Uh.. okay.
How on earth did this show manage to become even better than what it already was? Seriously, how?
Once in a while I run into an episode that really gets me incredibly emotional, that has me just bawling my eyes out. I can’t recally having done that for the past half year. Or at least not since the end of From the New World. While this episode may not have been as good, it comes close in its entire own way. Seriously, this episode was astonishing in how much emotion the creators managed to put into it.
Highlight was Koto, who really was portrayed as a child wonderfully. Every single side of her worked here: her active side, her playful side, her helpful side. Plus is was just so adorable when she got to see her mother and father again.
And the rest of this episode was amazing at providing backup for her: the animation was as expressive as ever, and the side-characters all managed to spice things up without taking on the foreground. I mean, everyone had been waiting for Lady Koto to come back again: everyone was delighted and everyone changed here.
And yeah, father. His shadow has been hanging over the entire series with the first two episodes focusing on him. He fits perfectly as the antagonist for the final episodes to get a really big climax out of it. And he’s also miles away from your typical villain. i mean, it’s still a mystery what kind of threat he actually is, but he did basically abandon his children without much thought for it.
I may post less often, but don’t get me wrong: I still love anime. Episodes and series like this are the reason why. 2013 has been a strange year: I’m not sure whether the amount of good series went down or whether I just got more picky, but at the very least I’m glad that every season so far has had its standout series.
Rating: 7/8 (Fantastic)
There was a lot of potential this season but many series turned out average, or crashed and burned.
@Kyou – I liked this episode because it really get me curious who is (young) Koto really? Having never seen the OVAs the mystery of what is really going on is very intriguing while at the same time the characters and episodes themselves are great. The fact that it looks stylish as hell is just icing on the cake.
I really enjoyed reading what you wrote on this series, especially seeing how it seems to be rather under-appreciated.
It never occurred to me that the original Myoue could be the antagonist and episode 5.5 kind of point it out. While his decision on leaving his children behind is morally questionable (but keep in mind that it pretty much keep them safe), I think the antagonist role will likely go to the shrine and/or Kurama. But if he is, I certainly don’t mind, it would be interesting to see how they handle it.
Now, if the last 3 episodes don’t screw up, this series can comfortably slip into my favourite list.
I really don’t know how you came to the conclusion that he’s gonna be an antagonist. It’s pretty obvious that both small Koto and the fox mask guy are both “the Father” incarnations. Small Koto broke the picture so she could enter the mirror capital, in the same way that the fox dude did to go after here and that’s what caused the “apocalypse”.
If there is a antagonist it’s the guy that’s showing next epi which happens to be the high priest of “shrine” the organization to which little Koto and Fox belong.
As for calling the guy bad for leaving his kids, he obviously did it to accompany his wife that was supposed to give her body back to the Boddhisativa.