Welcome to week 3 of Inuyashiki, the premier serial killer anime of the season. This week Astro Boy grows up, a teenager terrifies his best friend and parallels between our two leads get even stronger! Lets jump in.
Very similar to last episode, this week focus’s equally on our two leads. Once again it shows us the parallels and the differences between the two. It does this by forcing each of them into very similar situations and then showing us how they handle them, side by side. Not exactly subtle, but at least there isn’t a narrator forcing it down our throats. The two main scenarios in this episode are how they handle bullies and how they handle healing powers. They both enjoy the situations, reveling in their power, but for very different reasons.
In the case of the bullies, both saw a 3rd party being assaulted. Shishigami his friend Ando, Inuyashiki a random Salaryman. In Shishigami’s case he was defending his friend, yet the focus of the camera was mostly on the bully. His arm getting crushed, the pain on his face and Shishigami’s increasing demands. That all caps off with Shishigami killing them in the street. Inuyashiki’s scene however focuses mostly on the victim. His terrified face, his pleading with the thugs. Inuyashiki takes no joy in hurting the men, though the actual “fight” is quick and not particularly good looking. He clearly enjoys the act of saving someone, of being useful, while Shishigami enjoys the act of violence itself. This was established in episode 2, so I get the feeling Inuyashiki will continue to hammer this home.
The next parallel was their healing abilities. Shishigami’s is a one off, healing Ando’s papercut. Yet he mentions offhand how he could probably heal cancer patients and the like without much trouble. Clearly he has no intention of doing that, as he goes right back to his Manga. Meanwhile, Inuyashiki discovers this ability while trying to heal a cat. Immediately upon discovering it, he rushes to the hospital to treat the terminally ill. Its rather obvious, but Inuyashiki is trying very hard to show how similar, yet different, our two leads are.
There are a few other scenes and interesting tidbits I saw, that don’t quite fit into the parallelism theme that are worth talking about regardless. In particular I want to mention Inuyashiki learning to use his abilities and how Shishigami already has seeming mastery of his. The whole scene with Inuyashiki singing the Astro Boy theme song, to inspire himself, to use his powers was simply great. That and him simply falling out of the sky, plopping into the dirt outside the burning house, were awesome. Seeing a hero learn to use their powers, when done well, is always interesting and I can not think of a better teacher than Astro Boy.
Another set of scenes worth mentioning are Shishigami and Ando, and Inuyashiki with the family. During this episode we see both doing various acts, good or evil. We also see their effects on those around them. Shishigami for instance manages to terrify and push away his best friend Ando, while seemingly trying to help him. He takes a relationship with a close friend and destroys it. Meanwhile Inuyashiki, in his heroics as the burning house and with the Salaryman, only made people love him. Obviously their actions are completely different, saving people will of course endear you to them. I simply find it interesting that Shishigami is losing everything, humanity, friends, etc, while Inuyashiki is seemingly gaining them.
The last things left to mention is the animation and general design/direction. Animation wise, it looks good. Inuyashiki’s fight with the thugs has some lackluster shots, and his full body CGI rig needs some work. However the burning building, the CGI face and general direction is great. Speaking of direction, there was a particularly worthwhile scene. The final still shot of the house, where Shishigami just enters and you hear him say ‘bang bang bang’, was perfect. No over the top gore or terror, it was treated as just an every day event, which of him it was. It only makes Shishigami more terrifying, to have his acts portrayed so simply. As he leaves and spys to children playing, finger aimed, you can only guess what made him stop. I think he saw himself and Ando in that part, showing he still has some humanity left. How about you?
All in all, a good episode. Has its problems but the main story and characters only get more compelling. Cant wait for next week, see you then!
I’m liking this series. I suppose CG isn’t as jarring, not only because an urban environment meshes better do to how CG is (than a fantasy organic setting). At the same time in the flying sequence, some windows evoked the 1990s Spiderman cartoon (well to be fair even poor CGI might not look like one from the 90s yet it was a short scene).
I speculate Shishigami being an otaku played more with abilities imitating manga and the like while Inuyashiki being old, might also play on how old people can struggle with tech and more versatile unknown tools. While their bodies are the same, their minds still are of a young and an old man.
The parallelisms in the use of extremes will have interesting consequences as inevitably both will gain foes and allies probably. With inevitable escalation, and as of now it seems neither may be able to kill the other.
a very good episode. I am happy Ando stood up to Hiro. It was a brave thing to do. Sociopaths work in very intriguing ways. They are people who may be out of their target zone for a number of reasons.
Ando standing up to Shishigami was good. I liked that they showed what Shishigami was doing wasnt ok, by having even his best friend stand up to him. Ando is a good person at heart.
I also liked how everything Shishigami did to try and “Help” Ando, in his own way, was just terrifying his friend. He clearly cared about Ando, even asking him to go to school still, but he didnt understand why Ando wasnt happy with him.