Today, we start with the third and last part of Ayakashi: Bake Neko (I’m really forcing myself not to misread it as Baka Neko). And again, it feels like we’re in a total different anime. The funny thing is, that the impact is even bigger than with Ten Shu Mono Gatari. And again, Bake Neko has some unique features. Yotsuya Kaidan had the incredible murders, Ten Shu Mono Gatari had its great love story. Bake Neko, however, is just crazy. And that has to say something, especially when compared to Yotsuya Kaidan.

The first thing that comes to the eye is the once more changed character art. Yotsuya Kaidan had ugly characters. Ten Shu Mono Gatari had elegant-looking characters. Bake Neko has hilarious looking characters. Especially the minor characters just look like they had to suffer from the horrors of overbudgetting, ending up with a continuously idiotic look.

That’s not all. Also the dialogue just screams chaos. While Yotsuya Kaidan’s dialogue was based on history, Ten Shu Mono Gatari tried to be as romantic as possible, Bake Neko just uses fast-paced dialogue combined with characters being weird, and combines it to something that actually ends up pretty enjoyable.

Anyway, about the story of Bake Neko: I like it. I really like it. This might be the best of the three. We have this demon, who’s busy assaulting a rich family, consisting of a grandfather, a father, a mother, a daughter, an uncle, two or three bodyguards and a bunch of servants. He already killed the daughter and one of the servants, and if it weren’t for a medicine seller who happens to know exorcism, the entire house would have been demolished.

In order for the medicine seller to be able to kill the demon, three things must be known: Katachi, Makoto and Kotowari: the form the demon takes, what is really going on, and the events that made the demon act the way he did. Katachi is immediately clear: this is a case of Bake Neko (hence the title). The merchant needs the members of the house in order to be able to determine Makoto, after which the episode ends. My guess is that the rest of the episodes will deal with the merchant figuring out what happened, accompanied by a couple of nice deaths. I also like the way that especially the uncle seems to be hiding something, though my favourite character still is the assistant bodyguard. He’s just so ignorant.

We now turn to the series which were kindof ignored by the fansubbers. They’re all fantasy series, in one way or another. Again, some are good, some are bad. Some of them, though, really deserve more credit than they get.

Yume Tsukai

I liked the promo-art when I first saw this. It promises to be an interesting series, with kindof a weak start. If I guess this right, this will be just like series as Jigoku Shoujo and Mushishi: each episode, we get a different case, and each episode is a story on its own. Still, the former two captured me at this moment. Yume Tsukai, however, seems a bit mediocre. I do have confidence, though, that this will turn out to be a great series later in the show. Still, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to witness it, due to the enormous amount of other shows which currently air, and caught my attention more. I’ll try, though.

Ar Tonelico

I secretly hoped for this to be the next Tales of Phantasia. Note to self: NEVER do that again. The story is just generic. The main character is an impulsive, immature, pubescent male. That is so original. Especially when you try to consider that the creators try to make him look like some perfect being. That doesn’t work. The fact that he immediately ends up with a cute girl doesn’t really help, so does the fact that another cute girl happens to be the best engineer ever. Still, despite all this garbage, there’s one thing I really loved. The graphics look totally amazing. Especially the backgrounds were on Mushishi and Tales of Phantasia-level.

Jyu Oh Sei

I have absolutely no idea why this show is neglected this much. It’s brilliant! I urge everyone to check this out, you won’t be disappointed. It’s not the best to come in this season, but this will certainly be a good watch. Another thing: even though the concept is huge, the show only airs eleven episodes. This will either mean great pacing or a rushed ending. Judging from episode one, I’d say its the former. Let’s hope it’ll be able to keep up, because if it will, this will become awesome. Interesting fact: the first thing I thought of when I saw this anime was “Fantastic Children”, which is true, the main characters really look like some upgraded versions of the Children of Befort, which is a very good thing.