It’s just as I hoped! This episode really was awesome, and it had a really excellent direction behind it. With the comedy elements this really was different from the likes of Mouryou no Hako and Hashire Melos, but you could still see the traces of Ryousuke Nakamura and Mieko Hosoi. God… these people need to direct another full fledged series.
There were a ton of really well animated shots in this episode, with quite some fluid animation and imaginative camera angles. There were a few scenes that really brought these characters alive, and especially the diving scene at the end was just utterly beautiful. It’s also very interesting how two completely different types of artists worked on this episode and the previous one: the previous episode was very obviously drawn by Mamoru Hosoda fans, while Mieko Hosoi has a completely different inspiration (I’d love to know what that was, by the way).
As for the direction, I absolutely love how this episode played out. Throughout most of the episode we see this careful build-up that shows Maya investigating exactly what happened, combined with a number of quick but really good jokes. There were a few outbursts of drama, like the sudden point in which Kozue started crying, but that too was just used to build up to that final part, which worked really well with Bunmei’s life flashing before his own eyes. It lasted like what? 2 minutes. But they really were worth it.
Beyond that, they also made it plausible for Bunmei and Maya to make up. Thankfully they stayed away from any sort of romance, but rather Maya forced herself to see past her biases after having seen the future.
Rating: *** (Awesome)
I like Fumiaki a lot more in this ep than any of the past ep, so the life flashing was well placed. And now Maya and Fumiaki have a common ground that will enable them to work together to stop the Nostradamus Prophecy.
I really like the cast in this ep, hope the next director won’t return Fumiaki to his annoying self.
Very good episode. Although I found it kind of campy that the whole 2-episode arc with kozue was so they could make a giant pun-like joke at the end 😛 (I had the same expression as maya after bunmei put the glasses on kozue… Really the facial expressions in this series are awesome)
But yeah the production values seemed to go way up this episode. A lot of great animation, interesting angles etc etc. I wished the music was a little better at times. Still, the mystery side isn’t progressing much. I hoped to see the phone camera being used more, and some more stuff about the mystery behind the school.
Poor Kozue got the Flowers for Algernon end.
The Fumiaki doodles on Ami’s desk were a nice touch.
I thought the jokes landed a lot better this episode. The snake was just hilarious.
Maya and Fumiaki both take random nose damage. Does someone get hit in the face every episode?
They didn’t do the Wikipedia dump this episode. I suppose they used every second productively and didn’t have any room.
The glasses joke was funny as hell!I can’t believe that was the solution.At fist my theory was that Kozue’s body was possessed by a spirit when she went into the afterlife but yeah,losing her glasses works too.^^;
The future looks bleak,to say the least.Wonder how the people in the future survived that..
I still don’t understand bummui or whatever he name. The future is fucked and he still just trying to get laid :/
Agree, no romance at all better than fail romance, couldn’t help myself hating the show for it
-previous episode was very obviously drawn by Mamoru Hosoda fans
by that you meant those different color outline on the character right
i was starting to lose respect on the anime, but after this amazing episode… Well, Im just gonna say that Im not gonna doubt this anime ever again
I love Maya’s facial expressions
I can’t believe we actually got to see her smile a couple of times.
Maybe Bunmei hasn’t really lost his powers. Maybe he just has some sort of subconscious mental block on them.
I also liked maya’s friends moth man out fit.
Re: Uchida’s ‘lost’ powers, clearly his mummy slapped them out of him. Maybe his mummy-replacement, Mikaze, will trigger their return.
Loved the epi too, the faces were fabulous, and not least of all Smile’s love-heart-eyed smiley badge after Ami’s promised him the engine oil, lol.