Whoa… I can’t help but feel sad for Shouko. Her powers have become so huge that her spirit left her body, forcing her to spend the rest of her life in the state she’s in now. At first, I thought it was quite convenient for her to have such a power, but this is just sad. Very sad.

Anyway, this episode concludes the Mikuriya arc. It was a very good episode, in my opinion. A lot of life-changing themes which can’t be solved that easily passed the screen. I’ve always been a fan of series which introduce these kinds of questions. Mikuriya survived the episode, though I don’t think we’ll see him again, as he’s planning to leave the country. The fact that humans can be able to exceed the 30% of brain capacity appears to have some serious consequences, as Shoko proved.

The other parts of this episode, in which Naoto, Naoya and Mikuriya had to escape the mysterious threesome also were well worth the watch. The creators did a good job in making expecially the beginning very creepy. There also was quite an amount of time put aside in order to show this. Most times, when fights are dragged, it doesn’t mean anything good, though this episode provided a very nice exception, as it gave Mikuriya the opportunity to hold a rather interesting speech. Also, did the threesome really die? Or do they still have a few tricks up their sleeve? And what happened to Naoya at the cliff-hanger?

Night Head Genesis started to become disappointing with the Kariya-arc. Okay, it was nice to see, but a bit too dramatic without much emotions, and it didn’t go anywhere. The Sonezaki-arc made a nice attempt to recover from this, and now the Mikuriya-arc has continued this. I’m glad to see that Night Head Genesis is finally getting good again.

Aah, finally the second episode of Ghost Hunt has been subbed. It’s one of the non-sequel Autumn Season shows I was actually looking forward to, and so far, it hasn’t disappointed. I’ve also heard some great things from the people who watched the Chinese subs, so this might prove to be a very interesting anime.

The thing that immediately sets this anime apart from all other anime is the OP. It’s definitely a unique one, and I really like it. This anime also makes very well use of conflicts. Basically, we have this haunted deserted old school building, and eight parties actually were involved:
- Our main character: Mai. A normal schoolgirl who got involved in this.
- Our main supporting character: Shibuya Kazuya, or Naru-chan. Like his nickname suggest, he’s an incredible narcissist. He looks at ghosts in a technological way. This episode also shows that he doesn’t really care about himself: he just sleeps in a van from time to time and when his hand starts bleeding, he refuses help.
- Kuroda: she sortof involved herself in this. She tells everyone that she can sense spirits, and she likes to act as a drama queen. I’m not sure whether to believe this, but she actually was the only one who hasn’t blundered during this episode.
- Hara: a medium. She’s been asked to investigate. According to her, there isn’t any spirit around. Still, during this episode, she ends up in the hospital.
- Matsuzaki: a priest, also asked to investigate. She’s quite cocky.
- John: an exorcist, with a strange accent. He’s actually the only person who doesn’t cause conflicts. Though the fact that he tries to calm the arguing others does mean that he ends up enlarging them.
- The unnamed monk. Sorry, forgot his name. He’s quite confident in his own abilities, which does make him quite cocky at times, though not as bad as Matsuzaki.

This was actually a very enjoyable episode. First, Matsuzaki gives her exorcism a try. Because of this, the principal ends up in the hospital, being hit by a bunch of windows, suddenly breaking in front of his face. Next up is Hara, who ends up in the hospital as well after she fell through a one-story-high wall. Next up is John and the roof collapses right above him. Mai luckily manages to save him. Naru-chan is up next. He figures everything is because of the fact that the building is built on a swampy floor, making the it on the verge of collapsing. Well, this theory gets smashed, almost literally when a whole bunch of windows explode and someone starts banging extremely hard on the wall. The monk is up next, but that doesn’t work as well, the lights go out and Mai is hit by a falling bookshelf, and gets knocked out. Cliff-hanger.

The best part of the episode was probably Mai, who starts to yell at the monk and Matsuzaki after they try to convince themselves that the ghost is gone through the use of lousy excuses. It may seem cheesy at first, but it worked exceptionally well. That’s the thing about this anime: at first sight, it may seem cliché and cheesy, but it definitely is everything but that. I was indeed right to be looking forward to this series. Now, let’s hope it doesn’t disappoint.

This episode consisted out of two parts: L, meeting up with the police officers, and coming up with a strategy to find Kira and Light, meeting up with Maki, Ray’s ex-girlfriend. I especially loved the last part. You have to have some real guts in order to try and attempt what Light did. He heard her talk, found out that she was the person closest to finding out Kira’s secret, just walked in on her and started talking to her like nothing ever happened. This makes us suspect that Light has followed some kind of acting classes in the past, as any normal person probably wouldn’t have managed to pull of such a reckless stunt.

During this episode, something also happens which the OP has been hinting at for a while: characters changing hair colours. Those against Kira get blue hair, while Kira himself, and his possible future allies get red hair. Symbolic, of course. Not in real life. Now the question for the next episode remains: how will Light kill Maki? Will he just act as careful as possible and make her end up in a car accident, or will he use her in order to confuse L even more?

Speaking of the devil, he’s indeed quite different from any normal person. He’s been living without any human contact for a long time, which may have been good to protect himself from those after him, though this did make him oblivious to any cultural traditions or habits. The fact that he’s always been living in the dark also made his eyes rather strange. In any case, while Light’s currently focusing his energy on Maki, L has come up with a strategy: trace everyone who was investigated by the FBI-officers. This number of people was quite small, which makes Light even more suspicious. It’s interesting that the bus-jacking incident must be kept secret at all costs for L.

It’s also interesting how one of L’s reasonings is wrong. During Light’s experiments with his power, L figures that Kira only used a few criminals in order to test out his new powers, though I actually think that he used all of them, though in most cases, the Death Note didn’t work because Light wrote some obscure cases in order to really test the limits of the Death Note. It’s never shown, but Light seems smart enough to actually conduct a thorough investigation, and not just an investigation based on the six cases we saw in episode four.

Still, I’m going to be anal again. Even Light notices it: what caused the coincidental meeting of Maki with Light? There’d better be a good reason for this, for obvious reasons.

This was such a warm episode. I couldn’t help but love it. It’s strange, as usually, I’m not really into slice-of-life series. But when they actually turn out good, they really turn out GOOOD. And Asatte no Houkou proves that once more in this episode. Like expected, it deals with Karada and Tetsu meeting each other again. Surprisingly, Karada actually does not reveal her identity. Instead, she follows Tetsu around a bit, the two get a bit familiar, and Tetsu shows her a place the two of them used to often visit. (I loved the flashback, in which small Karada refused to accept help, it just shows how much she’s changed after the incident).

There’s one thing that I finally noticed during this episode: this anime likes to play with shadows. There aren’t many anime which actually show the shadows of trees, or other objects, on the characters. In fact, I can’t remember any anime who attempted the same. They either use fancy light effects or don’t bother giving their characters shadows at all. The way Asatte no Houkou deals with these shadows really makes the environment part of the anime. I like it. :)

I wonder when Tetsu will find out what happened to Karada. During their little date, there were enough of subtle resemblances between the small Karada and the grown-up Karada, though at the moment, he believes they’re related, and Karada finished the episode with writing him a letter, explaining that she was currently at her mother’s for a while. Still, this doesn’t solve the problem. At one day, he will find out.

Asatte no Houkou is a wonderful anime, in my opinion. The fact that it’s featured around such a small concept allows it to fully explore it. Still, that does give it the same problem as .Hack//Sign: it’s a slow series. There’s nothing wrong with slow series. In fact, the slow pacing really is what makes these series awesome. But the fact remains that it might be too slow for some people. If you’re looking for a series in which lots of things happens at the same time, stay away from Asatte no Houkou. Far away.