This episode had lots of different focuses. It’s the time of the year for the summer-festival to come, and let’s just say that a few couples get developed: Yasako and Haraken, and Fumie and Daichi. We especially get a lot of Daichi this time. Oh, and Isako looks quite strange in a yukata.
Anyway, the usual list of new information (new for me, at least):
– According to a legend, if you wear your glasses at night, a child can enter its own dreams.
– Yuuko has the strange dream again, where the boy’s voice advices her to run away, after which she’s attacked by a giant illegal.
– Haraken’s aunt seems to be interested in Yasako and Isako for some reason.
– There’s a white mist in the teacher’s office as well.
– Yasako’s dad is Haraken’s aunt’s boss, instead of the other way around like I first thought. He also was the one who designed Sacchi, and gave it its name and made it say “boku sacchi”.
– Ken keeps contact with Kanna’s mother. She fully supports his research. In this episode, she gives him Kanna’s glasses. She wants to know what happened to Kanna on the day she died as well.
– Daichi has had a crush on Fumie a long time ago. He wanted to ask her out to the sumer festival since a long time ago, but every time he was too scared to do it.
– Either Haraken or Kanna had a dog, called Kuro. This dog went lost, and in this episode, Haraken finds out that it turned into an illegal. It gets blown up by a Kyuu-chan, though.
– Kanna seems to have had a few hidden files behind a password, and Kanna needs some sort of key to access them.
– Kyoko hates Daichi.
The most important focus of the episode, though, was Daichi. He had been too scared to ask Fumie out to the festival, but now Isako orders him to duel her to obtain her glasses. Why? Because she wants Michiko-san’s power. Why Isako would want Fumie’s glasses for that, I have no idea, it must probably have something to do with the data she stole. In any case, the plan is for Daichi to challenge her during the festival, but he ends up having fun with her. Isako was quite evil when she forced him to actually fight.
We also finally get to know what Isako has been after: Michiko-san. What is she, actually? And why does Fumie play a role in it? I also wonder why it took Yasako so long to mention that her father wwas the one who developed the Sacchi.]]>
Seirei no Moribito – 13
Whoa!
I can’t believe I was right about this episode, as for the first time since episode 3 we see another fighting-scene and holy god… that was awesome. I can’t believe how scary Barsa can be when she’s angry! Fans of the series will definitely rejoice with this episode!
The story that holds this episode together is another complicated one, but I’ll try my best to understand it. Remember the guy from the previous episode, who got surprised when he saw Barsa fighting? Well, he indeed knows her, though he appears to have quite a bad relationship with her. From what I understood, at one point Barsa had the chance to kill him when he suffered from something (starvation?), but she didn’t. I can imagine that this would rather crack his honour, so now he wants revenge. I just know I missed something in this. Mostly because it was at that point where Barsa began to value life, and she began to see that every man was equal. It seems that at that time, the guy already was a big jerk, and she just couldn’t kill such a miserable person. Or something similar.
Before he directly attacks her, he first decides to play with her a bit, and threatens to kill a couple of travellers unless she protects them, thus involving two innocents in his revenge. His henchman then continues to whirl projectiles at both her and the travellers, and it seems that he makes sure that Barsa doesn’t get any sleep for the night, meaning that she lost a bit of concentration. He also poisons the wells that she passes, in order to make her unable to drink. Still, that doesn’t seem to do anything to her, apart from making her even angrier at him, and she ends up cutting him in such a way to make him lose his memory. I can’t believe she really lost her temper against that guy.
The travellers also play a role bigger than just “victims”. They’re a boy, along with his teacher who seem to be heading for some kind of destination. The boy doesn’t seem to like Barsa, and after all, when a strange woman starts following you and suddenly you get assaulted by strange causes, you’d blame that woman. The plan of the assaulter was probably to let his henchman kill the duo, while he kept Barsa busy, though the boy seemed to be strong enough to knock out this henchman. They then become involved even more when the teacher wants to go to Barsa, and they see her strike the guy down.
There were two peculiar things about this fight, by the way:
– At times, Barsa took the shape of a tiger.
– The strike that Barsa dealt clearly caused blood to flow from the guy’s face, and next thing the blood and even the cut are nowhere to be seen.
This suggests that Barsa can do supernatural techniques, just like Torogai. The questions remain: how, why and what? How was she able to do it? Why did she start to learn them? And what exactly can she do with them? Also, what was up with the wall with the strange markings on it?
The question also remains: how far will the travellers become involved with the story? And how will this episode push the plot forward? The guy as now forgotten about Chaggumu, so he can’t tell anyone about it. Will his henchman do something? In any case, I’m really excited about Seirei no Moribito right now, as the plot has finally started to move forward, and something tells me we’re in for an awesome second half!]]>
June Summary
June Anime Rankings
I like this format, because it’s simple. To give a small indication of the quality of the shows, place 1-10 have made a big impression on me during this month. Place 11-20 still are really good and recommended, but the impression they made was slightly lower, or they spent most of their time building up, which is necessary but mostly not very exciting. Place 21-30 are enjoyable but can definitely be improved and 31-36 are just garbage.
#36: Shining Tears x Wind – Please, next time if you want to make an RPG-adaptation, chose one with a good story. It’s series like these that give RPG-adaptations a bad name. If you want to see a good one: go for Popolocrois.
#35: Murder Princess – Whose idea was it to make episode 3 so incredibly cheesy?
#34: Heroic Age – Okay, so the show introduced politics now. It’s too bad that the two emperors have the same depths as a bunch of paper bags, they’re just stupid because the story demands them to, and it’s been obvious since the beginning that they’d screw up somehow. Boobs-san ironically is the only one in the entire series with a bunch of brains. Everyone else seems to be either fighting or worrying about either Age or the contract by the Golden Tribe.
#33: Lucky Star – Ow, this has been a bad month for Lucky Star. Unfortunately, the show has been getting more repetitive with every episode, and the characters are getting duller and duller. Not only that, but it’s about to get completely overshadowed by the other Otaku-based show: Tetsuko no Tabi. Let’s hope that it’ll get better in its second half, but then again, we’re talking about Kyoani here. I doubt they’ll be able to save this series.
#32: Kaze no Stigma – I want to like this series, I really do, but it’s not making things easy with its annoying characters and the way it handles its male side-characters. Kazuma keeps saying that he wants to save as much people as possible, and yet he goes after the cute girls while the male characters die with heaps at the time with no impact whatsoever. I’m also not sure whether the inclusion of pixies was the right idea.
#31: Koutetsu Sangokushi – This series continues to quietly dabble along. It’s a nice watch when bored, but nothing amazing, spectacular or unique happens.
#30: Wangan Midnight – So far, nothing memorable yet. I’m giving this series a few more chances.
#29: Engage Planet Kiss Dum – Finally the subs came out again, but unfortunately the anime itself took a wrong path. The main guy may have had a good reason to obtain the power he did, but I dislike his personal harem. Still, I have hope. The first two episodes really were of good quality. Let’s hope that this’ll come back in the second half.
#28: Devil May Cry – While I do admit that it’s nice to see ACG out with the subs of this series so fast, it does make me worry, as they haven’t released a single episode of Deltora Quest this month, and even though Devil May Cry is a good brainless action-show, I definitely prefer Deltora Quest above it.
#27: Power Puff Girls Z – Not as good as the previous episodes, but it still was cute to see the supporters get a bit of attention.
#26: Romeo x Juliet – This series seems to be trying a bit too hard at this point. People betray each other for no reason whatsoever, only to make Juliet feel as miserable as possible. Still, I do have hope for the second half, and it’s a good thing that the suffering comes relatively early in the series, so that Juliet can learn from it as the series draws to its end.
#25: Reideen – While the series hasn’t been really memorable, it has been good for a nice watch. I do hope that the love-triangle will be getting somewhere, though.
#24: Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula – I admit that it’s turning increasingly more interesting to watch the teams of the different countries, but what can the creators do to prevent Japan from winning in the end?
#23: The Skull Man – There is some great mystery in this, and the storyline turned out quite interesting, but I don’t know… It seems to be missing something. I think it was a bad idea to include humour in this series, as it doesn’t seem to merge with the story-part well enough.
#22: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – One of the more overrated series of the season, it’s a nice show and all, but it remains brainless action for the most part. In episode thirteen, for example, the standard “friend-taken-hostage-what-should-I-do”-bit appeared again. I also dislike Nia a lot. Her character is annoying and forced, and her bad cooking-skills could have been more subtle. Still, there is one part of the series that I’m really enjoying: Dai-Gurren’s antics. I just love the battle-tactics that involve that giant mecha, from the flipper-outfit to launching it miles into the air. ^^; Anyway, there is hope. The backstory seems to be interesting enough.
#21: Tokyo Tribe 2 – One thing that I really appreciated of the past few episodes is the attention to the side-characters. While it was annoying to see Skunk rising, I admit that I was quite pleased to see the little bugger in trouble, which quite possibly what the creators had in mind.
#20: Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge – I must praise Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge, as it’s one of the very few comedy anime to actually provide an ending, make this ending good and not forfeiting the humour that made the series great. Now let’s hope that this also goes for the ending itself.
#19: ICE – ICE has been a rather peculiar OVA. It did have its flaws, but when I think back at it, I do have to say that its story is memorable at least. Still, I need to see the second episode to really be sure whether it’s good or not.
#18: Hitohira – The major climax came with episode 8 and 9, while the rest of the series came with a really long epilogue. Because of this, the development of Hitohira couldn’t have been better, and it really was a highlight of the spring-season.
#17: Gintama – I loved it when Gintama started playing with memory-loss. While it has been better, something tells me that we’ve yet to see the best part of the series.
#16: Tetsuko no Tabi – I’m surprised about the lack of attention this has been having, but then again, how many people can be looking forward to a show about trains? Still, the chemistry between the characters is excellent, and I’m definitely going to continue watching this.
#15: Darker than Black – Okay, I admit. This turned into a perfectly fine series with quite a few interesting cases. Still, I’m going to wait for Shinsen’s subs in the future, simply because Sudo likes to release in only HD MKV-files, which mean murder to my labtop.
#14: Kekkaishi – This month, Kekkaishi mainly focused developing the new main character. This series has been as charming as always.
#13: Claymore – What I like about Claymore is that every major plot point, with one or two insignificant exceptions, has an explanation which seems perfectly plausible. It’s also taking me a while to realize that this is one of the few shounen-fighting shows where having the largest amount of power doesn’t necessarily mean being the strongest. Ever since the Law of Ueki, I’ve yet to see such a series, and it feels really refreshing (*coughBleachcoughNarutocough*)
#12: Dennou Coil – I knew that Isako would warm up to Yasako sooner or later, but the way episode 7 did this was really good. I find myself liking Kyoko more and more, because she really feels like a little girl.
#11: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS – Finally this anime gets fired off with episode 7 and 8. I can’t wait to see the rest of the series now!
#10: El Cazador de la Bruja
This probably is the most hated series of the season, due to the fact that most people who didn’t like the first episode still stuck with it. Still, that doesn’t stop me from really enjoying it, and it’s currently doing a really good job of building up.
#9: Seirei no Moribito
In this month, Seirei no Moribito really temporarily became a slice-of-life series, but the incredibly detailed storyline remains Even though it wasn’t the most exciting series of the month, it’s great to see all the different characters fleshed out a bit more, and I cant wait till the story starts developing in the next episode.
#8: Wellber no Monogatari
Wellber no Monogatari has most definitely been an interesting series, that doesn’t deserve the negligence it received. The first few episodes may goof off at times, but with episode 6 it really gets fired off and an interesting story begins. What I really like is how all major characters get enough development and fleshing out, the story is in no way rushed, and episode 13 left me with a good feeling. I can’t wait to see the second season!
#7: Ooedo Rocket
Most definitely the funniest series to have come out in the spring-season, with both slapstick, intelligent jokes, sarcasm and parodies. Add a serious and compelling story to it, and you’ve got a success of a series. There have been so many epic characters (Genzo, the townsfolk, Akai, Ginjiro and many more), and I love how all of them get enough attention.
#6: Les Miserables
Les Miserables quite possibly has the best character-development of all the shows aired in 2007 up till now. The time-leap was definitely well executed, and I’m becoming an increasingly bigger fan of Eponine. I can’t wait to see the final two arcs, which are rumoured to be amazing.
#5: Toward the Terra
I’m really surprised at the huge amount of time-leaps this series took. So far, it’s developed into a unique and excellent science-fiction series, which for once isn’t about saving the universe or the world, but a quest for the shunned Myu to settle down and live their lives in peace. Keith is also an antagonist with a huge amount of development, which is always nice to see.
#4: Kaze no Shoujo Emily
The best slice-of-life series of the season? Definitely. It’s such a shame that almost nobody is giving this series a chance (including fansubbers), since Emily is an amazing character, and Perry, Teddy and Ilse are really charming. It’s sad to see that the most neglected series of the season turned out to be this one, while it in fact is one of the best series to have come out.
#3: Saiunkoku Monogatari
The second season turned out to be quite possibly even better than the first season, due to the immense amount of development that the characters already had because of the first season, and even the new characters, especially Shuuran, turned out amazing.
#2: Death Note
You know, it may have had a lot of bumps, but the ending of Death Note was a great one. The final three episodes were amazing and among the best episodes of the entire series.
#1: Bokura no
Bokura no’s change of focus this month was a real surprise for me. There were no twisted cases, it just focused on the children and the lives they left behind. Still, despite this I’m immensely enjoying this series, and it remains one of my favourites of the season. I’m not sure why, actually. I’m drawn to this series in a way similar to The Third, which is one of my favourite series. I also really like the way the plot is going. Overall, it’s barely, but this series definitely is my favourite series of this season, and that has to say something, with so many excellent ones that came out.
Top 5 Episodes
#5: Toward the Terra – 11 – This was an excellent episode, with a huge amount of shock-value, touching scenes, conflicts and much more, and I greatly enjoyed it.
#4: Les Miserables – 24 – Eponine = Love. Seriously, her grown-up version is awesome, and this episode saw her at her best.
#3: Kaze no Shoujo Emily – 11 – See the previous comment, but swap Eponine with Perry. His desires to live up to his dreams, despite his hard life and social status are truly magnificent.
#2: Bokura no – 09 – Again, see the previous comment, and put Daiichi there. He deserves to be called a hero, and his tragic parting with his family was the highlight of an already amazing series.
#1: Death Note – 36 – There are these kinds of episodes that just blow you away, and this was one of them. Death Note may have had its bumps, this episode is where everything comes together to provide an amazing climax, and probably the best and most annoying cliff-hanger I’ve ever seen.
Also, I’ve been wondering. I’ve been making these summaries for more than a year now, but this is the first time I’ve asked this question: what were your highlights during this month? What are currently your favourite series?]]>
Ooedo Rocket – 13
The focus of this episode? The six “knights” that work under Ginjiro. Right now, it’s their turn to get a bit of development, as they start to critically analyze the things that Ginjiro said to them. After all, he seems to be defending the white beast from the sky a bit too much, and he suddenly came with the idea that there’s another blue one.
The right word to describe almost half of this episode: Chaos. The townsfolk, in my opinion, are the best group of pure supporting characters that came with the series of the spring-season. Why? Because they make things happen. Because of them, you feel that the people that live near Seikichi have real personalities, and aren’t just caricatures, just because they need to exist. They provide energy to this series, and for a change, they are actually useful in an indirect way. They make sure that the main characters develop well, and they also help with the muscle-work for Seikichi’s rockets. Even Seirei no Moribito spends less attention to these kinds of people, and that has to say something.
I also must say, that Seikichi’s development of the rocket has been really enjoyable to see so far. Even though he only appears briefly in most of the episodes, this development does show that he’s the main character of this show. I love main characters like these, that don’t take up the majority of the screen-time. This episode also shows a major progression, as he manages to get his clock out of sight with a new revolutionary idea: use four engines instead of one.
Anyway, this episode was loads of fun. It was hilarious to see Ginjiro trying to find excuses to protect Sora’s and Seikichis secrets. Oh, and Tenhou has a new fan. ^^; Like mentioned above, the result was chaos. Akai’s storyline also progressed a bit forward when the blue monster from the sky (what was her name again?) discovers Seikichi’s rocket. I didn’t quite understand what she was after, but if I had to guess, it’d be the special gunpowder that Sora got out of her spaceship a few episodes ago, before it blew up. Since Seikichi was the one to blow her chance of obtaining it (she stole his rocket, and he managed to blow it up before it fell in the wrong hands), it seems that the next few episodes will feature some antagonistic feelings between Akai and Seikichi, something which the first episode of the series indeed seemed to foreshadow.
Overall, I’ve only found one strange thing of Ooedo Rocket: where the heck does Seikichi get so many supplies, gunpowder and clocks? You’d suspect that these things are quite hard to obtain in the Tenpou Era. Anyway, apart from that Ooedo Rocket turned out really good. It’s great to see that another group has started to sub the series. Keep an eye out for episodes three and five to get out, as they show how this series excels in both drama as comedy.]]>
Claymore – 13
Ah, everyone’s been telling me, but I kept believing the opposite. When Priscilla went berserk, there was one Claymore who survived. I really liked how she chose to live her life afterwards. It’s quite interesting that nobody knew that she lived after she faked her own death, and how she became scared of dying. That’s why she’s nowhere to be found on the top-level Claymores, she isn’t with the organization anymore.
What I didn’t like, though, was the huge Deus ex Machina that introduced her. Just as Claire is about to die, she plays for saviour in order to keep the main character of this series alive. I thought the creators knew better than this. I mean, why now, of all times?
It’s also quite surprising that Claire lost her right arm. This means that her swordfighting will get worse, now that she has to learn to use her left arm all of a sudden. To make up for this, she now knows Irene’s flash sword. Oh, and Ophelia has awakened. You’d wonder how she acts in the presence of the numbers 1 to 3, when she lost her cool this easily. She seems to have quite a brother-complex here. The next episode should feature the awakened Ophelia against the two Claymores with only one arm.
This episode, unfortunately, wasn’t that exciting, but there was one interesting point: Ophelia’s special attack looks like a cheap version of the flash sword. She never spent the time to perfection it, and never thought about the possibilities. If you look at her using it, you’ll see that her entire body is trembling, instead of the calm Irene. I think that that’s how she’ll be defeated in the next episode, combined with her carelessness.]]>
Sisters of Wellber, Second Season?!
this! I know I joked in my post how a Greedham no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Greedham anime would be quite a possibility,, but I never expected the timing of the announcement to be so perfect. Ah well, that’s one series I’ll be looking forward to. The first season knew how to tell a story and it knew how characters need background in order to become interesting, so I’ll be looking forward to when this series will focus on Tina’s backstory. I just wish for this for this series to get subbed soon, because I can understand that not a lot of people would understand my enthusiasm with only three episodes released. The series really gets going with episode six, so let’s hope that when that episode gets subbed, it’ll get more attention than it is now.]]>
Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber – 13
And so it has ended. I’m not sure what to think of some of the elements. Overall, this was a good ending, but there’s one thing in the episode that… didn’t really make sense, to put it in such a way.
I’m referring to the Bergerac and Jin’s amazing ability to bring down an entire castle. I don’t know… it seemed a bit too much, although it was quite hilarious that they accidentally hit the gunpowder-room in their attacks. ^^; The only explanation for such a bad defence of the city would probably be that Guernia was in full charge. ^^;
Anyway, about the rest of the ending, it wasn’t emotional or shocking like the episodes in the middle part of the series, but nonetheless, it felt ‘good’. It doesn’t try to be overly dramatic for its final episode, and instead it finishes Guernia’s back-story, kills him and saves Rita. Nothing more, and I like how focused this ending was. In the end, the series didn’t suddenly change its style, like lots of anime do, now that I think about it. The ending doesn’t feel weird, and there isn’t any information that we should have known. That’s the thing with original anime, they can be exactly planned, instead of manga-adaptations that aren’t done yet.
Also, what really surprised me was that we never get to see who killed Rita’s parents. I actually feel that this was the right thing to do. Suppose, for example, that she did find the guy. Not only would that cost at least one episode, which would probably have been replacing one of the earlier episode, which means less fleshing out for Rita, Tina and Galahad. Also, this would be incredibly forced. I mean, what is the chance of that same guy still being in Greedam? Perhaps, in the future we can get a continuation: Greedam no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Greedam? That would be quite awesome, as there’s enough of the setting left unexplored to provide a second story, without feeling weird.
Also, after thinking back at it, I really liked Guernia this episode. His development was well worth it. I originally thought that seeing his mother make out with a different guy caused him to go crazy and kill her, but things are a bit more subtle than that. He did hate his mother afterwards, but that’s not why he became his former self. It seems that he just couldn’t forgive his mother, no matter how hard she tried. Her lover was executed, and because of all the strain, and the trust that she lost from her husband, she committed suicide. Galahad at that time was poking the eyes out of a doll that resembled his mother. After that, he’s been enjoying poking the eyes out of every woman that had eyes, similar to her. And Rita was one of them. The twist: he fell in love with her once she stabbed him. ^^;
His death, by the way, was quite nice, and an original one as well. Okay, we’ve seen anime before where we see the bad guy mortally wounded and alone, but Guernia was too cute when he never really reflected on himself, and instead drank a cup of tea in his chair before the ceiling above him collapsed. ^^;
Overall, I really recommend Wellber no Monogatari for a light adventure-series. It, along with Seirei no Moribito caused me to become a fan of Studio IG, and from now on, I’ll be looking forward to their next releases. Wellber no Monogatari really showed that they know what they’re doing, and that a good story needs some good backgrounds and fleshed out characters to work. It’s quite impressive that it found the time in 13 episodes to develop 6 major characters, while the other major support-characters only had the function of narration, contributing to the story without stepping in the spotlights themselves.
Sayonara, Rita, Tina, Galahad and Guernia. It’s been fun.]]>
Death Note Review – 84/100
Death Note: Yagami Light finds himself a notebook, dropped by a Shinigami: the Death Note. If you write down the name of a person in this Death Note, he’ll die, no matter what. With this new Death Note, Light begins to create a perfect world, killing off all criminals. Then, a detective who goes by the name of “L” gets assigned to catch him.
Let me first state that Death Note is unique amongst shounen-anime. There are nearly no fights, and nearly the entire anime consists out of people planning and plotting to outsmart each other. Through the course of the anime, Light makes optimal use of the Death Note, and he comes up with a number of really smart and careful plans.
Because of this, the main good points of Death Note, especially in the beginning, are its surprises. Some plot twists are ingeniously incorporated in the storyline, and they make sure for maximum shock-value. This makes sure for a number of really intense episodes, even with the lack of fighting or other forms of physical action.
The graphics and music only contribute to this. The art that is used in Death Note is unique, and incredibly detailed. The animators made some really creative “action”-scenes, which you won’t be seeing in any other anime, and they really makes sure that these scenes are as creepy as they can get. The music consists out of a number of very addictive choir-songs, which fit the mood perfectly.
Still, despite the awesome climaxes, this series didn’t make it in the 90/100-range for a reason, as it’s got quite a few humps and bumps along the way. The most obvious one is the middle part of the series. Death Note has an excellent beginning, and an awesome ending, but the Yotsuba-arc in the middle was so bad that it made me almost lose my faith in the series. The climaxes stop being interesting, and the creators turn the series in some kind of joke of itself. Luckily, the anime picks up again with episode 24, and delivers an awesome climax, but the thorn remains. The beginning is also filled with a couple of nasty coincidences, for example Light’s father being the police-officer who is in charge of catching Light.
There are also a number of rather annoying characters in this anime. I’m referring to the ones that mainly exist for comic relief like Misa and Matsuda. They usually have no purpose at all, and they whine too much to really become interesting. The characters that are introduced later in the series also need a lot of episodes to get enough development to stop getting annoying. There are also quite an amount of people that lack a bit of background. To give one example, we learn just as much about Aizawa’s (a minor character) background as L’s (a major character) background, and believe me, that isn’t much. There’s also a time-leap somewhere in the middle of the series that just lacks proper development as well, with the result that it makes no sense in lots of areas.
Still, despite this, there are a lot of good characters with enough background to become interesting. Light himself is a fascinating person, and it’s interesting to see how he develops and eventually declines. Some temporary and side-characters also turned out really touching, and L, despite his lack of background is well developed and turns into a really enjoyable character.
Overall, it’s not the best anime out there, but it’s definitely worth a watch. It has awesome climaxes, but the fairly low rating comes from the fact that it just has too many areas that could have been improved.]]>
Death Note – 37
And so we’ve come to the end of Death Note. I’m going to post a bit of random sentences in order to avoid some major spoilers from showing up in the blog-aggregators, in order to avoid me spoiling people. I can’t imagine that there’d be souls alive that weren’t spoiled somehow about how this anime would end by the manga-fans, but you’ll never know. Okay, this should be enough.
So, Light dies. I have to say, that even though I knew what was going to happen, I really enjoyed this episode. The ending was quite good, especially for a shounen-show. The only thing it lacked was an aftermath. I would have loved to see how the survivors went on with their lives. But ah well, you can’t have everything.
My favourite moment of the episode was Matsuda, I did NOT expect the guy to shoot Light, who tried to kill Near in a final desperate attempt. Seeing the once so confident Light finally cornered with no way out was also really nice to see, overall it made sure for a great episode. In the end, Near did notice Mikami’s strange behaviour, we just didn’t get to see it. It feels a bit cheap, though, but the reaction of the characters definitely made up for it. That’s why Mello was so down when he kidnapped Takada, he was doing it in order to get killed, and make Mikami do an unnecessary move.
I must praise Death Note for being the ONLY shounen-anime whose main character declines, instead of grows. Every other shounen-anime features a main character who keeps getting new powers in order to be able to handle stronger opponents, but Light is different. As the anime progresses, he gets more careless and more careless.
I just wish Ryuk had a bigger role in the second half of the anime. But then again, his role was more of an observer and to introduce the elements of Death Note. He’d indeed become a bit obsolete when everything is known and clear about it. Overall, it’s been a nice anime, with a number of bumps here and there, but also with a number of awesome moments.]]>
Bokura no – 12
A light case this time, and it’s also the first episode of Bokura no to incorporate humour in its storytelling, it worked well, but I don’t think Bokura no needs it. It’s good enough without the humour, unlike other anime, as it distracts a bit from the things that are really important. The creators make use of the current case to develop the storyline a bit more, and they make sure to do it thoroughly, since she gets two episodes for this.
The biggest revelation probably came near the end of the episode: there indeed is a war between planets going on, and similar machines like Zearth are fighting each other. Zearth is just a bit stronger than the others. This does ask a huge number of questions:
– Where did the technology come from?
– How many planets are fighting each other?
– Is Zearth actually destroying the planets of the robots it destroys?
– Is every planet against Zearth, or are they destroying each other as well?
Also, I must congratulate this anime for coming up with the most original alien civilization I’ve seen in a long while: one that’s actually on about the same technical levels as the earth, with a few subtle differences. There really is some kind of party that’s been handing out robots to different planets, and Kokopeli and Koemushi work for them. What purpose do they have?
In any case, I’m glad to see that the creators keep eliminating the least-interesting characters. Let’s take a look at the ones who still are alive:
Kanji
Yosuki
Jun
Takami
Aiko
Yoko
Kana
Takana
Seki
Where Kana and Yoko will remain alive. At least, I assume this. The amount of development that Jun is getting suggests that his character is special somehow. Is this because he, in fact, is the child that’ll live, or are the creators building up for his story that needs more development than the others?
In any case, I’m looking forward to the stories of these children, and I’m especially curious to when we’ll see Aiko (due to the fact that she often gets emotional), Yosuki (I’d love to see his case), Jun (after this episode, I’ve become really curious about him, see a bunch of paragraphs below), and Takana (what will she do when she finds out she can’t protect the children anymore, and what kind of effect will this have on the children?).
Maki’s case this time was cute, but it was rather overshadowed by the developments we saw about Jun and the story. Still, it’s by no means bad. Her problem is that she barely misses the birth of her new brother, and her story is about how she can support her mother, and accept her rather strange father who constantly watches anime and buys mecha-figurines. I wonder how much the next episode will focus on her story, since she’s not dead yet, and she’ll probably die until the end of the next episode. Obviously, a lot of development will be spent on the plot, but it’ll be interesting if the creators bring another twist to Maki’s mother.
There’s also this matter that somehow Zearth’s name has been leaked out. It’s interesting to see how far Zearth’s influence goes, and it’s obvious that companies would try to exploit it somehow. The fact remains, though, that Zearth was not publicly known. I assume some guy in the military accidentally let it slip, but what if the information that Zearth is piloted by children becomes known to the public?
And holy god, Jun. I really want to know more about him. He doesn’t go to school, he slacks off all day and he lets Kana do all the housework, and in this episode he even went as far as kicking her in everyone’s presence. Now I see how special it was for him to come out in episode three, since he never comes out anyway. Still, I love Kana’s bed. I do wonder how she put that together, since it obviously can’t be Jun’s work, and you don’t see such a thing in the stores.
It’s interesting to see such a shift of focus when compared to the first eight episodes, by the way. While these episodes were dark, the current ones are light. If there is a pattern, we should see another change of focus after episode sixteen, where I’ll assume that the story will be providing some more darker elements.
The thing I liked about Maki’s case was, by the way, that it shows that we’re dealing with normal children here. To compare, Narutaru only had one normal child, with the rest of the cast being composed of outcasts. Narutaru had an excuse to make these characters outcasts, and thus providing some dark story-elements. Bokurano’s kids are not all outcasts, they’re just random children on a summer-camp, which means that you can’t just go and give each of them a twisted background. That’s why I really like the subtle ones we’ve been seeing for the past few episodes. Was this the same in the manga?
PS. Another reason why I liked this episode so much: for some reason, it’s giving me a huge amount of inspiration to write about. This is the perfect example of an entry that I really enjoyed writing. 🙂
PSS. (See, I keep adding things ^^;) After thinking a bit more about this episode, I realize that my opinion of Bokura no is similar to that of The Third. It isn’t really as emotional as other series, but somehow I’m drawn to it way more than with other series. Now THAT is a sign of a good show! For The Third, it was Honoka who created this effect, but I can’t put my finger yet on what it so intriguing about Bokura no, though. ]]>