Okay, my prediction the episodes would alternate between each of the four main characters was wrong. This was pretty much an Emily-episode as well, but nevertheless, it was a beauty, mostly because of the introduction of another character: John. He lives in a cottage on the grounds of the farm of the new moon, though he seems to have managed to claim it as his own property. Furthermore, he hates Elizabeth; if I had to guess then he’s one of her younger brothers as well, though I’m not sure.
In any case, at first Emily easily becomes friends with him, due to the fact that they both hate Elizabeth. His impression of her also was truly brilliant. It’s not often that in anime, characters do impressions of each other, strangely enough. Still, it works great, especially when the more serious characters are copied. I can really understand why Emily almost couldn’t hide her laugh when she talked to Elizabeth later on.
On a side-note, by the way, the trees already looked great during the summer, but now that the autumn has arrived, they really look beautiful, with their wide ranges of colours.
Anyway, back to John, he may be a nice guy, he also goes too far at times, and he clearly doesn’t know when to stop when he plays a prank, by leaving a note near a basket of apples which says that these were meant to get rid of the mice. When Emily came to his house after having a fit with Elizabeth (which resulted in her, burning her own notebook), she ate these apples without noticing this note only after about a minute. Because of this, she really believed that she was going to die.
While Emily definitely was a bit annoying at this, I can definitely see a little girl getting tricked by this. Especially since Emily is overly poetic, and she already was really angry and lost sight of her emotions when she ate these apples. She’s really become a unique character. Most characters of her age in anime are totally different, and she really shows the difference between Japanese storytelling, where you often see characters act more polite, and western storytelling, where characters are more often to speak their minds.
Still, the best part was when everyone found out that Emily was going to die. Perry got extremely worried, while Elizabeth immediately understood that John played another prank of his. When Elizabeth went to his house and actually told him this, he never really realized that this was his fault, and he never thought of apologizing. All he did was yell at Elizabeth. I believe that with this episode, this anime really showed that it knows what it’s doing. I’m hooked; it’s just too bad that so little people are watching this as well, due to the lack of good subs… the fansubbers seem to have something against shoujo-anime…]]>
Saiunkoku Monogatari – 45
Whoa… this episode was basically just one huge dialogue. It’s hard to find a moment in which people actually didn’t talk about something. Unfortunately, that made things difficult to understand, but I can feel that this episode was building up to something great. We start with Shuurei’s meeting with the governor of the Koku-province, Kai. Kai shows her the books that Doushu gave him, and it seems that they’re all highly advanced medical books. Why did Doushu tell Kai to give these books to Shuurei and not to Eigetsu? Why was it so important for him to deliver these books?
Kai also informs Shuurei that Eigetsu will be dying soon. The reaction of Shuurei was marvellous, and I do wonder whether Eigetsu will she be alive when she gets back to the Sa-province (remember, the journey does take thirty days). Kai also tells him that when Doushu was about to die, he tried to get a doctor to look at him, though when he got back, Doushu already was gone. If my memory doesn’t fool me, he then went outside to die, under the shades of a tree. I think he wanted to have a bit of time for himself. Also, he gives Shuurei the final permission she needs to carry out her plans. ^^
The rest of the episode was a big puzzle for me, though, and I’m eagerly waiting for Impz and Usagijen to post their views on it. Eigetsu arrived in the town I assume was plagued by the disease. In there, he meets up with some kind of official. Shuurei shows the books to the medical staff of the palace, and they realize that they were written by some kind of legendary figure, who was supposed to be dead. And that’s about all I picked up.
Like mentioned above, I feel that this episode was building up to something amazing. The episode was very focused and detailed, and really took its time explaining. The next episode should prove to be a beauty. :)]]>
Seirei no Moribito – 06
I like it when Seirei no Moribito comes with an eventful episode. Not necessarily because of the action, but episodes like these are much easier to understand. The previous episodes were just nearly impossible to grasp for me, without looking at summaries by other people, but with this episode, I at least got the main points.
Still, that doesn’t mean that I understood everything. Shuga and his role still are one big mystery to me. Why is he so important? What kinds of books is he reading? And what relevance do these books have to the story? Even after reading the summaries from others, I still can’t understand this.
Anyway, the episode itself is about a failed attempt to run away by Barsa and Chaggumu. Chaggumu first gets his hair cut, and his earrings are removed. It pains him to lose the few items he still holds that remind him of his mother, so Barsa turns one of these earrings into a necklace. We meanwhile see all of the warriors from episode three, who are planning their next move. One of them still is wounded on his eye (courtesy of Barsa), another still has a cut on his face. Their boss was merely hit unconscious, so he has been able to recover. He takes the fourth guy with him, to go after Barsa.
Barsa, meanwhile takes off with Chaggumu and Torogai-shi. I also finally understood why she involved herself with Chaggumu in the first place. She foresaw a great drought, and this egg inside of Chaggumu seemed to be the source. The question now remains: what will she be doing in order to prevent this? I haven’t been able to find that one out. In any case, Torogai-shi splits up from Barsa and Chaggumu, probably to check and make sure nobody follows them.
The two assassins, meanwhile, demonstrate again that they’re superb trackers. I’m not sure what kind of reasoning they used, but they found Barsa and Chaggumu quite fast. If I’m not mistaken, then they noticed some horse’s hoofs which didn’t belong to a horse from the military. A chase follows, and Chaggumu notices that Barsa’s wound still hasn’t fully healed, and it actually starts bleeding again when Barsa starts pushing herself.
The purpose of the wolf also finally becomes clear: it’s with Torogai-shi. Just before Barsa is overtaken, it pushes the horse they’re riding on off a cliff, and through some kind of poisonous gas. Because it happened so fast, they didn’t breathe any of it, but if the assassins were to try and get them, they’d end up dead. At least, that’s what I figure, as they just let the two of them go. It’s strange that they didn’t just wait and see where they would be going, though.
Afterwards, we see that Barsa has gone back to Tanda, in order to rest again. I guess that’s her weakness: she’s so much focused on her goal that she thinks she can handle things, while she actually can’t. The fact that the prince cut his hair also made a lot more impact than I suspected. Or did these assassins actually think he died when he was attacked by the wolf? Ah well, they’ll find out soon he didn’t when they’re going to pick up his body and it ends up missing.
Finally, I remember noting that the music isn’t that special after watching the first episode, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. The music has been excellent so far, especially during the chase it consisted out of some great tunes. :)]]>
Death Note – 30
You know, one major change between the current Light and the eighteen-year-old Light is that he’s much more reckless now. He’s taking a lot more risks, and his plans are no longer as careful as possible. His previous plans left nothing to the coincidence, but this episode made him reveal his identity to Near, even though he wasn’t fully sure that Near was the real culprit. I mean, what if the guy has some way to escape underground? Or comes out, wearing a mask?
Still, the part of the episode that made the biggest impression on me was the one shown at the beginning, where we see random scenes of the people who’ve gotten used to Kira, and are actually threatening each other with death. Especially the phrase “Lord Kira, please kill them”, followed by the scene of a woman crying made a lot of impact. This episode was definitely meant to illustrate this.
Also, only now do we see how large the impact of Shidoh’s visit was. Even though he himself wasn’t really doing much, the fact that some of the rules on the death note were fake has now been spread to all of the major characters in this anime. Still, I do wonder how Near found out about these fake rules in the first place. All of L’s data was supposed to be erased when Watari died, so he had to start all over. If Near had access to L’s data, he would have been easily able to figure out about Light.
One of the things I also liked was how this caused the people inside the investigation-team to start thinking about Light’s credibility. Finally they’re getting some brains of their own again. Especially Aizawa is going to have a major role in the future episodes.
I also am surprised to say that for the first time, Near actually became the most annoying character of the episode. Mello has definitely changed after the previous episode, with a huge scar on his face as a nice present. If I’m not mistaken, his voice also turned a lot lower since we last heard him.]]>
Ooedo Rocket – 06
Holy god, this anime just keeps introducing more and more characters, and they still manage to make each of them unique. I really wonder whether we get to see Tetsuju again. At the beginning we see him flying off again, but this time he actually doesn’t come down. I do hope we do, actually, he was hilarious in the time he was featured.
The current episode was focused on the daughter of the famous fireworks craftsman Kagiya. I also just realized: Sekichi’s family name is Tamaya. Is he actually THE Tamaya, or one of his relatives? Come to think of it, we’ve never seen his father, have we? I suspect that that’s the real one. After he got exiled, Seikichi and his brother remained in Edo, which does explain why they live without any parents now.
Anyway, it seems that Kagiya’s daughter has some kind of crush on Seikichi, which in a way is obvious, since she too has a passion for fireworks. She’s just a bit less “subtle” about it, and because of this she just had to get jealous of Sora, who then confirms to her that she thinks that Seikichi is just a good friend of her. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so willing to send her to the moon. ^^;
Also, this episode was the perfect example of what happens when too many anime centre around the same time-period: shows start to use the same events and people. We already knew this through Hijikata Toshizo, who probably holds the record of most appearances in different anime ever, but those who saw Ayakashi Ayashi probably noticed a lot of similarities with Ooedo Rocket as well. First of all, this episode briefly mentions the Ayagami, while Ayakashi Ayashi had an episode to mention the firework craftsmen of Tamaya and Kagiya. Both anime featured the serial murderers of women, in which one of them was killed on the harbour, and not to mention Torii, who makes an appearance in both anime as well. It’s a good thing that both anime are excellent, otherwise it would have gotten repetitive fast. ^^;
My favourite character of this episode was Akai, though, even though this may have been a bit too much on the wrong side when he thinks of naughty thinks in front of a corpse, and then actually wets himself when the blue monster from heaven appears. Later, though, we see this monster actually reveal that she too, has a human form. That’s promising to become interesting for the future episodes.
Also, I just loved the military helicopters which suddenly appeared. Especially because of the reason they appeared there in the first place, when we see the characters actually look at some drawn cells, used in anime. Finally, it took me a while to notice that the tall guy’s hair changes, depending on his mood.]]>
Claymore – 06
The Teresa-arc so far has been better than the Raki-arc, in my opinion. Even though the young Claire herself could have been more interesting, it’s Teresa who really stole the show in this episode. The emotions that Claire evoked from Teresa were much more captivating than when Raki saved Claire from turning into a Youma.
I especially loved when Teresa realized the real reason why Claire kept following and hugging her. It’s not because she saw her as her only way out, surprisingly. She realized that Teresa herself was in the same pain as herself, and she wanted her to realize that. Later in the episode, we see Teresa actually killing humans for her, a crime that can’t be forgiven. Because of this, she’s going to be hunted by the four strongest Claymores, apart from herself.
The question now remains: where does Elena come into the game? Will Teresa survive all this? If she does, then where is she now? And what made Claire decide to become a claymore herself? I’m also curious about what happened even before this arc. Why did Teresa become a Claymore, and how did she become the strongest? Has Claire been travelling with that Youma ever since she was born, or does she have one or two childhood memories with her parents before the youma killed them? These last questions will probably not get answered, though.
It’s also interesting, in the previous episode, I saw Raki similar to the younger Claire, but this episode showed that the two of them are entirely different. Raki didn’t really stay with Claire because she looked in pain. He just found it unfair for people to shun her like that, despite her caring personality. Teresa also took Claire in because of pity, while Claire probably let Raki stay because Teresa did the same to her in the past.]]>
Wellber no Monogatari ~ Sisters of Wellber – 06
I don’t know about others, but I greatly enjoyed this episode. It was definitely the best one in this series so far, when it focuses on Galahad and Rita, instead of a random case. I’m so glad that this episode avoided the pitfalls that strike so many other anime when they attempt an episode like this one. The graphics also just looked stunning in this one. The combination of fire, snow and some excellent animation made this episode really worthwhile to see. 🙂
The episode starts, though, with the guard we saw in the first episode arriving on an island, introducing yet another character: the female knight. If I had to guess, then she too is from Sangatras. Then the episode starts when Rita and Tina are in the middle of a snowy mountain, they talk about how the area is infamous for housing a rather poisonous spider, and then it seems that Tina has been afraid of spiders since she was young, after one unfortunate incident. ^^
One small detail I loved is how Rita’s fears aren’t used in this episode. Another thing is that this means that Sherry has known Tina for a very long time now. I still wonder how the two of them met each other. In any case, a blizzard shows up, and Rita first gets separated from Tina, and then runs into none other than Galahad. She manages to get away from him when she falls off a cliff. Apparently, this cliff wasn’t very large, and due to the snow, she had a soft landing, after which she fled into a convenient wooden shed.
Galahad, however, sees the wooden shed as well, and what follows is some considerable development between the two of them. One of the spiders mentioned above managed to get hold of Galahad, and Rita just isn’t someone to leave someone like him just to die. Then an interesting discussion follows, where it seems that Guernia acted really strange in the night when Rita murdered him. I’m glad to see that she finally reveals what really happened to her.
I didn’t understand this part too well, but it seems that Guernia wanted to kill Rita for his own gain. If I had to guess, then he first wanted to kill her, in order to blame others afterwards. It was probably so that he could get both Sangatras and Wellber for himself in the future. That’s why he kept bothering Rita with marriage requests. Strangely enough, though, he was extremely nice to Galahad. The two of them grew up together, and Galahad never noticed anything strange with him.
Still, the best part of the episode comes when Galahad actually poisons Rita’s drink when she’s not looking, with the venom of the same spider when she’s not looking. I hate it when episodes like these bring rivals together, only for the two of them to make friends and act like nothing happened. That definitely wasn’t the case here, when even after hearing Rita’s story, Galahad still wants to kill her.
Luckily, she managed to hit over an oil lamp in her struggles, so that the house catches fire and Tina would be able to find her. It’s quite interesting to see what the creators have already put Rita through. I’d love to know what’s going to happen in the rest of this series.]]>
El Cazador de la Bruja – 06
One thing I don’t get is how people are claiming that El Cazador is stuck in fillers. Heck, there hasn’t been one episode which didn’t contribute something to the plot, and all the episodes have spend some nice time fleshing out the different characters. This time, Nadie’s history gets a bit explored.
It seems that Nadie wasn’t always a bounty hunter. At one time, she worked at a local restaurant. In there, she started liking a boy, but he used her money to hit on another girl. Because of that, she came to hate the guy. In this episode, she runs into him again. The interesting thing is, that he tried to team up with the hunters. He still works at that same restaurant, as one of the guitarists, though his skills are terrible. I suspect that he could use an extra bit of money.
You wouldn’t suspect it, but apart from Seirei no Moribito, El Cazador has proved to be the most difficult anime to understand raw. That’s because there are so many details inside each episode that you just can’t miss, and I’m really noticing with my Japanese skills that I miss out on them more often when compared to other anime.
In any case, the climax was a great one. We’re never shown who actually did it, but after Nadie has taken care of the hunters, he ends up with two gun-wounds in his stomach. The girl we saw him flirting with in the flashback still is with him, and she’s shocked to find the guy in a state like that. We’re never shown whether he lives or not, or what happens afterwards, though. But in the epilogue, we do see the two of Ellis and Nadie crying.
And LA, I finally realized that he actually works for Rozenberg. I kept wondering how the guy was able to trace Ellis and Nadie’s every step, but now it seems that LA has been filming Ellis not just because of his personal fetishes. Still, I do wonder how he got hold of the footage with Ellis when she was armed with a pair of forks, since we see him trailing Lilio and her father during that episode.
Speaking of the two of them, I still have no idea about their role. They work for Rozenberg as well, and in this episode we see them react when Nadie comes running past them, but after that we never see them again… Is their job to be trailing the pair of Nadie and Ellis? But if it is, then why does Rozenberg use LA as well?
I’m also surprised at how this show handles deaths. It’s a bit confusing when compared to Wellber no Monogatari, where Tina uses a gun that doesn’t kill, but these people definitely do die. Because of the travelling nature of this show, these people are just left behind, as if they never existed in the first place. In most anime this is a bad thing, but somehow this really works for El Cazador, making it one of the most thought-provoking series this season.]]>
Bokura no – 05
The total amount of episodes for Bokurano hasn’t been announced yet, has it? If I had to estimate, then I’d say 39 episodes. The current format of the show is intro-death-intro-death-intro. It’s a solid format, and definitely makes sure for enough development. Fifteen children means 15 x 2 = 30 episodes, where I can imagine that some of the arcs will be three episodes, instead of two. In any case, I do hope so, as this anime deserves not to get rushed.
I’m also very surprised. I expected the impulsive characters to last at least till the end, because they’d make sure for some great conflict later on. But now it seems that the three most impulsive characters of the bunch are actually killed off the first. I really fear for Maki now, as she’s right now the most likely person to be the fourth pilot.
Also, regarding my spelling of the title for this anime, I realize that most other people are using “Bokurano”, instead of “Bokura no”. Since the original title is in Japanese, which doesn’t use spaces, it’s always a question how to spell something like this right in romanji. Still, I decided to keep “Bokura no”, simply because:
1. I’ve grown to like it.
2. I keep mispronouncing Bokurano. With Bokura no, I at least know where the right emphasises on the words are.
Anyway, about the episode, a lot of time was dedicated to Isao, the next pilot. He already freaks out even before he realizes it. The guy likes to speak his mind, even when he’s angry, so he starts to yell at everyone. At home, he tears up his entire room and actually hurts his own mother. His sister doesn’t have such a good relationship with him, obviously, while his mother is extremely worried. I assume that the one who picked him up in episode 2 also was his sister, not his mother, like I originally thought. In the end, he runs away from home, only to realize he’s going to be the next pilot.
Chizuru Honda also had a major role. I’m not sure if Isao fancied her before everything started, but he does fancy her the most out of the characters. When he’s desperate like that, he’s obviously going to run to her. Chizuru, however, is cold and realistic again. We do get a bit of information about her, though. She’s actually like Isao, in a way. She too tries to run to the person she trusts the most, in order to find comfort. For Chizuru, this person is some kind of teacher for her, though he or she isn’t at home.
I feel like I’m really going to like Mako when she’s going to get a bit of decent development. So far, we’ve only seen bits and pieces of her, though these were very interesting so far. She’s incredibly shy, but at the same time she likes to please everyone. Think of a combination of Takami and Yosuki.
We also get a bit more information about Jun. When Kana was born, his mother died out of exhaustion. It’s quite possible for Jun to hate her because of this. Kana turned very silent because of this. I think that she figured that it’d just be best to not speak at all, so that she doesn’t anger her brother too much.
Moji is another person who is high on the “next pilot”-list. He’s been having quite a bit of development in the past few episodes. This episode, he only explained a few things, but it definitely showed that he’s also got a lot of charisma. Aiko is the third person on this list, when we see her act very delighted that there might be a feint chance for her to be saved.
If I had to guess, then Yosuki is going to have a big role in the next episode. Simply because Isao just continues to bully him. This episode he again kept kicking him in order to relieve stress.
It’s also interesting, as we see Koemushi either have a conversation with himself, or Zearth, in which the second party questions whether Koemushi isn’t going too far in his insults. I also was surprised when the army actually got the permission to investigate on Zearth. Their commander seems to be on good terms with Kana, though we’re not yet shown exactly how.]]>
Les Miserables – Shoujo Cosette – 18
I just realized, the second part of Les Miserables is basically one big cat-and-mouse game between Javert and Jean. I also kept misspelling Javert’s name, sorry about that. In katakana, Javert just sounds too much like Javell. In any case, this time Jean and Cosette find shelter inside a wooden shed, on the ground of the local monastery, after using one of the ropes to climb over the walls from the previous episode. In there, Jean runs into the guy he helped a number of episodes ago, when his carriage collapsed on top of him. I never expected that that scene actually got featured into the OP for a reason.
Also, you have to love Cosette. For such a small girl, it had to be a hugely tiring journey, fleeing from the police, in the middle of the night, running quite a distance and getting carried over a wall, and she still doesn’t complain. In fact, she even helps Jean when he loses control of his hat, right above the head of Javert when she grabs hold of it. And yet, when he’s about to leave her alone, she shows signs of anxiety. Because of her time with the Thenardiers, she learned to withstand the hardest of beatings, but when it comes to loneliness, she’s as helpless as any other child of her age. ^^;
Also, even though the two of them have been able to find shelter for the night, they are going to have to leave soon. Javert has already attempted to inspect the monastery, though the head sister refused them, even though she knew that the person called “Jean Valjean” had trespassed on her terrain. Because of this, she asks the salesman to make them leave as soon as possible. I assume that she’ll alert Javert if they don’t. The salesman then comes with the idea of transporting Cosette and Jean in a coffin. Even the police don’t dare to look inside of these.
That’s only going to make the next episode even more interesting, as it does mean that Jean and Cosette will be completely dependant of the guy who transports them, since they can’t do anything inside one of these coffins. I can see Javert becoming crazy enough to think that they might have actually used the coffins to get away.]]>