Short Synopsis: A couple of high schoolers explore an abandoned building.
Highlights: The cat! (I shouldn’t be reminded of when saying that…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
A more quiet episode, but those are needed too. This one is especially useful, as it gives Ouri some development, sheds some light on the cat, and contributes a bit to the world that this series is set on. It’s a small detail, but very useful: with people shooting with machine guns at zombies, it was only a matter of time before people would start stalking Makina.
So as it turns out, Ouri isn’t Keisei’s real brother after all, but I guess that probably explains why the guy moved out of the house so early. While I shouldn’t be surprised at this point about this, he turns out to be adopted, and was leading god knows what sort of life before that. He arrived at Keisei’s house with complete memory loss, and took ages before learning everything. He finally got motivated once he made friends with a little kitten he picked up.
At one point, the cat died, though something strange went on with its spirit, and it returned as a ghost that only Ouri could see. Or talk to anyway, since this episode reveals that Makina can see it as well. Thanks to the support of this cat, I think that Ouri was able to fully recover from his trauma and lead a good life. And I guess that because of the cat, he’s been treating Makina and Minai as real people. Makes sense.
The slapstick was really weird in this episode, but what surprised me even more that I found myself laughing at those boob-jokes and horny classmates. It was cute, and didn’t feel annoying at all, even though similar attempts in other series have made me edge to ALT-F4 more often than not.
Hey, did you notice the ending theme this time around? I would call it “foreshadowing” but there isn’t much in the way of subtlety. It definitely indicates two very predictable points of the series, but they could be interesting I suppose.
And yeah, interesting episode. The fight and monster design at the beginning was interesting (You can see the theme of people’s attachment to life is getting much more exaggerated as the series goes on – it kinda works, though)
And what’s up with Makina’s arm? It seems to be damaged somehow ever since episode 6, so I thought it was permanently gone, but she seems to have it when there’s no action going on.
Otherwise, a great episode, and good to see some backstory on Ouri and the reason for the cat – in a roundabout way, I guess the show relates to ‘attachments’, Ouri’s attachment to normal life becomes an avatar of something about him in the form of the cat, and it’s similar with the way Shikabane manifest into something they were attached to. Or maybe that’s a bit too deep.
This series just gets better, i’m hoping it continues like this til the end of the series and hopefully in the second as well.
My theory is that she needs Keisei to regenerate her limbs. That’s why she kept running around without an arm around episode six, because he was unconscious. I believe that I spotted her arm getting ripped off again by the monster of this episode.
Akasha could see the cat too. Likely all the shikabane and priests in the Kougon sect can see it.
to psgels:
“So as it turns out, Ouri isn’t Keisei’s real brother after all, but I guess that probably explains why the guy moved out of the house so early.”
Sorry but, this has been know since the first episode. The monks runs the Orphanage that Ouri was living in and the lady with the apron (don¨t remember her name) is the caretaker of the orphanage while Keisei is just this laidback monk who visits when he feels like it. Keisei also says outright in the first episode “そうだな。。。お前もここで育ったなんだからな”
“My theory is that she needs Keisei to regenerate her limbs. That’s why she kept running around without an arm around episode six, because he was unconscious. I believe that I spotted her arm getting ripped off again by the monster of this episode.”
You don’t need to theorize about that! 🙂 It was stated in earlier episodes that the monk who binds a contract with a shikabanehime can heal her wounds but will in return get some of those wounds himself. Also the shikabane don’t regenerate themselves. They need their contractor to heal there wounds. This was also displayed in one of the previous episodes.
The series has gotten better as it’s gone alone. I don’t expect Makina to be contracted by Ouri. If that were possible why didn’t Ouri contract with that other Hime who lost her monk? I completed expected that to happen but she just reverted to a Shikabane. If I could guess, his classmate will probably get killed and Ouri will contract with her. A bit dark but this series keeps us guessing.