May 18, 2008

Amatsuki - 07

Filed under: On Hiatus:/Amatsuki


Wow. The past few episodes have al started, seeming like a regular intermezzo, and then the episode hits its halfway-point and closes the off with a really powerful second half. This really makes every episode deliver. Series with a continuous storyline often need to insert quiet episodes to give the characters a bit of time to be fleshed out, but Amatsuki really blurs the line between an eventful episode and an intermezzo. It’s a difficult trick to pull off right, but things like these can make a good anime even better.

The quiet parts in this episode continued to spend a bit more time on the love-relationship between Kuchiha and Toki, as well as introducing an important person from Toki’s past. As a child, he seemed to spend a lot of time with this person. Though if I had to mention one part I didn’t like about this series, then it’s the tsundere-ness of that female priest. She worked well in the episode she was introduced in, but she seriously needs some development to stay away from the usual “has no chance to be loved by male lead”-stereotype. I do like, however, how Kuchiha tried to approach Toki when he was about to have breakfast and failed. ^^;

In the second half:
- Toki and Kuchiha head off to do some job
- Kon interrogates Ginshuu, and finds out that the Koku-ten is the closest to Tei-ten (the being that created everything). This Koku-ten seems to be a guy called “Yakou”. I’m not sure who this guy is, but he seems to be some kind of enemy. He lives to drive not only Ayakashi, but also humans and the world crazy. Oh, and the curse Ginshuu is under doesn’t enable him to keep living; it prevents him from dying.
- The fox ayakashi prepares to strike and at the end of the episode she does something that looks suspiciously like killing Heihachi

Nijuu Mensou no Musume - 06


Spoilers up ahead! Let me repeat: spoilers up ahead! This is one of these episodes you need to have seen before reading such an entry about it, so this sentence is meant to fill up the blurb that appears on the blog aggregators with. I am SO glad that I decided to blog Nijuu Mensou no Musume.

Because oh my GOD! I kind-of suspected that Nijuu Mensou would end up dead somehow, but talk about bloody overkill! This is even worse than the first episode of Chevalier: the ENTIRE cast is slaughtered apart from two people. It is only now that I finally understand the OP, where they only show the grown-up version of Ken, and not everyone else. I now also understand why Ken was the one who ended up with his eye poked out: doing this on any of the other characters wouldn’t have mattered anyway, since they would have died within an episode anyway.

Having said that, I do want to add that Nijuu Mensou’s death lacked a bit of impact. Chiko’s reaction on seeing him die was of course amazing, but I’m wondering why he couldn’t just detach the train and then quickly hop onto her car. With his skills, he could have easily done it. Or did he die on purpose? Did he feel like he would abandon his comrades if he didn’t die with them? I still somehow feel that the creators could have developed the guy a bit more, but at least he and his crew did a terrific job in developing Chiko. I’m really getting pumped up now for the rest of this series!