Awesomeness. Night Head Genesis proves that it’s capable of providing some highly disturbing, but at the same time very touching scenes. I’m loving this series more and more. Finally we have another show who’s trying to show the worst side of humans. That’s always good for a few juicy scenes, and Night Head Genesis is no exception for this.

Naoto (ugh… it was Naoto after all, not Naota) and Naoya have been heading back to the home in which they grew up. Now that they’ve arrived in their old neighbourhood, they have some flashbacks of the time in which they were young. They discuss two major cases, among a few smaller ones. It’s great to see their younger versions return. They work awesome.

Case 1: Naoto when he was just a baby. He’s playing with a tiny fire truck toy. It’s when his parents first discover his powers when somehow, the truck moves without any batteries being in it. He also gives his father a nosebleed when he tries to take away this truck. It’s interesting that he already had these powers at that age, and was using them to hurt others, unconsciously. Naoto also reveals that at that time, he thought that anyone was able to move things without their hands. Indeed, how do you make a baby like that clear that it’s not okay to hurt others like that?

Case 2: Naoto is six and Naoya has just been born. About a year later, we see the two of them playing with wooden blocks a bit, when an earthquake occurs. Naoto manages to protect Naoya from a falling vase. It’s the first time when Naoto realizes Naoya’s power, when their mother comes in, worried. She then picks up Naoya, who sends her thoughts to Naoto. “There’s nothing to worry about”.

Case 3: A former subordinate of the brothers’ father came to sell a large amount of land to them. He came with his wife and daughter. The daughter, who had heard the rumours about Naoto and Naoya, came to their room, and seemed to enjoy poking fun at them, and treating them like dirt with nobody else around. Naoya then got a bad feeling, and then he touched the former subordinate, getting in shock and revealing his evil plans. What follows is Naoto, protecting his family by hurting the culprits. Because of this, Naoto and Naoya’s power fully awakened. But their mother and father also began to look differently at them. It’s interesting. When you look at it one way, the two of them prevented them from being deceived, and losing a large amount of money. But at the same time, when Naoto keeps using his powers to hurt others in such an “unnatural” way, you could be scared at the same time. And that’s the case with their parents. For some reason, you’re less likely to forget fear than to forget pleasant events.

Case 4: Naoya touched a little girl, who always was carrying a doll with her, and got into shock. He had to be hospitalized for this. When Naoto tried to explain what happened to the doctor, he was just ridiculed. In the end, it seemed that the little girl was heavily being abused by her father. Naoto found the latter hurting the former’s body with a sharp sabre. She was covered in blood and wounds when Naoto found her, took her away and showed the public that her father was a molester. When Naoya heard this, he turned back to normal. When Naoto and Naoya think back about this, they notice that Naoto saw the doll, which the girl used to carry, with red eyes, while Naoya’s vision showed a doll with blue eyes.

Then, the grown up Naoto and Naoya arrive at the place their former house stood. Well, it’s gone. It’s turned into a field of grass. To make things better, when they ask a local, it seems that there’s never been a house on that patch in the first place. A silhouette of Shouko then appeared for a second. The episode ends with the girl from case 5, who runs into them. I’m so curious about how she ended up after her father was imprisoned.

Still, what does this mean? Why has their former house been erased. And more importantly, what happened to their parents? And what the heck is Shouko up to?

Another thing I love about Night head Genesis was the 15-year time-leap. The two brothers have changed so much in that time. The former short-tempered Naoto now has seemed to have learned to control his temper.

I’ve been looking forward to another episode of Mushishi. It seems that it doesn’t know how to deliver a bad episode. Each of the stories presented works so incredibly well, dealing with a different problem every single time.

This time, we have a little girl, who’s blind. She encounters a mushi, Ganpuku. This mushi gives her sight. At first she’s incredibly happy, but then the mushi starts showing her things that she shouldn’t be able to see. She’d be able to see right through walls, she could see things which happened miles away from her, nothing was a secret for her anymore. But it didn’t end there. Ganpuku then gave her the ability of foresight. The girl grew up, and many people came to her, in order to get their futures told. Obviously, the girl didn’t have any friends at all. When her father died, she moved away from her village and started living as a shamisen-player (which C1 seems to have turned into a lute).

Of course, while it may seem like joy and goodness in the beginning, if you have to live with this for more than fifteen years, you begin to see the disadvantages. Every good thing has a bad thing, and every bad thing comes along with a good thing, and this is no different. The girl may have had the ability of foresight, she had this 24/7. She had no way to turn this off, and she lived her entire life, seeing things in the future. In the end, she became dizzy and unhappy because of it. Around the end of the episode, it seems that Ganpuku has completely taken over her eyes. They then detach from her body, and turn into their real form.

It’s indeed a dilemma for the woman. She has to choose to either see the future continuously or see nothing at all. It’s a choice between two extremes, with not middle way at all. In the end, the woman didn’t care for herself anymore, and was content with living with Ganpuku. But she didn’t want anyone else to suffer the same fate she did. Therefore, she asks Ginko to bury her eyes, somewhere in the forest.

Lots of talking this episode, which made the overall story rather hard to understand. It’s an Ibara-episode. Souta and the others end spending the night in a village, in which a special flower grows. It’s called the Sennen Tsubomi. They meet up with a girl, who’s responsible for tending this flower. Still, something strange seems to be the deal with it. It doesn’t seem to bloom, and Souta gets a strange feeling out of it.

Shirayuki tries to bless the flower by pouring some holy water on it, though Ibara (who’s been goofing off for the entire episode) falls asleep on top of her, kindof destroying Shirayuki’s motivation to keep trying. Still, later she’s seen looking at the flower in a suspicious way.

I think the village is living in poverty. If I had to guess, Sennen Tsubomi is the only flower in the village. Perhaps it’s the first flower appearing for quite a long while. The girl, responsible for tending it also gives a lot of food to Souta and the others, as a form of hospitality, while the village itself has barely to eat. I think the villagers are seeing it as a symbol of fertility.

Later in the episode, Randagio pours some strange liquid on the flower. A rather funny scene occurs, in which Randagio ordereds the flower to find Erde’s key, after which Akazukin, Shirayuki, Ibara, Souta and Ringo appear to protect the flower. It’s a nice play with coincidence. ^^ In any case, Sennen Tsubomi gets a dark aura and transforms into a monster. It seems that Sennen Tsubomi appeared because of Cendrillion. Because of her grasp on the country, darkness has started to appear. I think it’s first form is in flowers like these. Randagio recognized this, and helped the flower evolve a bit. Afterwards, Ibara stopped the flower, and it sprouted in tons of other, white, blooming flowers. According to Ibara, these don’t seem to have any evil power.

It’s interesting that the evil starts to appear in the form of flowers like these. I’m wondering what the next stage will be: more flowers or animals.

Some random facts:
- Sweet Phones are called phones for a reason: they acually ARE phones. Shirayuki and Akazukin use them to communicate with each other in an attempt to wake up Ibara.
- Cendrillion seems to have another minion.
- The little girl seems to be speaking about a strange flashback, in which monsters attacked the village, surrounded by flames.

Random cute moments:
- Ibara, casting her spell half-asleep, in gibberish.
- Randagio, getting caught in the act by the girl. And correcting her when she calls him a cat.
- Afterwards, when Akazukin and the others appear, Ringo does hold Souta’s arm.
^^

Overall, it was a very nice episode, though I think this is one of those episodes at which I really need to see the subbed version. I bet that I’ll love it even more when I do. ^^;