I just realized that from now on, my Saturdays are going to be really busy, with Seirei no Moribito, Kaze no Shoujo Emily, Toward the Terra, Saiunkoku Monogatari and starting from next week, Dennou Coil as well, all airing on that very same day. This is going to be interesting, as these four series already are top-quality, and I’m suspecting Dennou Coil to be great as well. ^^;
Anyway, back to the episode, it starts off by refreshing our memories about the eight immortals that supported the first king. After the first king did, they disappeared, and legend told that when there was a king, fitted for them to serve, they would return to the building we always see Sho Taishi in and watch over this king. With this bit of information conveniently passing right after we get a proper introduction of the white bishie, this really confirms that he is one of these immortals. This also explains why Sho Taishi did what he did in the first season. As it’s for sure that he’s an immortal as well, he just got a bit impatient and instead of waiting for a good king, he decided to take matters in his own hands, and pull some strings behind the scenes, in order to make this happen a bit faster.
Still, I nearly forgot it, but there has to be a reason why the silhouette of each of these immortals is different, and actually very detailed. Something tells me that each of them is going to make some kind of appearance in Saiunkoku Monogatari. I do wonder when the other six arrive. Back to the white bishie, he does know Shuuri from something, but how and where did he learn her name. At the end of the episode, he approaches her, and she is so stunned that she’s not even able to move. Is there a deeper meaning behind this, or was this a variation of the “Kijin-effect”?
Surprisingly, a majority of the episode is about Reishin. While he was as funny as usual (especially Kurou, noticing the prospect of Reishin becoming Shuurei’s father-in-law), the guy really is getting worrisome. He really doesn’t want Shuurei to know his name, and when he finds out that Kurou presented Shuurei a bag of tangerines, he just had to do the same thing. Hakumen also nearly spoils his secret, making Shuurei at least aware of the existence of a guy named Kou Reishin who keeps giving his subordinates too much work.
Eigetsu also surprised me even more when the disease gets even worse, and it is confirmed that a snow-fox has been spotted in the autumn. This does suggest that we’re dealing with a disease which travels along with foxes. Anyway, Eigetsu only has a feint hope that there is some kind of cure discovered, and he actually begs Yougetsu to give him a bit more time. This suggests that he really doesn’t have that much time left, and he knows it.
Also, Tei Yuushun finally tells Ryuuki that he’s a good emperor, and pledges his trust into him. Ryuuren, meanwhile, first looks for something called the Phoenix Wind, after which he disappears from Kokujun. The fact that Shouka noticed this must mean that this will play some kind of role in the future episodes.
Finally, what the heck happened to Seiran? If I’m not mistaken, this episode only saw one shot of him, eating, while the previous episode only mentioned him once, about how he fled the house because of Ryuuren’s presence. What has he been doing for the past few episodes?]]>
Kaze no Shoujo Emily – 05
Ah, the introductions are finally over, and now this anime can start building upon its characters. This episode was another great one, with unsurprisingly, the focus being aimed at Emily. The next one should focus on Perry, if the show is going to keep building on the same pattern, which will probably introduce his parents and their problems.
The current episode was really meant to flesh out Emily’s talents. We’ve seen her write, we’ve seen her get enthusiastic about it, but this episode shows that she actually has real talent, when she writes an entire two-person play for the school theatre-plays. Roda and her friends, who have been preparing a different story, take this too lightly and fail miserably. This episode also shows that Emily’s teacher doesn’t really fancy her as well.
Two more relationships got quite a bit of development as well. First of all, Ilse, who performs along with Emily in her play. It’s obvious that during the rehearsals, the two of them would get really close together, despite the few arguments that they have when Ilse doesn’t want to read the exact lines Emily wrote. Obviously, as a writer, you would get ticked off when you hear that. ^^;
The second is the relationship between Emily and her aunt. I like how she isn’t really evil. She just has different viewpoints, and her methods are a bit extreme. She just doesn’t approve of Emily writing, as she doesn’t see the use of it. In the end, she also tears up the paper that Emily wrote her play on. While the fact that the play couldn’t be read anymore, a day before the performance, wasn’t really that worrisome (Emily and Ilse knew their lines anyway), she did write it on the back of one of Teddy’s incomplete sketches. That probably was the biggest shock for Emily.
Still, Elisabeth did visit Emily and Ilse when they had to perform their plays. Yet, she never smiled, or showed any sign of appreciation. If I had to guess, then she’s trying to understand Emily in her own way. She’s trying to figure out why Emily continues to write. Perry, meanwhile, gets some nice practice in trying to read while coaching Emily and Ilse in their practices.]]>
Seirei no Moribito – 05
I must be crazy to blog a show with as much dialogue as this one, but then again, I managed to blog Bakumatsu as well, with its obscure historical references, so I think that somehow I’ll manage, if I just keep reading summaries from other blogs.
This episode yet again spent its time building up. First, Torogaishi arrives and she explains a few things about the egg, left in Chaggumu’s body. I’m not exactly sure what she tells him, but they were some pretty nasty things she said to Chaggumu. She also drops the title of this anime as well “Seirei no Moribito”. Could it be that Chaggumu is this Seirei no Moribito (guardian of the sacred spirit) because he has the egg inside of him? After all, it had to be implanted for a reason.
Later, it seems that the king even contacted the commoners into finding Barsa and Chaggumu for him. Luckily, Tanda finds out about this in time. Shuga, meanwhile finds out about even more mysteries when he enters some kind of carefully hidden secret library. At this time, I’m not yet sure what the purpose of these books is, but that’ll probably be explained in the next episodes.
Thankfully, I did understand the last part of the episode. ^^; Barsa decides to put the jewels she recieved from the second queen to good use when she sends Tanda to retrieve them, and give them to some old acquaintances of her, in exchange for support, supplies and a horse.
I can really see Seirei no Moribito to really take off in its second season. The episodes so far have been building up and building up. It’s really taking its time to tell its story, and it’ll be very interesting to see the results of this. I loved how the guy first was reluctant to give up his horse, though when you see Barsa smile confidently, you just know she’s going to get it. ^^; Still, Tanda did get angry at her, right before the climax set in. Probably because these acquaintances of her were a shady bunch, and he figures that she shouldn’t take such huge risks. I think I can understand his worries. After all, he’s had to take care of Barsa for twenty years now, and in that period, she’s had lots of wounds. Of course he’d be worried about her.]]>
Saiunkoku Monogatari – 42
Whoa, talk about a change of focus when compared to the first season. I don’t know exactly what it is, but so far, the second season has felt refreshingly different from the first one. Shuurei surprisingly isn’t the centre of attention at all. Heck she does what she needs to do in the capital: get a bunch of permissions, while the other characters now are turning far more interesting.
Especially Eigetsu got fleshed out even more, and I never expected that the guy actually doesn’t have any longer to live. Up to this point, it’s still unclear exactly what his relationship with Yougetsu is, but if I had to guess, then we first had a person called “Getsu”. Getsu then became Yougetsu, because of the influence of his parents. When he was taken in by Doushu, he probably created Eigetsu as his alter-ego, due to the guy’s influence.
And Kourin was just great. After the previous episode, I noted how the relationship between her and Eigetsu had rather stagnated, but with this episode, it just skyrocketed forwards, when Eigetsu gets more and more absorbed in his work, and Kourin finds out about his shortened life-span.
We also see Kokujun back, though things didn’t go as you’d expect, as he’s following Ran Ryuuren now. I’ve got no idea what the two of them are planning, but Kokujun regards Ryuuren very highly. Reishin pays a visit to Shouka’s house, and still is too scared to reveal that he’s her uncle. In fact, he reveals that he’s actually willing to marry her. Still, I do wonder whether Shuurei is going to marry in the first place.
Also, quite a bit of characters were introduced or mentioned through the course of the episode: a white wolf, a fox, the leader of a strange cult who goes by the name of “Li Senya”, and some kind of acquaintance of Sho Taishi. What is their role going to be in the future episodes, and where did they come from? I personally believe that Sakujun wouldn’t be stupid enough to just say to everyone that he’s back. If he was somehow alive somewhere, he’d use his methods a bit more subtle, in order to meet Shuurei.
We also get a confirmation that the white bishie will be the antagonist for the coming arcs, when Ryuuren warns Shuurei for a silver-haired man. Obviously, this has to be this guy. Or spirit. I have high reasons to believe that he’s one of the seven sages, just like Sho Taishi.]]>
Saiunkoku Monogatari – 41
Unfortunately, what I’ve feared has finally happened: Saiunkoku Monogatari got licensed. While that alone isn’t such a bad thing, it does mean that both We Suck and Shadow Dreams are going to stop distributing their fansubs. This just forces me to start watching the raws again, simply because:
– Being Dutch, I could care less about what shows America licenses.
– I really don’t think I can wait that long till the English DVDs appear anyway.
Still, I switched from raws to subs once for a reason, as this series is very difficult to understand without subtitles. I remember when the show first started, and I completely missed the main points (if you don’t believe me, then check out the entries I made of them, they’re really full of non-sense ^^;), so I’m going to be heavily depending on Usagijen’s and Impz’s episode summaries. Especially Usagijen deserves credit, with the huge summaries she writes. 🙂
Anyway, this episode had two major focuses: Ensei and Kouyuu. Eigetsu reveals his past in the episode. It seems that when he was small, his parents attempted to kill him once, in order to solve their poverty. A kind man named Doushu then took him in. And with “kind” I mean really kind. Whatever happened to him, he just continued to smile, and he taught Eigetsu to do so as well. Even when people would steal all his medicines, he would still not mind a thing. In fact, he was glad that people would actually find his medicines useful. Because of this, Eigetsu probably got the idea of getting a job to help people. His first idea was to become a doctor, though he then figured that he could do way more as a government official.
Kouyuu, meanwhile, continues to get pressured by Kurou when he finds out that the Ran-clan has future plans to marry Shuurei off to Ran Ryuuren. Obviously, he fancies her, and the people from the Ran-clan would love to use her as a leech to control the guy a bit. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when Shuurei finds out about this.
Shuurei, meanwhile, has been busy to collect permissions from different chamberlains and governors. At the beginning of the episode, all she needs left are Kijin, Reishin and the governor of the Koku-province. At the end of the episode only the Koku-province governor is left, with the help of Tei Yuushun, Sai Rin, and amusingly, Kouyuu as well. ^^;
This probably was the first time the Koku Province was mentioned. I also don’t recall having seen anyone from the Koku-family as well. I wonder what kind of role it will play in the future episode, especially its governor. We aren’t shown what his relation to Doushu exactly was, but the fact remains that the two of them are at least acquaintances, when Doushu trusts the guy with a bunch of books that he really wanted to give to Eigetsu, after which he dies. Could it be that Eigetsu grew up in the Koku-province? That death-scene, by the way, was a great one. It seems that Eigetsu told him all about Shuurei in his letters, and it was great to see him thank her for taking care of Eigetsu.
I think we’ve also got our first glimpse of the new antagonist for this season. The way he was presented really screams “hey, look at me being mysterious. I’m evil and pretty”. Still, he somehow knows Shuurei, or he heard her name somewhere. Where did he come from, and what’s going to be his goal or purpose?
I also do wonder, when are the creators planning to further develop the relationship between Eigetsu and Kourin? For quite a number of episodes, all they’ve been doing together is look embarrassed and cute after their eyes or hands meet each other. While this is nice once or twice, I want to see the two of them get on with it. :P]]>
Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo Review – 87/100
The fansubbers labelled this as “the best movie of 2006”, and I’ve seen other sources claim this as well. Whether this is true, I can’t say for certain yet, because some of the big names as Tekkon Kinkreet, Gedo Senki and Eien no Hou have yet to appear. But one thing’s for sure: these movies are going to have to be reeally good in order to be able to top this one.
Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, I think we’ve all read about its premise by now, but for those who haven’t: a high-school girl suddenly gets the power to leap through time. With this, she starts using it to alter the space-time continuum to her own advantage. When I read the premise for the first time, I thought that she’d go and alter major time events and really alter history, but she just sticks to making her own life better. Basically, it’s a high-school romance, but that description doesn’t really do it justice, as some pretty horrible things happen along the line.
I really praise this anime for that last part, by the way. It’s obvious that things won’t go as Mokoto (our main character) expects them. And it’s predictable for bad things to happen, but this movie developed its characters so well that the predictability didn’t matter, and that each major event felt like a huge shock. From my own experience, I’ve seen movies fail more often than series did, but this movie is just a must-watch.
The backgrounds that we get to see are what you expect from a movie: crisp, detailed and beautiful, although one or two scenes may be trying a bit too much (like a fridge which may have been a bit too stuffed for a random family). As we’ve got ourselves a romance here, there aren’t a lot of flashy action-scenes, but still the overall animation was really life-like and natural. The music was simple, consisting out of mainly piano-tunes. But it fits the movie perfectly. It was especially stunning during the heavy scenes.
Seriously, only if you really need some action in your anime, you may want to skip out of this. Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo has been a great watch for me, and I can imagine others liking it just as much as I did, and probably even better. I’m glad that this movie reminded me that a well-done anime movie can be as satisfying as a tv-series.]]>
Death Note – 29
I don’t understand why people actually claim that the second half of Death Note sucks. This episode was great, and L’s absence didn’t really hurt it. In fact, the Yotsuba-arc was far more annoying than the current one.
The focus of this episode was Light’s family. His sister may not have been physically hurt by the shots, fired at her, it did destroy her mentally. Because of this, Light’s father especially is put in deep thoughts. When Light then comes with the plan of revealing himself as Kira, after having found out Mello’s location, and give the police a second Death Note, so that they can make the eye-deal and kill Mello by only having to look at his face, he just feels obliged to be the one to do it. He really had to find a way to become useful, and this was the perfect way, even though he’d die himself. It’s quite interesting how he turned out.
His death alone wasn’t really spectacular, but everything around it was. Yet again was Light incredibly close to killing off his opponent, but just like Misa got caught before Light could reach her, Light’s father went to depend on his morals, and tried to arrest Mello, instead of killing him. Because of this, Mello could act back and kill the guy. Light wasn’t happy at that point.
On his death-bed, Light also lost his cool for probably the first time in the entire series in front of others. I’m not sure whether this was because he just was angry that he missed an important chance of murdering a threat, or that there was a tiny bit of sentiment in this.
It’s quite interesting, Near is now left with only two assistants, while Mello, or Mihael Keehl is all alone now, now that his former companions are either dead or arrested. I assume, though, that he’ll get them out of jail soon enough. I mean, if he can take over a plane, busting into a prison would be nothing for him. It’ll be interesting for Light now, this quite possibly is the first time that he actually knows a name, but not a face. Apparently, the drawing of the guy isn’t enough for this.
Meanwhile, we’ve still got Near as well. This means that if Light does kill Mihael at one point, he has to do this very carefully, or Near will find out that Light could have been the only one to do this. But then again, it’s quite possible that while he did know that L possessed a death note at one point, he probably never heard that Light was the main suspect of being Kira.
Also, what was up with Shidoh? He really surprised me. Don’t get me wrong, I loved his part in this episode, but I really expected him to have a really dark role in the future episodes, in which he would help Mello get even closer to Light, but in the end, he only had two roles: remove one Death Note from the game-board (this just leaves Ryuk’s original Death Note, still with Ryuk, Rem’s Death Note, now with the police and Misa’s Death Note, who now continuously touches Light in order to prevent him from forgetting everything), and the second role is to inform Mello that Kira has actually messed with the Death Note and added two fake rules. This will probably be used in the future.]]>
Ooedo Rocket – 05
Seriously. That was AWESOME! The first half probably has to contain the funniest scenes I’ve seen for a while. At times, I nearly fell off my chair from laughter, this episode definitely proved that it was a good idea to keep watching and blogging this, as this episode was just HILARIOUS. Someone really needs to sub this, as it definitely is one of the best series to come this season. 🙂
There were only two things that needed to be added: a new character who looks more ridiculous than all the other characters combined and acts like an oversexed macho, and sake. Seriously, Sora actually gets drunk at one point in the episode, with hilarious results. It all starts when Sekichi and Sora are in the forest, trying to find a place where they can just quietly experiment with fireworks, without destroying nearby objects. Sekichi, though, has been really demotivated after the previous episode. After all, when fireworks explode in the middle of the air, they don’t make the safest forms of travelling.
Sora then mentions Kaguya-hime. I looked things up a bit in Wikipedia, and it seems that Kaguya-hime is a fictional character in a 10th century Japanese folk tale. This particular folk-tale is considered the oldest Japanese narrative. The tale goes as follows: Kaguya-hime is a mysterious girl, discovered inside the stalk of a great bamboo plant by a bamboo-cutter named Taketori-no Okina when she was a tiny baby, and she’s said to have come from the capital of the moon.
Kaguya-hime then grows up in the care of Taketori-no Okina, and she grew into a beautiful girl. Then, five princes went to her to ask for her hand in marriage. Kaguya-hime didn’t want to marry, though, so she thought up impossible tasks for these men, that they had to accomplish in order to be able to marry her. This works, but after a while, even the emperor went to her, and fell in love with her. Kaguya-hime rejected as well, but the two of them did keep in contact. At one time, though, Kaguya-hime had to return to the moon. When that day came, a bright light took her away from the earth, leaving her foster-parents and the emperor in tears.
Ooedo Rocket made a few changes to this story, when Sora claims herself to be Kaguya-hime. Apparently, she never went to the moon and she also wasn’t found in a bamboo-plant, but she just came with a space-ship. Obviously, Sekichi doesn’t believe a word of this. ^^; Then the craziness begins when the strange oversexed macho appears and has the strangest conversation with Sora ever. He then introduces himself as “Hinanawo Tetsuju” (not sure about the first part). What follows is the guy setting up a bar with some strange raccoons that appeared, with Sora and him both enjoying some alcohol. Sora is so funny when she’s drunk. XD
Lots of hilarious scenes later, and it’s time for a bit of plot development when it seems that Tetsuju also makes fireworks. It seems that he did find a way to keep fireworks from exploding, and demonstrates this by sending himself off into the air. I think it’s now up to Sekishi to go into the height, it seems as Tetsuju only managed to disappear out of sight, only to come down in a sort-of frozen state. I wonder how he found out about this, though. I couldn’t really pick that up.
And surprise, surprise, finally a romance between two characters is actually developed properly! A drunk Sora first has to puke and leave the room (hilarious scene, by the way), and Tetsuju uses this moment to convince Sekichi that he won’t be able to send Sora off to the moon. Sekichi never really made any progress, while Tetsuju’s rockets are already able to achieve quite a height. Because of this and Sora’s absence, Sekichi tells his feelings a bit too honest, and while Sora comes in again and hears everything about his confession. He was so cute when he got embarrassed like that. 🙂
Really, I do hope that all the other episodes in Ooedo Rocket are going to be like this one. It was hilarious, though a bit too much on the wrong side at times. ^^;]]>
Claymore – 05
Ah, finally Terese arrives, and things go quite differently from what I expected. We first see a total shift of focus, with no Claire whatsoever. She also gets a child who keeps running after her, just like Claire, so I assumed that it took place at the same time in which Raki appeared. I was quite surprised to see that this actually was Claire herself, in a younger form. This does explain why she took in Raki so easily, it happened to herself in the past as well.
I’m quite surprised at Eclipse, who managed to get the episode out after less than one day. I think I’m going to continue following Claymore in the subbed version now, unless Eclipse pulls a TV-nihon, somewhere in the middle. In any case, the caped guy also looks quite a few years younger, either that or it was a different guy. I’m not sure how their system works, exactly. How do they manage to find the Claymores, time after time? And is there one guy for every Claymore, is there just one of them, or are there a certain number of them, who all work for an amount of Claymore?
In any case, the guy calls Terese the 182nd warrior of the 77th class of Claymores. Whatever that means exactly, I have no idea, but she does appear to be the strongest Claymore who’s running around. In fact, she’s so strong that she never needs to use her Youma-powers in battle. Perhaps that’s why she didn’t turn as cold as Claire, but rather sadistic.
It’s interesting, I thought that Elena was the only Claymore significant in Claire’s past, but it seems that she first ran into Terese, who took her in for a few years. Then, at one point, Helena probably handed Claire over to Elena, and around that time, something happened to cause Claire to become a Claymore herself.
In the current timeline, I wonder where Terese is now. It seems that Claymores turn into youma whenever they use their youma-powers too much, but Terese just never uses them. Because of that, it’s quite possible that she’s still alive. But then again, I don’t really know how long it usually takes for Claymores to transform]]>
Saiunkoku Monogatari – 40
Ah, Saiunkoku Monogatari is finally back! The episode really reminded me of the first half of the first season again, when Shuurei still finds herself very busy in the main capital. The OP-animation has changed, there’s a new ED and I’m back in love with this series! Another thing I noticed: the OP and especially the ED never really focused on the people, back in the Sa-province. This does suggest that the current arc will be focusing on the old characters, instead of the new ones, and I’m SO glad about this. The characters from the first half definitely are more interesting than the new ones.
The most important development in this episode definitely came from Kouyuu. His uncle decides to visit him (Kou Kurou) and finally carries out his plan to get Kouyuu as the head of the Kou-clan if he accepts Shuurei as his wife. Obviously, he’s going to become very interesting in the future, as it’s probably clear now that he’s in love with her.
Shuurei was AWESOME. The episode focuses on Tei Yuushun and Sai Rin, asking to come and visit Shuurei’s house, when Shuurei suddenly realizes that nobody has cleaned there for ages. ^^; The male characters have gone to the “demon’s banquet”, or a place where everyone can drink his sorrows away alongside each other, and they decide to go to Shuurei’s place after that too place. Obviously, Shuurei demonstrates how dangerous she can be when Seiran, Shouka, Shuuei and Kouyuu keep getting in her way, time after time, because they’re all so drunk (or in Shouka’s case, just clumsy). She looked so cute when her efforts weren’t enough, and Tei Yuushun had to see giving a tantrum. ^_^:
Seiran begins to realize more and more that Shuurei actually doesn’t need him. In fact, he actually needs her, and it’s like that for Shouka as well. He goes to the Demon’s Banquet as well, because of this (and almost ends up shooting Ran after drinking a bit ^^;). I can imagine that it’s difficult for him. Shuurei and Shouka have done so much for him, and he can’t even repay her. In fact, he never really saved her, and the only times she actually needed to be saved (when she was kidnapped and when Sakujun kissed her), either Ryuuki was the one to take up this role, or he wasn’t able to do anything at all, even though he stood right before it happening.
Shuuei also attends the Demon’s Banquet, but it seems that he’s been avoiding it for quite a few years. I wonder why, as the previous episodes did show that he quite often visits the red-lights district. He’s quite interesting when he’s drunk, by the way. He’s very silent, and his usual witty remarks are gone.
Still, rule number one: NEVER make Shuurei angry. Never. ^^;]]>