Ah, it sees that my worries after the previous episode were all for naught. This episode was really good, and it finally tied the entire anime together. Lots of interesting things happened, and I didn’t even mind the way in which Galatea saved Claire at the last possible minute.
Let’s start with Galatea. It seems that she didn’t just get her first place, just because she was very good at sensing Yoki. She also possesses the ability to manipulate small amounts of it, and from all 47 Claymores, her strength increases the most when she releases her Yoki. (It would be bad for her to awaken, wouldn’t it?) It makes you wonder how powerful number one and two are.
It also seems that there are three awakened beings, even stronger than Priscilla. One of them is the girl we saw in this and the previous episode, Riful. One of them recruited Priscilla after she went berserk, and apparently she manipulated the guy into becoming active again. The episode wasn’t really clear whether he meant to pick a fight with Riful herself, or he means to fight against the organization, but all three of them have begun to gather more awakened allies.
What I’m really curious about is how these three awakened beings will be defeated, and what Claire’s role will be in it. I really like how she finally showed in this episode that she isn’t perfect, and needs the help of others. The next episode should start out really interesting, when Claire needs to rescue Jeane. At this point, all signs point to the fact that Claire is indeed going to save her, but then again, this isn’t the first time that Claymore surprised me. ;)]]>
Tokyo Tribe 2 Review – 73/100
Tokyo Tribe can be described as a fun brainless action-show. It features Kai, a member of one of the urban tribes of Tokyo, and it basically shows what happens when all these tribes are put under the same threat.
“Suspense of belief? Screw that, we don’t need it!” – This is probably what the creators thought when they wrote the plot. It’s a well-constructed one, but some elements are just overly far-fetched, even more than most action-shows. To give some examples, it’s got an incredibly fat Yakuza-boss, who likes to rape innocent schoolboys, and kill them in the process and an android who likes to bite people’s eyes out. This implies that there’s a large amount of gore in the series, and indeed. The creators aren’t afraid to show blood, and some scenes are particularly raunchy.
Still, the story itself was quite fun to watch. The middle section may have taken itself a bit too seriously, but it did make sure that the final few episodes avoided the pitfalls of becoming too dark for their own good, turning them into quite a fun ride. What I especially liked was how the series continued to introduce unique side-characters, who never felt boring at all. The only bad character, though, was Hashim, the standard stupid best buddy, with no connection whatsoever to the story. At the times when he took the spotlight, he rather ruined this series.
The graphics look quite interesting. You’d expect this show to be dark and gritty, but instead of that, almost every scene is filled with bright-coloured neon-lights. The character-designs are also quite unique. The music comes with a bunch of hip-hop tunes. They’re quite nice, actually, but there have been better.
I wouldn’t really recommend Tokyo Tribe 2, though. It’s got a few too many flaws, and it’s actually a miracle that Kai survived the entire series. There are enough series who’ve done better than this one, and only if you want to watch the unique style or the action then you could give it a chance.]]>
El Cazador de la Bruja – 16
The first half of the episode was nothing special. While I loved how it made sense, since Nadie can’t rely on Blue-Eyes for her money-problems anymore, which forced the two of them to take a job at a local Taco-restaurant (where else? :P), there was also not much going on, and everything was pretty straightforward. Even with the inclusion of Ricardo and Lilio.
But everything changed once LA showed up. I’m not sure why, but he remains my favourite character of the entire series, and every scene with him in it turns out awesome for me. This episode was no exception, when we see Ellis use brute force on him, and we indeed get confirmed that she possesses huge physical strength. It was really cool to see the supposedly weak Ellis smack the hell out of that bastard. ^^;
Overall, while the episode wasn’t as important as the previous one, El Cazador just remains fun to watch, with its awesome soundtrack and highly addictive characters, just what you’d expect from a Bee-Train production. And it’s obviously great to see that finally Ellis starts to act for herself a bit. :)]]>
Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette – 28
What a surprise! After the previous episode, I expected that the light-hearted mood would stay for a few more episodes. Boy, was I wrong when Thenardier threw his tantrum right in the middle of it! I’m really excited to see this series turn dark again, and I’m even more excited about the fact that finally the Thenardiers were the major focus of the episode!
Eponine and Azelma were so sad in this episode. We already knew that they weren’t in such a good position, but they’re actually being abused by their father. Azelma even ended up with a bleeding hand at one point. It’s sad to see how she turned out, by the way. It seems that both her and Eponine stopped going to school, soon after Cosette left. Because of this, especially Azelma had no real chances to make any friends, with the result that she now clings to Eponine, the only one who treated her normally (I suspect that Thenardiére also stopped being nice to her when their money ran out).
And Yes! Eponine finally talked to Marius! The two of them were so cute, even though nothing major happened. Still, it seems that Marius will be able to hear everything that happens in Thenardier’s room, due to a crack in the wall (this Episode showed this, when Thenardier started yelling), so something tells me that he’ll start feeling sorry for her very soon. Cosette had better be fast with making her move.
And speaking of her I could almost strangle her at the end of the episode! She didn’t even recognize Thenardier, who has hardly changed a bit for the past years! And he was right under her nose! There’d better be some kind of recognition in the next episode!]]>
Toward the Terra – 15
Seriously, this episode turned out incredibly exciting. I know I already wowed over the first half of the series, but as things look now, the second half of Toward the Terra is going to beat it in every single way. If the series can keep up the pacing for the final episodes, then when we’re talking about one of the best science-fiction anime of the past few years.
Anyway, things didn’t turn out like I predicted after the previous episode. Toni and Physis get taken hostage by Keith, to help him escape, but both of them manage get away safely from him. Karina, however, is not so fortunate, and she dies through her worries of having lost her only son. Her death certainly was a memorable one, and it puts Toni in an interesting position, because some day, he’ll have to face the fact that he indirectly killed his own mother.
We also see Blue back in action, and for some reason, he sees the same memories in Keith as the ones in Physis. The question now remains: why was Blue the only one who could sense the guy’s real memories? The link between Physis and Mother Eliza still remains a huge mystery. The bubbles seen in the memory probably stand for the strange place Shiroe ran into in episode eight, but that doesn’t explain Physis’s role in it.
Anyway, right now, the Myu are in trouble, and the younger ones are going to have to accept that they’ll have to leave Nazca. After all, Keith sent enough back ups to take care of them. I suspect that they’ll be heading for Terra again, but I wonder how they’ll find out its location. We’re in for at least one more major time-leap, up to the point where Tobi has fully grown up. I suspect that next episode will be spent on escaping from Keith, where Blue probably plays his final trump card, after which the Myu manage to remain hidden for a number of years.
But then again, this is all based on the information in the OP, and we all know how misleading that one can be. ^^;]]>
Kaze no Shoujo Emily – 15
Oh my god, I loved this episode! Not necessarily because of the story used, as it’s a standard one that’s been used more often by other stories. It’s neither because of Emily, okay, she was as awesome as usual, but she didn’t really add anything new. But seriously, the background music was magnificent. This episode introduced a few new background tunes, and they’re absolutely beautiful! The original soundtrack already was great, but these tunes were still much better than anything I’ve heard on this show up before.
About the rest of the episode, Emily visits her grandmother this time. It’s nothing new, it’s nothing special, but Emily’s character alone made this episode yet again so incredibly sweet, so that it was well worth watching, even without the awesomeness of the soundtrack. There was a really creepy atmosphere through the course of the episode, because Emily’s grandmother’s house was supposed to be haunted. Obviously, Emily wouldn’t like that, due to her abundance of imagination. ^^;
On a side-note: that eye-catch really scared me! You’ll understand when you see the episode yourself. Anyway, Emily keeps surprising me as one of my favourite series of the spring-season. I can’t wait till the series draws near its end, and even more drama is going to be included. 🙂
Oh, and *note to self: get hands on soundtrack!*]]>
Dennou Coil – A Circle of Children – 10
The building up of the first number of episodes has finally started to pay off. Until episode eight, this was just a show with a large amount of imagination and some interesting fights, but starting with episode 9, I started to really care about the different characters. This episode provided a great aftermath for that action-packed episode, with also lots of new information regarding the characters revealed.
Isako really was scary in this episode when she easily took care of the Sacchi, and yet we see a total different side of hers when we suddenly learn that she’s got a big-brother-complex. We also see her visit her grandfather who is in the hospital, and it seems that she dislikes her grandmother, whom we briefly saw visiting him (at least, I think that woman was her grandmother). We should be seeing this brother quite soon now. In fact, something tells me that it’s that suspicious guy we saw at the end of the episode.
Another interesting plot development comes from Daichi, when he and Denpa leave Isako. It’s quite surprising, but it does make sense. The look on his face when Isako enrolled him really showed that he’s very impulsive, and doesn’t think the things he does through. In this episode, he became scared of Isako, so he left. It was quite cute to see Denpa follow him.
I also wonder what was up with Akira’s pet, who kept following Isako wherever she went, especially since we never see Akira actually controlling it. I’d like to know how he reacts, when she finds out that Isako has a cute side as well.
We also see the identity of the mysterious Yonyon nii-san revealed. It was indeed the voice who talks to Yasako in the strange dream she had. It turned out that he helped her when she was young, at the same site as Yasako’s dream, when she lost Densuke. She then was so impressed that she promptly proposed to marry him in the future. I suspect, though, that she never saw him again after that, but this episode showed that the guy still has a huge impact on her, when at one point she wonders whether that guy may be Haraken. Of course he’s not, as he looked much older than Yasako at that time, but the question remains: what kind of relation does he have to Haraken? Since Yonyon is definitely related to both Yasako and Haraken. (By the way, a girl with a big-brother complex, a girl with a mysterious figure in her past who made a big impression on her but whose face she can’t remember? Am I the only one getting Utena-vibes out of this?).
The only thing I didn’t manage to follow was the scene between Yasako and Haraken, concerning Kanna’s diary. It seems that the password for Kanna’s diary finally is found, and Yasako accidentally reads it before she can give it back to Haraken. When Haraken reads it, he somehow gets obsessed to find something, but I couldn’t quite understand what that was, and why he’d do that. He looked quite pitiful, though.]]>
Seirei no Moribito – 15
Okay, so I was wrong. This episode still spent its time building up. There were a number of events important in this episode: Saggumu’s fate, getting Shuga, who finally has been convinced that Chaggumu is still alive out of the library, and the fact that Chaggumu will certainly die if something isn’t done, because a certain “Rarunga” will be after his life once the egg inside of him has developed past a certain stage. For the latter, Barsa and Chaggumu will be going on a journey to try and find a way to stop this.
Still, I’m getting worried. The episode was nice and all, but it should be about time for Seirei no Moribito to get fired off. The fact that there is a huge amount of detail doesn’t impress me anymore about this show, and I’m really hoping that the plot will turn up a gear in one of the next episodes. Lots of building up can be nice and all, but if the things they’re building up for are unimpressive, then the building-up would have been for naught.
I’m not sure what happened to Saggumu, to be honest. The entire episode seems to suggest that he’s feeling unwell, and that cliff-hanger seemed to suggest that he actually died at the end of the episode! I suspect that he just needed a lot of sleep, but still, I’m surprised that his health is so bad.]]>
Saiunkoku Monogatari – 53
If you have yet to see this episode: STAY AWAY FROM THIS ENTRY. Seriously, this is one episode you don’t want to be spoiled about. This is an extremely important episode in Saiunkoku Monogatari, featuring lots of major plot twists. This sentence is meant to fill some space on the blog-aggregators like animenano and animeblogger to prevent spoilers from showing up there. So, this should be enough.
Sakujun lives!!! We’ve been given enough hints to suggest that this was the case, but now we actually see it confirmed. The question now remains: what the heck is he up to? He definitely made clear that he wanted to meet Shuurei, with his fake name of Li Senya. While this makes his death less beautiful, he could be providing some interesting scenes for the future, especially combined with Riou.
Ryuuren gets to be the one to save Eigetsu. We also learn that he didn’t do that, just because Eigetsu was his bosom buddy, but because he actually felt responsible. After all, on numerous occasions he forced Eigetsu to bring out Yougetsu, without a second thought whatsoever. This is actually a very interesting development for someone like him, who acts as random as possible. Shuurei and Eigetsu have quite succeeded into “taming his personality.
Also, the leader of the cult finally reveals his plans, though unfortunately I didn’t understand any of it. All I picked up was that his mother was involved, and he wants to do something with a strange body. And where the heck did small Riou run off to??]]>
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 28
If you’re wondering why I haven’t picked up any new series apart from Higurashi for the Summer season, then don’t worry. The really good stuff just airs relatively late for this season. I’m definitely going to blog Mononoke and Baccano!, with Miyori no Mori as a wildcard. The other good series may have been good, but they didn’t seem worth blogging. Especially since my blogging-list already is huge.
If there ever was a polar opposite of the previous episode, it’d be this one. It seems that the previous episode wasn’t the seventh arc at all, it was just an epilogue of the sixth arc. It’s too bad, because I would have loved to see more attention spent on it. The people who watch Higurashi because of the “killer lolis” probably disagree, but now that I think back at the episode, I really liked it, especially the flashback Rena had, at the end of the episode.
So this episode was the obligatory introduction-episode of the real seventh arc, original to the anime. Since most of the episode looked a lot like the first half of episode 22, I won’t be giving a summary. But there were still lots of interesting details in this episode.
But first I wanted to talk about the new animation, which definitely is different from the first season, and it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. The budget has really increased for this show, and it shows. Chie-sensei finally looks different from a blue-haired Rena-clone, and overall, the characters look more detailed than before. This should make the scenes with the distorted faces more bearable.
On the other hand, this episode had more distorted chibi-figures than the entire first season combined. This just doesn’t work, and it distracts from the ‘feel’ that the first series established. These drawings look really out of place, and I hope they’re limited to the comedic moments.
The main character for this arc: Rika! I suspect that the missing plot-holes that the first series left (like the rather major event that happened in Keiichi’s past for example), the remaining TIPS will be revealed, and hints will be given for the eighth arc. I’ll also refrain from reading any more TIPS from now on, because of this.
One question this episode really asked was the following: to what extend do the different arcs influence each other. The fact remains that Keiichi has become closer to his friends with every successive episode. This could be because of pure luck, but I’m really beginning to think that he subconsciously remembers the fun times he had with them. In this episode, for example, Satoko came with a line that Keiichi used in the previous arc.
The thing that will distinguish this arc from all others starts with Satoshi, who asked Shion to take care of Satoko. The question now remains: what happened? It’s been a bit too long since I saw the fifth arc, but if I had to guess then it seems that Shion’s feelings for Satoko are different for the different arcs, and may be one of the reasons of why they turn out so differently as well. In the first and sixth arc, she was completely absent, suggesting that she decided to forget Satoshi. A similar thing happened in the third arc, but she then ran into Keiichi for the sports-tournament (the tournament was a baseball-tournament, wasn’t it? I suddenly realize she became manager because of Satoshi$, and she decided not to blame Satoko. For arc 2 and 5 she went berserk, and blamed Satoko for Satoshi’s suffering. In the sixth arc, she actually listened to Satoshi’s request, and she was willing to change her entire life for it. The big question now remains: up to what extend was the disease responsible for this?
The syringe also makes another appearance in this episode. By now, we’ve already established that it’s used to cure the disease, but it remains interesting to wonder why Satoko is using it. The third arc showed that Satoko also suffers from the disease, and Keiichi awakened that one early during that time. I think that this is another sign that Rika is trying ut random things. I suspect she somehow tricked Satoko into taking the cure for the disease, to see what happens.
I’ve also been wondering about the two Rikas. Are there really two people living in her body, one grown up and one little girl? Or is the little girl-Rika just an act of the grown-up one. I suspect it’s the latter. The times in which we saw Rika in “Oyashiro-sama”-mode she probably stopped caring about hiding her cute self. At one point in this episode, we also see her drink a glass of alcohol, which seems to enforce this theory.
In any case, I wonder who it will be, where the disease activates too early. Every arc so far has had three main characters, one infected by the disease, one major character who isn’t affected by the disease, and tries to help the former, and a major side-character, who provides a bit of background information on the story (at least, that’s been the general pattern I discovered, with a bit of imagination). Arc 1 had Keiichi, Rena and Oishi, Arc 2 had Shion, Keiichi and Oishi again. Arc 3 had Satoko, Keiichi and Irie, arc 4 had Rika, Sakisaka and Oishi (okay, not exactly, but you get the idea), arc 5 had Shion, Mion and either Satoshi or Mion’s grandmother, arc 6 had Rena, Keiichi and Takano. For arc 7, the supporting character will be Rika, the main character for this arc. We should probably get our first clues about the diseased character and the major side-character in the next episode.]]>