Tsuiokuhen, or Trust and Betrayal, is the prequel (although it was produced later) to the series Rurouni Kenshin. Don’t worry; you don’t need to have seen the series to enjoy this four-episode OVA. I haven’t seen it myself, nor am I planning to (my to-watch-list is already large enough without the addition of a ninety-episode series), but I was perfectly able to follow what was going on without feeling left out, unlike the two Patlabor-movies. The original series may be too large of a commitment, but this four-episode OVA is a must-watch.

Seriously, I’ve never seen anyone who didn’t like this after watching it. The story itself may have been done before, but the storytelling and characters more than make up for it. This is one anime that perfectly knows how to use its time with a great balance of building up and intense scenes. Sure, there are some very nice fights, but the two main characters really steal the show. The side-characters are also well-defined, and have their own clear roles to play and at the end, the storylines are all very neatly wrapped up.

Still, in terms of sword-fighting this series delivers as well. There may be fewer fights than you would expect, but right now I can’t remember having seen any other anime with more detail in its choreography than what I’ve seen in this OVA, even considering the epics of Shigurui and Seirei no Moribito. In addition to that, the background music is also stellar. The only thing I can name that gets close to a bad point is the fact that the main character may have been a bit too young to be such a masterful and unbeatable swordsman.

Still, after watching it, I totally understand why Tsuiokuhen is so popular and well-loved. If you’re into period-anime, this just has to sit on your watch-list, and this is another top-notch OVA. The people from Studio Deen have proven once again that even though they screw up at times, they can churn out a classic just as easily.

Well, it’s four episodes left, and we finally get a question that has been asked through the entire series confirmed. It wasn’t the most exciting episode that this series had to offer, but it was a perfect build-up to the grand finale of this anime. The next line is going to be a spoiler, so this line is there to prevent it to appear on the blog-aggregators like animeblogger antenna.

So, yes: Satoru was just one big red herring; he never killed Shion’s parents in the first place. The real killer also has to be Hani-meijin, all signs point to him:
- He will be playing against Shion for the finale
- He recruited Ayumi to be his student.
- He entered a world so dangerous that he had to abandon his brother.

In the end, all Satoru was, was another one of the guy’s victims. Satoru looked up to his brother, and he was deserted because of Shougi. In addition to that, Satoru lost his mother, father and lover, and it turns out that he was just clinging to get back to the only one of his loved ones who is still alive. His sadistic actions were just mere pranks, in order to get noticed. I think that the reason why he revealed Ayumi’s identity to Saori just was a subtle cry for attention. I must say that now that I love his character, and the depth of it, and it makes me hate Hani-meijin even more.

Throughout the first two thirds of the series, we were all made to hate Satoru, while the real bastard is actually Hani-meijin. I remember how I didn’t like the guy, but this hatred disappeared when the even worse Satoru appeared. Still, it now turns out that the guy loves to play with other people as if they were toys. Saori, another person that’s been dying for his attention just got shamelessly put aside during this episode, in favour of the “stronger” Ayumi, just because she didn’t make it to the finals because she had the bad luck to face an old shougi-master!

And really, what’s he planning with Shion? I think it’s clear now that he’s after strong players and has no need for the weak ones. Was the reason he committed the murder a twisted experiment to get Shion entirely devoted to Shougi, so that he could harvest her once her talents developed? Is the fact that Kaminozo accepted him really the only reason why he took on Ayumi as his new student? Or was this yet another part of his plans with Shion. The guy definitely had a bad history with Shion’s parents, but what exactly is it?

It’s really been a while since I watched such an episode, but this is one of the rare ones that gets better and better after you finish watching it. It wasn’t the most exciting of the shougi-matches, but it’s been ages since one episode made me think so much as this one. It’s series like this one that remind me why I fell in love with anime in the first place.

Yet again a flawless episode for this series, and this one has a good chance of being the best episode of Porfy no Nagai Tabi yet. World Masterpiece Theatre seriously rocks!

The episode starts with Porfy, watching the cars drive past, and recognizing them instantly. The fact that his father gets very few customers is still very much on his mind, as Christopher turns down yet another customer who hopes to get some gasoline. Zaimis then arrives with great news: he’s going to have a little brother or sister. Zaimis is thrilled now that he know this, and its clear that he’s always been jealous of Porfy because he has Mina. He also asks Porfy what it takes to be a good brother. After all, Mina follows him everywhere. Porfy’s reply? Keep looking important, because if you look important then your sibling will follow you everywhere.

Mina, meanwhile, is still thinking about the movie, and actually replays the biggest scenes when she things she’s alone. At one point, Porfy catches her doing it, and she starts yelling at him. Porfy later complains about this to Aneke, and she just assures him that Mina hasn’t changed at all, her mind is just occupied with a wonderful meeting (aka, the movie). That evening, Zaimis tries to take Porfy’s words a bit too literally, and starts to patronize his mother’s belly. That was too cute.

Porfy meanwhile tells his parents about how Zaimis is about to get a new sibling. In response, Mina asks Aneke for a new sister as well, as she’d love to have one too. Porfy then changes the subject by asking how many customers came to the station that day, and it turns out that only one of them showed up, and in Porfy’s mind, this is just way too little.

The next day, Zaimis’s father and Christopher talk a bit about their son’s antics, while Porfy is still thinking of a way to increase the amount of customers for the station along with Zaimis. Zaimis doesn’t understand why Porfy wants to change, because things are running fine as they are. Porfy then gets an idea and leaves. He goes home and looks for some money. He hardly has any so he asks Mina for her savings, with the excuse that it’s for the well-being of the car repair shop.

It turns out that he uses this money to buy a bag of nails. In other words: his plan is to destroy the tires of random cars, so that they’ll be forced to come to Christopher. When he tells his plan to Zaimis, he really thinks high of himself, like he’s some kind of genius. Zaimis of course disagrees, so Porfy leaves, though he tells Zaimis not to say anything about it.

Later that afternoon, Zaimis is clearly struggling not to say anything about Porfy’s plan. After all, with such a dangerous stunt, Porfy is bound to get punished a lot when this is found out. Then, Mina arrives with the souvenir she bought last episode, after which Zaimis tells her about Porfy’s intentions. Mina then rushes home and discovers the bag of nails. She then begs her brother to stop. What if an accident happens? Porfy however replies that he’s doing it for his mother and father, and how he wants to help her after seeing the reaction on that old friend of hers. He also mentions how Mina has been distracted lately (because of the movie and all), and Mina suddenly apologizes for this, and starts crying.

That evening, it’s very silent at the table during dinner. Christopher tries to lighten the mood by proposing another car-trip, but Porfy and Mina are still mad at each other. Late at night, when the others are all asleep, Porfy leaves the house and finds a good road to drop the nails on. Apollo goes along with him. He doesn’t really try to stop him directly, but it’s clear that the doubts Porfy already had only get amplified more and more. He sees a shooting star, and wishes for lots of customers to come to the repair station.

He then drops the nails at a road and returns home, thinking how tomorrow will be a busy day, and how he’s going to have to help his father too. However, when he returns home, he’s too scared to enter it, and spends a little while, sitting on the doorstep. It’s there when e regrets his decision, and runs back to where he dropped the nails, and goes to pick them up. Meanwhile, Mina wakes up as well, and notices how Porfy is missing. As Porfy is nearly done, a car comes from out of nowhere into his direction, hits the breaks, and the episode ends.

I don’t think that there’s much else to say about this episode. It was a wonderful one, and we’ve hardly even scratched the surface of the real potential of this series.

Haha, this was the best episode of Shigofumi yet. The creators did an excellent job for the episode on Fumika’s past. It was really over-the-top, but at the end you can really understand why Fumika shot her father. I’m glad to see that Shigofumi has found its own style, and kept with it, and it’s a great example of combining calm storytelling with extreme themes.

So, we already knew that Fumika’s father was insane, but there’s more to this story than just that. Her mother immediately divorced the guy as soon as she gave birth to Fumika, and now she’s remarried to another guy and lives in another country. Ever since then, she spent her childhood just with her father. In the beginning, he was really nice to her, though at one point, he started drawing on her, just like what he did in the last episode, but much more extreme. It was his way of getting inspiration for his books, but he was never content with it, and released all his anger about this on Fumika.

It was at this point where Fumika started developing an alternative personality: Mika, while she herself became Fumi. By talking to herself, she found peace between the horrible tortures of her father, and this continued until Fumika went to middle school, and she finally met other people, including Kaname and Kasumi. Meanwhile, though, the abuse continued, and at one point, it was Mika who couldn’t take it anymore to see Fumi being abused like that, and shot her father.

What’s interesting is how Fumi continued to love her father, no matter what he did to her. After her father was shot, I believe that the shock of seeing her father shot caused her to go into coma, and ever since, Mika became unable to contact her.

The question will now be: what do the creators have in mind for the final third of this series? There are four episodes left, and Fumika’s back-story seems to be resolved now. If I had to guess, then the final episode ends with Fumi, waking up again, though I’m interested to see how the creators are planning to do this.

A relative quiet episode, but you can see where it builds up to. Shinichiro and Noe are now properly dating, and Hiromi and Noe’s brother also get a bit closer together this episode. Both Shinichiro and Hiromi hide with their partner, to forget about each other, but it’s apparent that this can’t go on forever.

Still, it’s been eight episodes, and I’m still not sure what Aiko is doing in this series. What can she offer, besides the role of a red herring that keeps popping up once in a while? Right now, if both she and Miyokichi were left out of this series, it wouldn’t have made any difference at all to how the rest of the main cast would have developed, and I’m missing a bit of interaction of Aiko with Noe and Hiromi. It would be interesting if in any of the following episodes, she actually met one or both of them.

In any case, this episode served its purpose well. The creators did a really good job to show how much Noe likes Shinichiro, and I liked how Shinichiro finally became happy again by hanging out with Noe, after all his worries of the past few episodes. What I’m hoping for the final episodes is that each of the three couples will get closer together, while sorting out their own feelings. I’m not really sure whether it’ll be good for this series to become some kind of love-variant of musical chairs.