Birdy the Mighty Decode - 16
Short Synopsis: Senkawa&co visit a refugee camp for a school project.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
ZOMG, is this really the same Birdy the Mighty as the first season? That first season was a nice series and all, but the teen-aged romances got into the way, with especially Senkawa being annoying. And here the second season comes and it’s been consistently awesome so far, with still no signs that the series has hit its height!
This episode may not have been as dark as the previous one (there was quite a bit of comedy there), but nevertheless it was a very important one: it showed where the people who lost their homes thanks to Nakasugi ended up, and with such detail! It’s awesome to see that the creators take their time to show these things: it shows that this isn’t a show where buildings are simply made out of cardboard: if you destroy a building once, it’s simply happens to be a building where no people live and magically disappear by the next episode. It’s simple, but I see many series forgetting this. It really adds more believability to the setting.
And yet again, this episode featured some gorgeous animation. Especially the scene where Natoru got beaten up by those punks was downright brutal, but also the quiet scenes were full of life (and really reminded me of Noein’s animation, which is ALWAYS a good thing ^^;). It’s also amazing how much depth the relationship between Natoru and Birdy already has. As it turns out, Birdy always used to save him when they were kids, and it looks like this still hasn’t changed a bit now that they’ve grown up, even though Natoru changed so incredibly.
This really reminds me of Escaflowne (again directed by the same guy, and again one of my absolute favourites): the first half of the series was good, but didn’t exactly catch my attention, but the second half showed an incredible increase in quality. Here too: the first season was nice and all, but the second season seems to be improving on it significantly in every single way!