members of the family. He remained a bit in the background this episode, in order to let the problem fully explain itself.

Shiho plays the role for the important side-character this time. She’s innocent in any case. Why am I so sure of this? Because she appears in the OP, alongside all of the other important side-characters. She’s the only one who believes in her brother’s innocence. I think this is because he used to play with her very often. She’s got a typical big-brother complex. She’s a bit rude to Sakon in the beginning, though this changes when she sees Ukon in action.

Kyouichi is the eldest brother of the four children of the family. He stole the sword, Byakko, crafted by the famous Muramasa, from his father and ran off with it. Afterwards, three murders on random villagers occurred and he never even returned. It’s indeed easy to label him as the main suspect, but I doubt that he actually was the one. It’ll be very interesting to see his back-story, though.

Akizuki Soushirou is the father of the family. What happened to the mother, we never know. He’s an old man with an obsession for swords, old weaponry and puppets. Around the middle of the episode, the message gets in that yet another villager has been killed. He then secretly leaves the house, rather nervously, to meet up with Kyouichi. This ends up with him getting killed by the killer. At the end of the episode, we find his body at a place, other than where he was killed. Why would the killer go through so much trouble to move a body?

Miho is the third daughter of Akizuki. She’s the one who suspects her older brother with the most enthusiasm. It seems that it’s been quite a shock when she found out what she did, and somehow, she convinced herself that her brother did it, and couldn’t be trusted.

Futaba is the second daughter of Akizuki. She also believes that Kyouichi was the murderer, but she does manage to stay a bit calm when she talks about him, unlike her sisters.

Kikuchi is Futaba’s fiancé. He’s the typical innocent guy who got caught up in events, and now is scared to death. I think he decided to at least find out what’s going on, so that he doesn’t actually get killed because of his ignorance.

Fujita Zenkichi is a reporter. Probably for a local tv-station. He’s got an overall laid-back attitude. An interesting fact is that he was supposed to show up at a performance of Sakon, at the beginning of the episode, but for some reason, he couldn’t find it. During the end of the episode, when everyone travels to Akizuki’s corpse, he also somehow forgot to take his camera along with him. That isn’t really professional behaviour, is it?

We’ve also got an unnamed maid, working for Akazuki. She picks up the phone, every time a mysterious person, thought to be Kyouichi, gives a call. Apart from that, she didn’t really have a big role.

Yoshida is a police-officer. He drops by in order to deliver the message that yet another villager has been killed, in the same way as a year ago. If that’s the only part in this story he has to fulfill, I’ll eat my hat. Especially if you consider what happened in the first arc.

Our main suspect, however, is Oki Katsumi. When you look at the silhouette of the murderer, he is one of the few who could be able to meet it. We also saw Akazuki getting killed. Afterwards, Oki barged in the room. When the phone rang for the second time, Oki was the one to grab it out of the maid’s hands. It’s never certain that he actually talked with Kyouichi in the first place. He also made a small mistake. He was so keen on guiding everyone to Akazuki’s body, that he forgot that nobody knew that he went to do something other than studying. He seems too focused at carrying out his plan that it’s obvious.

Another theory is that Oki and Yoshida are working together. After all, when Oki drove to the place of Akazuki’s body, he drove so fast and missed a turn. Someone who knew the area wouldn’t have done. This could suggest that Yoshida killed the guy and dragged it to the riverbank, while Oki distracted everyone. After all, someone had to be the one to make the phone calls.

And what was up with the guy with car trouble? Anyway, overall, this arc has started very promising. I really like the different characters it features.

xxxHolic – 20 – Picture

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic


A very interesting theme yet again: the burden of murdering someone. It still remains interesting how fast Watanuki and Yuuko can switch from playful and bickering to serious, as showed in this episode. This also is a case in which Yuuko is the main character, with Watanuki just as a bystander/observer.

The case is like this: a woman killed her best friend by pushing her off a cliff. Somehow, a photo of this got taken, and it keeps haunting this girl. It’s interesting that she couldn’t throw it away or burn it. It keeps haunting her unconsciously. She asks Yuuko to keep it in keepsake, sealed away. But even Yuuko’s seal isn’t strong enough. In the end, the girl begs Yuuko to erase the picture from the face of the earth, at the price of anything. Not a wise thing to say in front of Yuuko. She erases the picture, though the price is high. If the girl ever gets captured on photo, image, video, etc, that picture will appear instead.

It’s like Yuuko said. The burden when you kill someone is high. The picture gave her a huge psychological pressure, as it kept reminding her of the things she’d done, while it couldn’t be thrown away or burned. After Yuuko erased the picture, the pressure will probably lessen. But in exchange for that, she has to be careful for her entire life, avoiding all cameras at all costs. She won’t have a minute of rest, unless she’s at her own house, with the curtains closed.

That’s not a good way to live.

In any case, xxxHolic is just like Mushishi in a way. It doesn’t seem that it can produce bad episodes. Or bad moments for that matter. I really enjoyed this episode, it’s another example of the greatness which xxxHolic can achieve.

Night Head Genesis – 06 – To live or to kill yourself. That’s the question.

by psgels, posted in Night Head Genesis


Okay, Night Head Genesis has its flaws. Naoya’s voice-acting can get annoying at times. The two of them also get entangled in situations for weak reasons. The overall purpose of this series also seems a bit lost, though maybe Shouko can change this.

Still, I love this show. It’s not afraid to deal with disturbing themes such as suicide, homicide and abuse, and it successfully portrays the feelings of all of the persons involved, whether these are Naoto and Naoya, or some side-characters, unimportant to the main story. Because this show deals with such themes, the pain and suffering from each of the characters are huge, only contributing to the awesomeness.

I also like the way that the different stories are integrated with each other. Before the conclusion of one arc is found, evidence for the next arc has already started. It gives this show a nice piece of unpredictability.

Same with this episode. Things didn’t go as I expected. Naoto and Naoya didn’t recognize the woman, so that’ll probably be a story for later. She seems to work for doctor Mikuriya now, so she’s bound to appear later in the anime. The house being gone seems to be a nasty side-effect of Naoto’s power, though full details haven’t been given yet.

The case for this episode revolves around three students, friends of each other who committed suicide. Every week, at the same time and same place for the past three weeks. Furthermore, the school they attended harboured some nasty people. We’ve got one extremely popular girl, who likes to steal boyfriends from others, only do dump them immediately afterwards. Then there’s the corrupt gym teacher and we have a school nurse who’s always calm on the outside, but hates people and likes to stab others on the inside. Somehow, these suicides are linked to these three people.

I’ve got no idea how things happened. After all, the last victim did kill herself. We saw her slitting her wrist. Not because someone forced her to, but because her entire life was boring, and she actually wished to die out of boredom. It’ll be interesting to see how this boredom is linked to the school nurse.

Night Head Genesis – 05 – Awesome

by psgels, posted in Night Head Genesis


Awesomeness. Night Head Genesis proves that it’s capable of providing some highly disturbing, but at the same time very touching scenes. I’m loving this series more and more. Finally we have another show who’s trying to show the worst side of humans. That’s always good for a few juicy scenes, and Night Head Genesis is no exception for this.

Naoto (ugh… it was Naoto after all, not Naota) and Naoya have been heading back to the home in which they grew up. Now that they’ve arrived in their old neighbourhood, they have some flashbacks of the time in which they were young. They discuss two major cases, among a few smaller ones. It’s great to see their younger versions return. They work awesome.

Case 1: Naoto when he was just a baby. He’s playing with a tiny fire truck toy. It’s when his parents first discover his powers when somehow, the truck moves without any batteries being in it. He also gives his father a nosebleed when he tries to take away this truck. It’s interesting that he already had these powers at that age, and was using them to hurt others, unconsciously. Naoto also reveals that at that time, he thought that anyone was able to move things without their hands. Indeed, how do you make a baby like that clear that it’s not okay to hurt others like that?

Case 2: Naoto is six and Naoya has just been born. About a year later, we see the two of them playing with wooden blocks a bit, when an earthquake occurs. Naoto manages to protect Naoya from a falling vase. It’s the first time when Naoto realizes Naoya’s power, when their mother comes in, worried. She then picks up Naoya, who sends her thoughts to Naoto. “There’s nothing to worry about”.

Case 3: A former subordinate of the brothers’ father came to sell a large amount of land to them. He came with his wife and daughter. The daughter, who had heard the rumours about Naoto and Naoya, came to their room, and seemed to enjoy poking fun at them, and treating them like dirt with nobody else around. Naoya then got a bad feeling, and then he touched the former subordinate, getting in shock and revealing his evil plans. What follows is Naoto, protecting his family by hurting the culprits. Because of this, Naoto and Naoya’s power fully awakened. But their mother and father also began to look differently at them. It’s interesting. When you look at it one way, the two of them prevented them from being deceived, and losing a large amount of money. But at the same time, when Naoto keeps using his powers to hurt others in such an “unnatural” way, you could be scared at the same time. And that’s the case with their parents. For some reason, you’re less likely to forget fear than to forget pleasant events.

Case 4: Naoya touched a little girl, who always was carrying a doll with her, and got into shock. He had to be hospitalized for this. When Naoto tried to explain what happened to the doctor, he was just ridiculed. In the end, it seemed that the little girl was heavily being abused by her father. Naoto found the latter hurting the former’s body with a sharp sabre. She was covered in blood and wounds when Naoto found her, took her away and showed the public that her father was a molester. When Naoya heard this, he turned back to normal. When Naoto and Naoya think back about this, they notice that Naoto saw the doll, which the girl used to carry, with red eyes, while Naoya’s vision showed a doll with blue eyes.

Then, the grown up Naoto and Naoya arrive at the place their former house stood. Well, it’s gone. It’s turned into a field of grass. To make things better, when they ask a local, it seems that there’s never been a house on that patch in the first place. A silhouette of Shouko then appeared for a second. The episode ends with the girl from case 5, who runs into them. I’m so curious about how she ended up after her father was imprisoned.

Still, what does this mean? Why has their former house been erased. And more importantly, what happened to their parents? And what the heck is Shouko up to?

Another thing I love about Night head Genesis was the 15-year time-leap. The two brothers have changed so much in that time. The former short-tempered Naoto now has seemed to have learned to control his temper.

Ayatsuri Sakon – 10 – Cat fur looks like hair from a puppet eyebrow

by psgels, posted in Ayatsuri Sakon



This episode clearly shows how incredibly observing Sakon can be. To think that he’d be able to figure things out by right and left-handed. It was a small and simple arc this time, not unlike the previous one with its huge amount of characters and alibis. This time, we had just a small number of characters involved.

In the end, my first feeling was right. Aoki was the culprit. His reasons for acting the way he did, however, remained a pleasant and very entertaining surprise. Remember his band-aids? It seems that he’s been wearing these for ten years. He got these scars in the same fire he lost his daughter. He and his wife had a fight, because she cheated on him. In the end, a couple of candles were knocked over, setting the house aflame. The wife fled to man she cheated with while Aoki rushed to save his daughter. In the end, this fire burned his face and killed her. This wife was none other than Keiko. The other man was none other than Hayami.

Ever since, Aoki has been longing for revenge. He tracked Keiko down and started working at the same place she did. He waited a couple of years before taking his chance. He wanted to kill her loved ones, before he killed her. When he finally got the chance to do the latter, he couldn’t. Sakon then adviced him to turn himself in.

This arc was rather predictable, unfortunately. Last episode, we saw someone with brown trousers enter Hayami’s room. It was either Aoki or Kishikawa. But Kishikawa couldn’t have done it, because it was just too obvious. So it has to mean that Aoki was the culprit. He quickly changed into a suit afterwards. That’s why I like mysteries with lots of characters. It’s much harder to guess who did it.

Ergo Proxy – 18 – Okay… that was interesting…

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy



Honestly… there aren’t few anime who would let their characters make a long journey to some distant place, only in order to discover that the key to solving their problem lies in the place it all began. But for some reason, Ergo Proxy is one of them. And actually, there’s nothing wrong with such a plot twist. It keeps the characters busy, in any case.

But now that I’m looking back, this twist had to come. After all, it was the only way to bring Real, Vincent and Pino back to Raul, Daedalus and Monad. After all, Monad did for a large part of the story but at the same time she was still in Romdeau.

In any case, the episode focuses around Real and Vincent realizing that they have to go back to Romdeau. Remember the rocket from the previous episode? Well, apparently, it hit Moscow. Now nothing’s left of it. While Real and Pino explore the ruins, Vincent seems to be bothered by a nasty headache. In there he has a strange dream. He’s in Proxy-form, somewhere in Moscow. He uses his pendant as a key, to go inside a door, in which an autorave is waiting for him. It seems to be the autorave he left in charge with his lost memories. Apparently, Proxy One let this autorave copy all of the memories he was planning to give to Monad.

The autorave then thinks that Proxy One came back to get his memories. Proxy one, however, kills the autorave and starts crying out of happiness. Vincent then wakes up, back in the Usagi. Real and Pino have returned as well. They then too, somehow find the same room. Vincent then uses his pendant again to open the door. In there, they find the dead autorave, nearly dead. He keeps repeating one sentence, after which he starts uttering the word “Romdeau”. Then, he finally shuts down.

Now, the question remains, when did Proxy One kill the autorave? Was it before he came to Romdeau, or was it in Vincent’s dream? The fact that Real and Pino noticed him sleeping suggests the former, though the fact that the autorave looked just recently destroyed suggests the latter.

Raul, meanwhile, is given his title back. He then pays a visit to Daedalus, who seems to have forgotten about Real, and selected a new one as if nothing happened. This does suggest that Real is replaceable, and it explains why Daedalus said that Real would never betray him. Whenever she does, he’d just create a new one. Still, what do the old Real and the new Real have to do with Monad Proxy? (interesting note: when Raul finds the ball of yarn, he grabs the ball, while the new Real holds the end of the string. Then, she comes running to him, this string is gone and she takes it like nothing happened. Maybe I’m just thinking too much.)

Oh, and Raul still has visions, and has sworn to kill Vincent. It must be convenient for him to know that Vincent’s coming back, isn’t it? Also, who was this person at the beginning of the episode, right next to the explosion? And more importantly, when did it happen? Overall, it was an interesting episode, though it wasn’t extraordinary in any way.

Ayatsuri Sakon – 09 – Curiosity killed the Cat. Or in this case a guy with a ladder and a bit of cheese.

by psgels, posted in Ayatsuri Sakon



Okay, let’s review. What exactly happened?
– Fukami is busy with police interrogations, so he tells Sakon that he’ll speak with him later.
– The next day, Fukami finally gives Ukon back to Sakon. It seems that he really liked Ukon’s design, so he decided to work on it on his own at the final minute. Therefore, Ukon was kept safe for the flames.
– Sakon equips Ukon, and turns back to normal.
– Keiko lost her husband and daughter to a fire ten years ago.
– Ririsu died in the fire as well.
– Ririsu gets blamed for the murder, as a fireman reckons that it was he who snapped off the hose of the gas cooker.
– Ririsu hated Hayami.
– Ukon reckons that the hose was too firm for a cat to remove.
– Keiko behaves entirely different, and warns Sakon not to get involved.
– After Keiko brought Hayase to his building, nobody was there. Afterwards, the doors were locked.
– Inside the gas cooker, there’s a bit of cheese left.
– The windows of the building were very high so a cat couldn’t have climbed in on its own. They’re too small and equipped with bars to prevent humans from sneaking in.
– On the ground in front of the window, marks of a ladder or a chair are visible.
– Sakon reckons that the following must’ve happened: the culprit stuffed the open end with cheese, Ririsu’s favourite food. Then, when Hayase was asleep, Ririsu smelled the cheese, toyed with it and ate it, allowing the gas to escape. The murderer did this in order to make things look like an accident.
– Aoki seems to have lost his daughter in a fire as well. He also seems very friendly with Sayoko.
– Kishikawa is seen, burning Hayase’s paperwork.
– Kishikawa is seen talking to Yoshida. They both suspect each other.
– Hayase suggests to Keiko to leave the place. Keiko declines, as leaving would make other people think they’re weird.
– Hayase tells Aoki that he plans to quit. He also tells him that Aoki’s the only person he told it to.
– Hayase is packing. A person in diciple-clothes walks in, Hayase looks happy.
– Keiko enters Hayase’s room, sees his body hanging on a rope and screams.
– Sakon spots a note. “To resolve this wicked deed, requires this fateful body to become a wretched wisp of smoke.”
– Kishikawa reckons that this must mean that Hayase actually was the one who killed Hayami.

Okay, there are two possibilities:
– There’s one killer. This killer killed both Hayami and Hayase, though the killer used Hayase to make it look like the murder on Hayami was meant in order for him to repent. This, however, would make no sense at all, as the killer would still be the major suspect for the murder on Hayase.
– Hayase did kill Hayami. There’s someone who didn’t like this and went to the extreme measures to kill Hayase because of it.

There are two possible people who could have entered Hayase’s room:
– Aoki. Hayase smiles when he first sees him. However, Aoki is seen in a tuxedo when the murder is discovered.
– Kishikawa. Aoki is seen in a tuxedo when the murder is discovered, while the intruder wore brown pants. However, Hayase smiles when he first sees him, and the two hate each other.

If Aoki was the one, he quickly changed clothes afterwards. If Kishikawa was the one, the two of them were plotting something sinister. The fact that one of these two entered his room right before the murder also isn’t 100% guarantee that the murder happened afterwards. Something else could have happened, after which the person left and another person arrived and killed the guy. Also, why did a glass and a bottle lie on the floor at the scene of the crime?

I don’t think Keiko was the murderer. More like an important side-character. If you just murdered the guy you love, you won’t be telling other people to go away. Not only would this make sure that they’d do the exact opposite, though as a murderer, you’d be more like, scared instead of certain and cocky like she was. She’s got her own problems, definitely. And her warning to Sakon definitely had something to do with these problems.

If Aoki was the murderer, Sayoko probably involves the reason why he did it. I don’t think Kishikawa was the one, otherwise, he’d not be this confident. I do suspect that Fukumi knew what was going on. The fact remains that he’s very enthusiastic about Ukon. He knew that the storehouse would be in flames, which would mean that Ukon would also be destroyed if Hayami would work on him. His inner puppet-love eventually got the best of him, and he decided to save Ukon.

xxxHolic – 19 – Best. Snowball Fight. Ever.

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic



God… this episode was incredibly creative. And incredibly fun as well. Yuuko invites Watanuki, Domeki, Himawari, the Rain Sprite, the Vestal Sprite and Mokona to a playground in order for them to have a snowball fight. Though it’s not a normal snowball fight. Each of the contestants has to create some kind of snowman. These snowmen then get miraculously animated and have to battle against each other. Some of these fights were extremely interesting to see. The ultimate prize is a Pandora’s box, which gives the one who opens it anything he desires.

First of all, everyone’s snowman is unique in some kind of way. And some were freaky as well. Very freaky, if you consider that they’re just snowmen. But that made things just better. These are the snowmen everyone managed to produce:
– Watanuki: a small bunny, made of snow. Cute, though a bit powerless.
– Domeki: a steel can, with a snowball on top of it and arms and legs attached to its sides. It looked kindof creepy. And strange.
– Himawari: the standard base for a normal snowman, turned upside down, and given the ears and arms which makes it look like some strange kind of teddy-bear.
– the Rain Sprite: two ice statues of Fuujin and Raijin, the storm and thunder gods who have made more appearances in different anime. Surprisingly life-like, but what else do you expect from a rain-sprite? ^^
– the Vestal Sprite: a large, chibi Pegasus.
– Mokona: a huge white Mokona. And when I say huge, I mean HUGE.
– Yuuko: some kind of sci-fi jedi-robot-thingy, which shoots snowballs, prepared by Maru and Moro.

Fight one: Watanuki vs Domeki
Domeki tests out the system, makes his snowman walk, make a snowball and throw this at Watanuki’s bunny. The bunny seems a goner, though it digs itself in right before it gets hit, preventing his own demise.
Winner: tie.

Fight two: Mokona vs Watanuki
Mokona’s huge monster starts chasing Watanuki, with surprising speed as well. Mokona then breaks the control of the monster and then it loses control. It trips over a slide and falls apart. It also takes out Domeki’s snowman in its fall.
Winner: Watanuki. Loser: Mokona. Unlucky bystander: Domeki.

Fight three: Watanuki vs Vestal Sprite’s henchmen
The Vestal Sprite’s henchmen see the Vestal Sprite crying, because she’s glad that Watanuki’s bunny managed to survive. They, however, misinterpret this and think that Watanuki purposely made her cry. They start attacking him, though the Vestal Sprite tells them to stop. In the end, she sacrifices her Pegasus in order to protect him.
Winner: Watanuki. Loser: Vestal Sprite’s henchmen. Unlucky bystander: Vestal Sprite

Fight four: Watanuki vs bunny
Watanuki gets hit by a snowball, thrown by his own bunny. He begins to chase it.
Winner: tie.

Fight five: Yuuko vs Rain Sprite
The episode takes a very strange turn when these behemoths duke it out. Especially when Fuujin and Raijin suddenly start out creating tornadoes, rain and lightning in order to launch it at Yuuko’s robot. If there ever was a king of snowball fights, this has to be it.
Winner: Yuuko. Loser: Rain Sprite.

Fight six: Yuuko vs Himawari
Himawari’s snowball possesses the strange ability to absorb all of the snowballs Yuuko’s snowman shoots at it. In the end, it pops right before all of the snowballs run out (Maru and Moro got bored and stopped providing the snowballs).
Winner: Yuuko. Loser: Himawari

Fight seven: Watanuki vs Yuuko
Yuuko isn’t happy when she finds out that she’s run out of ammo. Watanuki’s bunny isn’t doing much either. Then she realizes that she’s been standing on the hose transporting the snowballs for a while. One snowball is left over. However, right at the moment that the snow was supposed to arrive, her snowman looked into the hose, attempting to find out the problem. He then gets shot because of his own stupidity.
Winner: Watanuki. Loser: Yuuko.

So far, fight two remains my favourite, though all of the others also were great to see. Yuuko, however, asks Watanuki, right before he opens Pandora’s Box, what they’re having for dinner. The box then contains the things he planned for the next dinner. The rest of the episode is made of everyone having food, while Watanuki has to work as a slave. He doesn’t quite like that.

On a more serious note, I’ve noticed quite some changes in both Watanuki, Yuuko and Mokona during this episode. Both Yuuko and Mokona were much more demanding of Watanuki than they were usually. They just kept ordering and ordering him. Even though they normally do this as well, it’s never been this extreme.

I’m not sure whether it is because of this in particular, or rather the whole picture, but Watanuki was rather blunt this episode. He insulted people more than he usually does. He was more keen on not participating in the snowball fight. He acted like a sore loser when he won from Yuuko and he actually insulted Himawari. He really sounded like a jerk in this episode. This most definitely is because of Yuuko’s influence on him. He just can’t seem to understand to have fun.

Yuuko also was a bit different this episode. She actually was a bit competitive, and wanted to win no matter what. When she lost, she really didn’t like the fact that she did. Only then, she came with plan B, and started acting. Maru and Moro also were interesting. They actually defied their master’s order, at one point, they didn’t want to shovel snow all the time. Could it be a design flaw of Yuuko, or is it something that they wanted to on their own accord?

On a more unserious note, Yuuko really has some kind of prophetic ability. Or she uses a special kind of paper which can change its text at will. Watanuki also was very funny when he found this piece of paper in his locker, thinking that a girl wrote a love-letter for him. Mokona also was very cute when Watanuki insulted him for a “pet thing”.

Ergo Proxy – 17 – Piano

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy



Finally, we have a normal episode of Ergo Proxy again. It’s mostly focused around Raul, while Real, Vincent and Pino meanwhile run into a very interesting city.

First Raul. As Director-General of the Citizen Security Bureau, he has a lot of privileges. And he’s one of the few who can get access to information not meant for normal citizens. Because of this, he’s able to tell the difference between truth and lies. Real was another example of this. Now he as well, has given up on Romdeau.

We also see him having a little discussion with Daedalus. Daedalus seems to blame Raul for Vincent escaping. After all, if Vincent hadn’t been chased out, he would just be leading a normal life. Raul gets angry about this, with a good reason. After all, it was Monad who caused this. Not Raul. Daedalus also isn’t getting worried about whether or not Real betrayed him. He reckons that as long as Real is alive, she won’t betray him, and he can be himself.

Right after Raul put down his trust in the city council, he’s labelled as traitor and his once faithful assistant Krysteva gets put in charge to hunt him down. Krysteva thinks that he’s planning to escape, so the heads for the same place we saw in episode 2, where Vincent landed. In the meantime, she orders to erase all of Raul’s data from the city-databank. This takes about ten minutes. Before that time, Raul can still use his privileges. When she arrives, however, he appears to be in a total different place: his house. In the end, his goal was to get his data erased (on a side-note: does anyone find it ironic that his ID ends with the numbers 666?).

Daedalus, meanwhile, calls himself calm. One of his autoraves also refers to him as the prince of Romdeau. We also see Daedalus talking to a picture of Real, pretending it’s the real thing. And what happened to Monad? Raul, meanwhile is in his apartment, playing piano. The ending of the episode was quite confusing, and I didn’t manage to really understand this at all. For some reason, a hug rocket gets fired. Raul, meanwhile, has visions of Vincent. He reckons that Vincent was the cause for everything (it was quite shocking to see Pino in normal clothes. I nearly forgot that she used to belong to a rich family). Vincent, Real and Pino, meanwhile have almost arrived at Moscow, when they see the same rocket head for their destination. I suppose that that thing is going to blow up the city, though I’m not sure.

Next, Real, Vincent and Pino. They’ve made another pitstop, and they’re making quite some progress. One day, they managed to travel 140 miles, which makes a journey of 2000 miles take about two weeks. Shorter than I expected. In any case, when Vincent and Real decide to leave again, it seems that Pino is gone. She seems to have wandered off somewhere. Vincent also tells Real that if he ever stopped being himself, that he wants her to kill him with her own hands.

Searching for Pino takes a while, in the end, the two of them find a cave, and head in. It consists of some long tunnels. At one point, they find a number of dead bodies, belonging to misshapen humans. When they walk deeper in the cave, they hear sounds coming from a piano. Pino seems to be playing it. She’s accompanied by a live version of these creatures found earlier. It’s quite shy, and doesn’t look healthy.

After a bit of investigation, the main nest of these creatures is found. All they do is walk around, and sitting miserably. Real then discovers that there’s a small amount of poisonous gas inside the caves, so she decides to head out, before the problem becomes worse. Pino is also taken along, against her will. Apparently, the road is very long, as she becomes bored fast, and Vincent has to carry her. She’s very much like a little girl at this point.

Then, they pass the dead bodies of these creatures again. It then seems that the creature Pino was with has followed them, and now collapsed. Then Real realizes what’s going on. When the environment of the Earth changed, they were just normal humans, who dug the tunnels in order to protect themselves. The tunnels, however, then began filling with poisonous gas. This turned their bodies to their disfigured current state. In the meantime, however, it also made them dependant of the poison, up to the point that they won’t be able to live in a normal atmosphere.

Real meanwhile discovers some primitive wall drawings, and a rather cute scene occurs. The creature who collapsed stands up again, and gets carried away by his mother. Pino says goodbye to him. The wall drawings show a family with a pregnant mother, father and child, and Real realizes something again. We never know what it was, though.

Overall, I’m not sure what will happen to Raul afterwards. Will he be caught, or does he manage to escape? And I really need to rewatch the first two episodes at one time. Is it me, or did Pino use to be Raul’s autorave? In any case, the music was great again. It was a very nice episode. Nothing special, but I really enjoyed watching it. Every single time, Real, Vincent and Pino run into something unique in their journey to Moscow.