With this episode, I knew: El Cazador is at its best when its themes centre around death. The past few episodes with background on Nadie and the fight between LA and Ricardo may have been nice, I now finally realize that the best stories are the ones in which death takes a central theme, finally, after four episodes of absence, we have another episode like this (the death used in episode 6 was more of a plot device than a focus, in fact).
Also, is it me, or are the creators really trying to save their best songs for the later half of the anime? For the past few episodes, I nearly forgot that this series has the brilliant Yuki Kajiura behind its music. So far, after the first three episodes, all we’ve heard were her standard tunes, but the fact remains that there are some great musical pieces among the soundtrack of El Cazador (for example, the track that was played during the climax of the first episode). The track that we heard when Nadie lied in the hospital in the middle of this episode also was a pure delight! I want more!
El Cazador’s episodes have always had one character who gets most of the screen-time and development. Episode 6 had Nadie, episode 7 had Lilio, while the current episode has Ellis as its main focus when Nadie gets shot down and put in the hospital. It’s nothing serious, as she’s able to walk again just a few hours later, but it does enable Ellis’s character to develop, as a mafia-boss sees her remove the bullet from Nadie’s wound and therefore thinks that she can heal his bed-ridden superior, whose health is in bad shape.
The guy is nothing like the stereotypical maffia-boss that you’d expect to see. He’s actually pretty worried about his superior. Ellis, however, can’t heal the guy. All she can do is melt metal, which doesn’t really help with a weak old guy. A large focus of this episode was for Ellis to understand the difference between good lying and evil lying. It’s interesting how nobody told her to do so, she actually figured it out herself, which is quite interesting if you consider her personality, and the fact that she claimed that she doesn’t like even the slightest lie because the professor told her that lying is bad. When the old man was about to die, though, mistaking Ellis for his dead daughter, she indeed tells him that she’s Paulina (the daughter’s name).
The side-characters also were once again very interesting. Heck, each of them has some kind of very small but important role in this episode. LA is now indeed captured, and instead of trying to escape, he keeps freaking out over Ellis’s pictures. Rozenberg meanwhile made a little trip to the desert in order to question the guy personally. And I still wonder: HOW THE HECK did he get the footage in LA’s camera!?
Blue-eyes meanwhile uses this opportunity to spy on Rozenberg’s office, by dropping herself down from an air-shaft above his desk. At least, that was the plan; she first needs to lose a few pounds before she’ll be able to do it. xD Ricardo meanwhile sends Lilio to give Ellis’s whereabouts to Nadie… why? I mean, there was not really a need for her to go there, was there? Or was he worried about Ellis, being taken away by a strange man?]]>
Deltora Quest – 10
Ah, I’ve been dying for the next instalment of Deltora Quest, and once again I must say: whoa!
The Yurunai have really gotten more depth than you’d expect at first sight. At first, I believed that they were just the citizens of a city who were a bit too enthusiastic about their hygiene, but once again this anime surprises me to actually give them a reason to. I mean, when you live right next to a cave, covered with highly poisonous mushrooms that can kill you just by touching, it’d be perfectly plausible for these people to live cleaner than usual, to protect their people. There was just a huge need for this. I can imagine this fear for contamination lapsing into obsession over time. The origins of this obsession has never had anything to do with the shadow lord at all, though I do suspect that he did help a bit in making it worse.
That’s the thing I love about Deltora Quest, unlike other brainless shounen series like Gurren Lagann, this one actually makes you and it characters think about the situations and settings. Not even one event doesn’t get backed up or explained by others. Heck, even the Deus ex Machina make sense! You just know that Tira would come back after leaving Lief, Barda and Jasmine, simply because she forgot their swords. For once you can see a deus ex machina come because it makes sense, instead because of blatantly obvious storytelling. The same with Fillie, the Yurunai said that they sent Fillie into the tunnel, though the creature would be smart enough to actually hide and wait for Jasmine to come and pick him up. When he saw her in danger, he obviously wanted to defend her. And regarding the Dai-Master sneaking up in the tunnel, obviously a smack by Tira hurts, but she remains a little girl, and when she smacks you on the head with a frying pan, I can see that you’d only lose consciousness for a short while, when compared to a punch from Barda, for example.
There’s also one thing that makes Deltora Quest really unique among the shounen genre: the fact that killing off the big boss doesn’t mean the end of his subordinates as well. We already saw this when Thaegan was temporarily dead, but now we see this for real, as the Dai-Master won’t be getting up soon in the state he’s in. And still, the Yurunai are perfectly fine.
And also the food! I never expected to be such a deep meaning to it, when it gets sold back to Tom’s shop like that. And the strange thing is, I don’t recall Tom actually selling food at all. Also, how did the Yurunai get so much food to begin with? These questions will probably get answered in the next episode. It’s a shame you almost hear nobody about this series, but I’m glad that it’s actually being subbed.]]>
Bokura no – 07
Okay, it seems that my theory of two episodes per pilot still holds, it’s just not as static as I thought. This probably was the most focused episode of Bokura no yet, when it focuses on just Chizuru, with a bit of Isao and Yosuki. The rest of the cast never even appeared. I originally believed that Chizuru would be the pilot in this episode, but it’s entirely focused on a flashback of her, explaining her background and making her the most fleshed-out character so far.
Chizuru’s case: she wants to do her best in school, but her parents just think that she’d go to the same school as her sister did. She doesn’t really feel appreciated by anyone, and believes that nobody cares about her. Then she meets a teacher (the one she spoke about two episodes ago) who does support her, and the two start to have an affair. The only problem is that Chizuru fell in love with the wrong person, as he’s one of these guys who posts pictures and videos of the two of them doing “it” on a website. Not only that, he also has an affair with her sister at the same time.
So far, I liked this episode a lot, but somehow I feel that the juiciest details have been saved for the next episode. It should focus on Chiruzu’s turn to be the pilot, but something tells me that the fight isn’t going to take a massive 20 minutes. And after all, a still of her background is still missing: the reason why she returned to the guy, even though she knew he was hitting on her sister. in episode five, we clearly see her remember her teacher without any feelings of hate, so some things are still about to happen.
The question also remains: what will she do once she’s going to pilot Zearth? It’s not like she has a reason to kick the enemy mecha’s ass, like Masaru and Takeshi did. Also, this episode has been the perfect example of lazy animators. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that the same animation-teams from NHK ni Youkoso worked on this anime.
I like the way this anime is going, so far, by the way. Apart from Masaru, the pilots chosen so far have been the least interesting ones at first glance. I’m really curious to seeing a bit more of Yosuki, what was in his mind when Isao bullied him. I’d also love to see Aiko and Takami break down when their turn begins, and I’m really looking forward to finding out more about Jun and Kana. In fact, the only meh-character remaining would be Maki. We’ve seen a bit of things from her, but so far she seems like the most normal character around.
Finally, I’ve been wondering something… I finally realized in this episode that each new pilot gets a marking. But why didn’t Takashi, Masaru and Kokopelli get this mark? Or was this mark on their bodies, instead of their faces so that we’d never get to see it?]]>
Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette – 20
Through the course of the episode, I noted that this probably was the happiest episode for Cosette yet, and then at the end, I understood. This episode answered a lot of questions and cleared up a lot of things: Fauche-le-Vent’s plan of the previous episode, what the past few episodes have been building up to, how Jean would be able to outrun Javert for such a long time and the identity of the mysterious “Marius”, who keeps getting mentioned by the people who read the book.
I finally understand that the past episodes have basically been one huge epilogue to the Thenardier-arc, where Jean has to try and find a quiet life for Cosette to live. Fauche-le-Vent didn’t pull the stunt of the previous episode to give Jean and Cosette the chance to escape, it was to gain the trust of the head nun of the monastery. The walls of the monastery are a perfect barrier against Javert, after all, and if Jean were to escape to some quiet town, he’d have to live in fear of being discovered every day. The problem was, though, that the head nun currently knew about trespassers who entered the grounds, so she’d never allow him to stay.
The head nun then apparently gave permission for Fauche-le-Vent to fake a burial, to help the trespasser escape safely. After this, Jean and Cosette would just get smuggled back in again (something simple, as it’s something Javert certainly wouldn’t suspect), he could make a formal entrance to the monastery, and make sure that Cosette joins the other nuns peacefully, while he himself gets appointed as gardener, along with Fauche-le-Vent.
Also, I think we’ve got ourselves one of the first time-leaps in the middle of a series to actually make sense and be believable. It’s perfectly plausible for Cosette and Jean to have lived five quiet years in the monastery, after Javert gave up on guarding the Monastery. Unlike other *coughJyuohSeicoughBlackCatcough* anime, who seem to feature some outrageous changes in characters. In fact, the only thing that went wrong in this episode is Cosette’s character design. I don’t know what it is, but something went terribly wrong somewhere, considering her character-design as a girl was beautiful.
Also, finally that mysterious Marius appears. In the first four episodes, I got some commenters who wondered if Marius was Eponine’s boyfriend back then, but he actually seems to be some guy of an important family. I’m eager to see that the current arc has finished, and a new one can begin. The Javert-arc definitely had its moments of glory, like when Cosette found out about her mother, or when Javert was about to catch Jean, but it by no means was as fun as the awesomeness of the Thenardier-arc. Still, we’ve got ourselves more than 30 episodes left, so an intermezzo here and there only contributes to the best parts by fleshing out Cosette’s and Jean’s characters.]]>
Toward the Terra – 07
When the episode started, it took a while before I got used to the time-leap that took place between this episode and the previous one. I’m not sure how many years passed, but probably two or three of them. Those who paid attention during the OP noticed that next to Keith, Sam and Sweena there’s another person. This guy gets introduced in the current episode, sortof. He appears to be the kid that Jomie failed to rescue, back in episode five.
Keith has grown out to become the most elite student of the academy, still befriended with Sam and Swena. Shiroe turned into a rather cocky brat, totally opposite from his younger version. An interesting detail is that somehow, nobody detected that he’s a Myu. It’s interesting, but in a way, he’s quite similar to Jomie.
And whoa, Swena just left like that, getting married to a random guy! I never expected her to disappear from the plot again after just less than two episodes. At this point, I was really wondering whether I missed an episode, or something. Still, I must commend the creators to come up with a twist like that.
The episode gets really interesting, though, when Shiroe starts investigating on Keith’s past. At the previous episode, I thought the fact that he lost his memories meant that he failed the growing-up test. But in fact, this was because he knew something that shouldn’t become known. And judging by the fact that his entire memory has been removed, including that of all the people he grew up with, he must have done or been something pretty important or dangerous. Seeing Keith punch Shiroe at the end of the episode also surprised me, after being called a cold robot without any emotions (for sending his “girlfriend” off like that).
I do wonder what Jomie has been doing for the past few episodes, though. I originally thought that he’d be heading straight for Terra, but now it seems that it’s either very far away, or the coordinates are gone. He’s currently probably looking for a way to get there, I believe. It’s interesting, though, that the main character doesn’t appear for more than two episodes. It’s not often that you see such a thing happen in an anime.]]>
Dennou Coil – A Circle of Children – 02
That was the coolest old lady ever!!
Seriously, though. This episode showed that Dennou Coil doesn’t only have a huge amount of imagination, it also showed that this series is going to be heaps of fun. Most of the episode was standard character-fleshing out, but I loved the climax. It starts with Yuuko and Fumie escaping from the strange red creature called “Sacchi” by hiding near a shrine. Apparently, shrines and schools are off-limits to them.
Then we see a bit more about the girl we saw briefly in the previous episode. She seems to be after the black speck, which seems to be called an “illegal”, or computer virus. It seems that this virus has entered Densuke, and isn’t planning to let go of him soon, as later in the episode showed. She sends a bunch of strange furballs to track it down.
We then get to see the rest of Yuuko’s family. Her grandmother runs a cyber-tore, where all kinds of strange items and cyber-items can be bought. She and her daughter (aka Yuuko’s mother) seem to be arguing a lot, though, so I wonder what made them move in to this city in the first place. Yuuko’s grandfather seems to be dead, but notice the picture she has of him on his death altar and understand why the two ended up married with each other. 😛
I also wonder, if you pet a cyber-pet, do you feel anything? I mean, Yuuko touched Densuke like it was an actual animal. And if you can feel it, what happens if a cyber-pet bumps into someone who doesn’t wear glasses? I also kept wondering what “unchi” meant, so I decided to look it up….
I wish I didn’t. It seems that Kyoko learned a new word recently…
This episode, I also noticed the use of papers for all kinds of purposes. One version attempted to cure Densuke (either that, or to stop the virus from downloading stuff), and one was even able to change the lights in a traffic light. They seem to be produced from these strange crystals that were introduced in the previous episode (sorry, forgot their names), which does explain why Fumie charges these crystals instead of money for her services.
When Yuuko’s grandmother also sells something to her, she seems have gotten a number as well (8). Fumie herself is 7, while grandmother herself is 0. I’m not sure what these numbers mean, though.
The awesomeness in the episodes begins with a strange dream Yuuko has, which suggests that the mysteries in Dennou Coil go way deeper than what meets the eye. Inside this dream, someone who claims to be Yuuko’s brother and stuck in one of the shrines asks her to free him. The next day, Kyoko gets the “interesting” idea of using her cyber-crayons on Densuke, with hilarious results. The furballs then make their move, though, and when Kyoko grabs one of them, it actually manages to zap her, which causes her arms to get all… cybered up, by lack of proper term.
Yuuko’s grand mother, however, then shows that she doesn’t run a cyber-shop for no reason, as she starts chasing them and the episode ends. That was really nice, and I feel that there are many more mysteries that will be introduced in the next couple of episodes.]]>
Kaze no Shoujo Emily – 07
After the events of the previous episode, this episode was more of an aftermath, in which the things that happened during the climax are resolved. The episode specifically focuses on stopping John to cut down the forest, and for Emily and John to make up again. John is quite the interesting character, and he never really was evil, it seems. He just doesn’t know how to control his anger, especially towards Elizabeth. After the things she said to him in the previous episode, he just had to retort somehow. And the only thing he could think of was cutting down the forest that belonged to him, even though this hurts Emily and Jimmy more than Elizabeth.
In fact, through the course of the episode, John keeps hoping for Emily to return to her. Emily, however, doesn’t know this, and is very busy with thinking up a plan to stop John somehow. It’s interesting how she doesn’t confront him directly, but goes to the local priest instead. This definitely shows how naive she still is, but then again, I wouldn’t suspect anything different from a poetic girl of her age.
Overall, this was more one of those heart-warming episodes than the exciting ones. Still, I found myself really liking it. I’m looking forward to the next episode, by the way, as something tells me that it’ll be the turn for either Perry, Teddy or Ilse to get fleshed out a bit. Kaze no Shoujo Emily definitely is the most underrated series of this season.]]>
Seirei no Moribito – 07
Heh, after actually watching the previous episode with subtitles, and with the help of a few commenters (especially minhngoc and wrex) I finally understood what happened back there. The whole chase was put in scene, and the Barsa and Chaggumu we saw tumbling down the cliff were actually fake bodies, created by Torogai-shi. Barsa, Chaggumu and Tanda, meanwhile headed on foot to the west, and they passed that big rock. Barsa continues to surprise me with her plans.
While watching the episode, I kept wondering how the heck the story would continue next. I mean, everyone thinks that Chaggumu is dead, Barsa is smart enough not to screw up somehow, and we still have twenty episodes left for this anime. But after I looked up what Shuga tried to say at the end of the episode, I understood. He was looking at the machine that made the prediction of the upcoming drought. I’m not yet sure how, but after Chaggumu’s death it should return to a more peaceful prediction. Shuga, however, notices that it still indicates that a drought is going to happen. When the warriors are going to find out about this, they’ll probably figure out that Barsa went west, and they start chasing her again.
This does provide quite a challenge for Barsa: how to hide Chaggumu, while everyone can see the guy’s still alive. She’s going to have to come up with an impossible hiding place. Also, what was Torogai-shi up to? It seems that she did head north, after fooling the two warriors, but to what purpose, what does she carry in that bag of hers?
Most of the episode was quiet, though, when it focused on Barsa and Tanda, who can finally have it easy again. Chaggumu acts kindof cute when he tries to figure out how to spend the rest of his life, and then it seems that Barsa’s actually planning to reunite him with his mother (I might have misunderstood that part).]]>
Saiunkoku Monogatari – 46
Once again, Saiunkoku continues to stun me with some amazing episodes and plot developments. I do admit that the struggles within the Sa-clan dragged on a bit, but the current arc more than makes up for it. I can’t believe how awesome Shuurei is when she’s determined. (On a side-note: only now I noticed that Shuurei still wears the make-up that she received from Kochou).
So, in the last episode, it seemed that the cause was somehow spread through the snow foxes into the water-system, and the disease wasn’t contagious. In this episode, we finally get to know the truth about the disease: it’s caused by the bugs that live on the snow-fox. People swallow them while drinking the water, and the bugs start to take over the human body.
The only cure: manually removing it by cutting into the human body. This is where the problem lies, though: nobody of the palace-medical team knows how to do this. And this is where the strange guy we’ve been seeing with Sho Taishi comes into the picture: he actually was the doctor who took care of Shuurei when she was sick, and he turns out to be a legendary medic who knows how to properly cut into the human body. He then agrees to go with Shuurei to the Sa-province, along with the medical staff from the palace, with whom he spends the rest of the episode teaching how to properly cut into the human body (I know there has to be some kind of special word for this, but I just can’t seem to remember it), by practicing on a pig.
If this wasn’t already enough, we also get to know why Doushu’s death means Eigetsu’s death: Doushu died once already. Yougetsu then put half of Eigetsu’s soul inside Doushu, so that he could remain alive. Apparently, this only kept him alive for about six or seven years, before this part of the soul died along with Doushu. Now that Eigetsu has lost half of his soul, I can imagine that he can’t live without it.
I’m glad to say that I actually understood the first half of the episode quite clearly. The second half… however, was a different story. I know that Shuurei went to a department to ask permission for something, but which department that was, and what she needed from them still remain a big mystery to me. Shuurei also exits the episode with the message that she only has one job left to do, and I do wonder what that job might be…
It’s interesting how you can compare the pacing of Saiunkoku Monogatari with Les Miserables. With both shows, you just know some things are definitely going to happen. With Les Miserables, it’s for example Fantine’s death and Jean, revealing his own identity, while for Saiunkoku Monogatari it’s for example the scene where Eigetsu either dies or gets saved somehow, and the revelation of who the mysterious Li Senya actually is. With both shows, these scenes are definitely going to happen, and with both shows, you won’t be able to predict exactly when these moments will come. It can be the next episode; it can also take five more episodes. That’s another thing I love about both of these series.]]>
Death Note – 31
Okay…
I didn’t see that coming…
You know, that new plot twist was quite good, and surprising as well. I never thought that Light would give away the only Death Note he had left to someone he didn’t even know personally. I suspect that he’s found a way to continuously keep touching either a couple of pages torn out of it or just a snippet, but the fact does remain that he doesn’t have the faith of the world in his own hands anymore.
Especially Misa shocked me. She’s horrible when she’s not serious, but when she gets involved with serious events she turns out very interesting. I can’t believe she’s just returned to a regular housewife like this. And suddenly, she wrote herself out of the show. We probably won’t see any major role from her until after the aftermath, or something.
Still, I’m glad that Light finally made another move like this, that is risky but brilliant at the same time. I can’t believe he actually believed that he’d get Near with the plan he came up in the previous episode. Even when Near didn’t have the possession of such an amount of money, or even if he didn’t manage to contact the police, he just could have used a secret underground stairway, or some kind of helicopter and Misa would’ve never seen his face. Luckily, when he realized that Near actually got away Light fortunately got a bit back to earth, and finally acknowledged Near as an enemy he should take serious. Near’s going to have a hard time proving that Light will be Kira with the notebook gone.
Also, we’ve got a new hair-colour: green! I think that this shows that Aizawa is on neither’s side. I do wonder what he’ll do from now on, after Mikami killed everyone on Demegawa’s show. After all, Light could never have known the names of the people Demegawa selected, since they were shown on TV for the first time.]]>