Penguin Drum and Blood-C may be on a hiatus, but there still is the sixth episode of Number six that airs regularly. Again, we have an episode with a completely different tone as the previous ones. This time it was all about the friction between Shion and Nezumi. The acting between them was great, and they played wonderfully off each other, making the cliff-hanger about Safu’s capture all the more satisfying.
Kidnappings re of course a dime a dozen, but this episode made it into much more than that when Nezumi is seriously considering not to tell Shion about it. Furthermore, there was no way in which Safu wouldn’t be captured. It wasn’t the villains just going “ah, let’s kidap someone for a change”; instead they have been monitoring Shion’s house and now that Safu came back to him and is starting to search for him, they immediately made use of that. They don’t intend to use her as bait, otherwise they would have kidnapped Shion’s mother already, but it seems that the intention of trying to find Shion was what triggered them. For what reasons? Let’s hope that the part that explains that can still fit in the anime.
Meanwhile, Safu is sharp! She’s not the type of airhead who needs tons of clues to realize what’s going on. She isn’t afraid to show her feelings, and she’s not dodging around the subject of love. A breath of fresh air here!
At the moment, N0.6 is currently contenting with Penguin Drum for my favourite soundtrack of the season. While Penguin Drum probably wins in the use of its soundtrack, I also want to praise No.6 for its sheer versatility. In general I do favor the bombastic soundtracks over the mellow ones, but the soundtrack uses a lot of different instruments to create a very interesting effect. And the interesting thing is that it’s completely different from Dororon Enma-Kun, which also had the same composer. To be honest though, I do consider Enma-kun’s soundtrack to be better than this one, but that show did have one of the best soundtracks of the year, due to the immense amount of references, variety and flavours it put in.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Um, what bothers me since the beginning: where is Shions father? Does he even have one? Was it mentioned in the show and I simply missed it? Where are Nezumis parents? Killed by the people of No. 6? Why Safus only relative was her grandmother? And the dogkeeper was raised by dogs. Seriously, all of them are pretty young, it’s strange that they have no parents.
Actually, no it’s not; that is standard fare with most animes in that parents often get in the way of the character’s stories, and so they are more often then not conveniently absent. Can you name me more than 2 or 3 series at any given time where the main characters’ parents are even mentioned, let alone factor into the story?
At any rate, another excellent episode; I really hope they can bring this to a satisfactory climax and conclusion in the episodes they have left, though I doubt it will be without *SPOILER ALERT*
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some tragedy befalling poor Nezumi, since Safu has declared her love for Sion, and because of the BL overtones in this, I’m sure first girl will win here. :-\ *END SPOILER ALERT*
@belladonna A lot of those questions are answered later on in the novel. I have no idea if they’ll be covered in the anime or not with just five episodes left, but information does exist.
As for Safu, I freaking love her. Her role has been expanded compared to the novel, but Bones pulled it off very well. I actually think it was a necessary step, because the novels had volumes to subtly stick in bits of foreshadowing and information. The anime doesn’t have that luxury, so expanding Safu’s role and making her into another protagonist is a great way to get that information across in a limited amount of time.
@kittychick:
“parents often get in the way of the character’s stories, and so they are more often then not conveniently absent”
Well, I thought so. Especially when it comes to Safu, that she has no parents was very convenient for the progress of the story. Her only relative died (a natural death, her grandmother was just old, so no big drama which could focus too much on Safu) and now she has no connection to the city anymore and she can go and find Shion, the only person she ever loved – perfect.
The parent thing came in my mind mostly because of Nezumi: I really hope his family members got killed (sorry…). That would be at least a decent explanation for his deep hatred for No. 6. If he hates the city just because they made some experiments on him and tortured him – I wouldn’t be satisfied with that explanation, especially because we saw in this episode again, he would even consider to kill Shion if he trys to save the people of No. 6 (at least he said so, um, I doubt it).
Well, and somehow I always thought maybe Shions father would play a role in the story, but regarding MZs comment, maybe I’m not completly wrong here 🙂
And yeah, Safu is great, straightforward and so refreshing. She makes the show look less “gay” (I always appreciate some BL-vibes, but not if everyone is so obviously gay and women seem not to exist, but that’s here fortunately not the case)
Wow, Safu, I’m a fan. I hope she doesn’t spend much time being abducted.
No way in hell, Safus granny died a natural death. I dare to wager that all the people, that got into contact with the infected nurse, got eliminated by the public security. That’s why Safu didn’t find the knitting needle in her grandmothers belongings. Only a scarf, that looked like her grandmothers, but didn’t carry her scent!
@inugami,
I agree with your theory, which makes perfect sense given what was left of her grandmother’s things.
@ belladonna,
Yes, Safu is an awesome character whom I like very much and want to be happy. Too bad it might be at Nezumi’s expense. Maybe instead of making Sion have to choose (No. 6/Safu or Nezumi), he will find a way to make the third option mentioned in this episode happen for everyone, Safu included. That would be quite interesting to watch played out.
@inugami:
“I dare to wager that all the people, that got into contact with the infected nurse, got eliminated by the public security.” –
Um, I don’t know. Wasn’t she in some kind of nursing home? If they eliminate every person who had contact with the nurse, then lots of people must have died and how explain the many deaths? But sure, there was something wrong with the way they carried her belongings.