Short Synopsis: Akasha finally reveals why he’s doing the things he did.
Episode Rating: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Seriously, is there no end to this series’ awesomeness? While the second season started out with a bunch of really bad and questionable episodes, it picked itself up so well after that, and delivered one hit after the other. I really must thank this series for giving me back my faith in shounen fighting series. Ever since the Law of Ueki, I’ve found myself disappointed by these series so many times, but this series really has been everything a good shounen series should be. This is exactly what I was hoping for when I found out that the director of Gilgamesh was behind it. Love it or hate it, but it had lots of interesting and imaginative stuff, and Shikabane Hime is the same: it knows exactly how to deal with its viewers’ expectations, and go completely beyond that.

And really, to think that this series is a manga adaptation. I really wouldn’t have suspected this: Ever since episode seven of the first season, there hasn’t been any filler, there are no wasted episodes, there are no pacing issues, and it looks like everything is going to be solved in the next episode. It may be that the story of the manga fits the 25 episode format exactly, but what’s more like is that the creators tweaked the storyline a bit so that it would fit into this time-frame. Seriously, a lot of series should try to follow this show’s example.

And this episode yet again continued this show’s string of awesomeness. We were promised Akasha’s background, but we got so much more. From the BEGINNING, he was planning on betraying the seven stars and use the strange cube to take control over Hokuto. The reason why he looked like such a weakling for the past number of episodes was because he simply let himself get pushed around, since at the time he couldn’t risk it to go against the bug guy. His duty was to protect Hokuto, and since the previous episode pretty much distracted him from this task, he grabbed his chance.

His background also rocked beyond belief. And while it was the kind of “I lost my loved one so I want revenge!”, there is so much more added. He actually was the victim of something that happens to every monk who makes his Shikabane kill 108 corpses. When that happens, they simply turn back into an ordinary Shikabane, just as if their contractor was killed. His Shikabane Hime also was his former girlfriend, fully tying this into the theme of “Shikabane Hime aren’t people, they’re a bunch of dead bodies” that has been explored by both Ouri and Sougi in detail, and continues to build further upon it.

So yeah, right now you can pretty much consider me a fan of the director, Masahiko Murata. Both Shikabane Hime and Gilgamesh were simply awesome, and I’m getting more and more interested in his other works and see what he can do. This guy really has talent, and is not afraid to use it.

In any case, only one episode left, and it really is promising to be yet another action-packed one. The big difference is that the first season really was building up to that big climax of its, while most of the build-up at this point has already been used. Let’s see whether the creators can give us one final surprise with this series.

Ah, time to review one of my favourites of the past season. Manglobe always manages to come with some fun, interesting and innovative series, and this one’s no different. While Samurai Champloo had its action, Ergo Proxy had its plot, Michiko e Hatchin stands out in its characters. But like the other two, it really has so much more to like about it.

I often criticise anime for taking place too much in Japan, while there are much more interesting sites in the world to explore. This series does that exactly, giving an incredibly accurate portrayal of Brazil in the 1980s to work with. From the police driving in beetles to the busy cities, everything just screams “Brazil” throughout the entire series. The only other series that I can think of that play out somewhere in south America are more than twenty-five years old by now.

And like mentioned above: the characters are the true highlight of this series. While at first this seems like your average strong character travels together with weak character, it soon becomes clear that the relationship between Michiko and Hatchin is much, much different. Michiko is a sleezebag, she constantly causes trouble and knows nothing about raising children. Hatchin is neat, tidy and ordered, but hates laziness with passion. The personalities between the two constantly clash, and it actually takes a very, very long time for the two of them to get used to each other, but when they do, they really complement their own weaknesses. Especially Hatchin grows into an awesome character, who is constantly fun to watch.

This series can also boast one of the best villains out there in a long, long time. Satoshi doesn’t appear on the screen a lot, but when he does, you instantly know that this guy is incredibly dangerous, and yet at the same time he stands so far away from your standard “Muaha, I’m going to destroy the world because I’m evil!” that you seem to see in nearly every anime nowadays.

What also made this into such a great show is that it’s incredibly varied. It’s a show with many different faces, rather than just one general tone that keeps up for the entire series. One episode may be fun and full of comedy, while the next is an incredibly dark one about the inner clashes of street gangs, while the next may turn into a fun action-game sequence. You’ll never know what the series is going to focus on next, but it’s always going to be fresh and interesting.

Right now, I’m trying to think of a big flaw in this series, but all I can think of is some tiny flaws, like how for some characters the introduction seems to be missing, so you’re often thrown into the blue, or how the ending doesn’t answer all of the questions that you might have gathered through the series, but those are just mere details.

The thing is, that Michiko e Hatchin is an awesome, stylish and mature series and it excels at just about everything that it does. There is a fantastic dynamic between the characters, and never once does it feel childish or anything, despite Hatchin being a 10 year old and all. It’s really got a bit of everything, and it’s my personal favourite series of a studio that had already a record of putting down the most amazing series.

Short Synopsis: It’s time for Hiroshi to make his appearance.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
And so it has ended. The ending was good, and in a way it was the only ending that would have made sense. I really like how the creators didn’t try to stuff too much into this episode, but also saved enough for this episode to happen. the whole gang wars and Satoshi storyline all ended in the previous episode, and this episode was just about Hatchin, Hiroshi, Michiko and the police. The creators could have kept Satoshi alive in order to create some chaotic ending, or like Samurai Champloo, they could have saved him for the big fight, like with Samurai Champloo, but this ending was very focused, and indeed served very clearly its purpose.

So yeah, while it would have been nice for Michiko, Hiroshi and Hatchin to live happily ever after, that just isn’t realistic. Michiko is wanted by the police. It just isn’t realistic for her to raise a child while she constantly has to look out for the police, and the only reason why she took the huge gamble of busting jail and running away from the police was to let Hatchin meet her father. Even though she definitely wanted to see Hiroshi back, and probably still loves him, she knew all along that she’d be returning to jail when she ended up meeting the guy, and Atsuko saw that as well.

And then of course it would have been nice for Hatchin to grow up along with her father in Mexico, but the dude ran away for a reason. There’s no way that he’s suddenly going to have a change of heart. He indeed quickly left Hatchin to chase after another woman. I didn’t quite catch where Hatchin’s kid came from, but that’s not really important for the story. In any case, Hatchin renames herself back to Hana and starts working quietly as a restaurant’s cook for a bunch of years, to wait for Michiko to sit out her time in jail. And so, when the latter gets released for real, she of course immediately heads to where Hatchin ended up living (she probably knew this because Hiroshi left her the address). Oh, and grown up Hatchin looks awesome, by the way.

The only disappointment with this ending really was that we never knew who exactly was Hatchin’s mother. Sure we also don’t know exactly what happened during Hiroshi’s bus accident, but we don’t need to: he clearly faked his own death in order to run away from the likes of Satoshi and the other gang members he got on bad terms with, but I’d love to have seen Hatchin’s mother, though that would probably be one of the countless women Hiroshi hung out with, only to dump afterwards after making her get the wing tattoo.

I don’t think that this is going to be one of the best endings of the season, though it is probably going to be the most realistic one. And furthermore, the rest of this series definitely has been one of the most enjoyable ones out of the ones currently airing, apart from Birdy the Mighty. It was definitely fun blogging this series (and fanboying about Hatchin), and I’m looking forward to about two years from now, in which we get to see Manglobe’s next epic.