Yes! The airdate for Higurashi 2 finally has been announced. The second season is coming in July. The twenty-second, if I’m not mistaken. Now all that’s left is to hope that all of the arcs will be animated, and not just the seventh and the eighth one.

Still, that’s not nearly as interesting as some information I found while checking out Moonphase. I’m really not sure about the details, but an upcoming anime (also scheduled for the upcoming summer) called Mononoke strangely has a picture of the medicine seller from Ayakashi ~ Japanese Classic Horror on its website, and it also mentions Ayakashi once.

Oh, I’m so hoping that this is some kind of sequel or similar story of Bake Neko. If it actually is, then we’ve got ourselves a serious contender for the “best anime of 2007″. Bake Neko already was one of the best short stories I’ve ever seen, but it’s going to be even better seeing an entire anime dedicated to this concept.

Short Synopsis: Naru still is out for the entire episode, while more people end up injured and wounded. There even was a suicide-attempt.
Good: Great cliff-hanger!
Bad: The evil grin on the spirits looked a bit fake, but this is just a minor detail.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10

You know what? I liked this! :D

Seriously, though. Now that Naru-chan is unavailable for this arc, Mai doesn’t have anyone to rely on or to drool over, so she’ll start acting for herself. The first half of the episode already shows this when she finally gives a good description of the dream she had. The things that happened in the dream of the previous episode are checked, and they all appear to be true. Not very exciting, but it’s definitely necessary.

I personally loved the second half. It starts with another one of the family-members being attacked (this time on his arms). The two children show themselves, and then it really becomes apparent that they’re possessed, as they’re actually disappointed that the guy didn’t die. They escape for that time, but Mai runs into them again later when she tries to give everyone a protective charm. They obviously run away, but Mai then finds out that they’ve been trying to kill various members of the household. What happened afterwards was very interesting.

Okay, so Mai made a mistake. Big deal, she almost threw her life away in the haunted school-building. But never has she actually put the lives of others on the line! She tries to catch the two children, but the boy escapes. The spirit then threatens to kill the boy if she doesn’t release them. He’s about to jump, and the only chance for Mai to stop him is by using the trick Bou-san taught her, despite his warnings to never use this on a human being.

The children ended up with some deep cuts in their back. They were lucky to have survived. But not only that. Mai didn’t only hurt the children, she also made the spirits even angrier than they already were. It’ll be very interesting to see how she actually is going to take responsibility for the things she did, as the end of the episode showed some signs that people actually died. In other words, Mai’s carelessness actually indirectly killed a couple of people. Finally she’s getting interesting! Woot!

Short Synopsis: The climax of the Yotsuba-arc.
Good: Finally the Yotsuba-arc is over.
Bad: The second half of the previous episode was better; A deus ex machina? Death Note, I thought you knew better.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10

Those who have been reading my blog know that I’ve been annoyed with the Yotsuba-arc. It was basically one huge joke, in comparison to the Misa-arc and the Naomi-arc. Still, I’m glad it’s over, and I’m glad that it actually managed to end well. The past episode and this one have been excellent, but they once again show that Death Note is a shounen-anime, where the pattern of good and bad episodes is almost predictable.

SPOILER for the manga up ahead. Beware!

What will happen next could be very interesting, in theory. Still, I’ve got a problem with it: the fanbase of the manga. It seems that after Higuchi got caught, the manga featured a huge plot twist. The problem with this is that the people who read the manga found this twist so amazing, that they kept dropping way too obvious and unsubtle hints about it. It’s almost impossible not to get spoiled by the fact that [SPOILER]L is about to die[/spoiler]. It’s just like the fact that I won’t be able to really enjoy Starwars and Final Fantasy VII, due to the fact that their plot twists also have become famous. The anime now has to deliver something really good in order to make up for this.

Anyway, about the episode, it definitely was good, but the previous episode, as mentioned above, was better. Nothing much changed with Higuchi. He just was trying to find ways to kill Matsuda, and the huge change from calm to desperate in the previous episode never really found its equal. The police-cars at the climax also came from nowhere, what were the creators thinking of putting a deus ex machina at that point?