Animeosity

Moribito: As it happened

2008-08-24T01:03:00.003-05:00

We watched episode one of Moribito on Adult Swim earlier tonight. What did we think? Read and wonder no more:

[01:31:21] neoplatonic: based on a novel?!
[01:31:23] mrLang: Oh-uh.
[01:31:30] mrLang: This intro isn't making me feel good.
[01:31:37] * neoplatonic smacks you
[01:31:52] neoplatonic: that's for this intro
[01:31:57] mrLang: Are you going to shine on me?
[01:32:17] neoplatonic: is this like "spirited away," but not?
[01:32:25] mrLang: No idea.
[01:32:32] mrLang: I know nothing about this.
[01:32:58] neoplatonic: the animation isn't bad
[01:33:04] neoplatonic: but she's wearing too many clothes
[01:33:09] mrLang: I looked it up on Wikipedia when I first found out it was airing on [as]. It only confirmed that it was in fact an anime.
[01:33:21] neoplatonic: even the japanese don't know
[01:33:41] neoplatonic: "this is a shithole of a village. i hate it"
[01:33:44] mrLang: How do you want to start off your anime? "Calm and peaceful."
[01:34:06] mrLang: "My spear needs a lift."
[01:34:27] neoplatonic: stop talking
[01:34:42] neoplatonic: 30? she's practically dead
[01:35:35] mrLang: That cow hates that someone isn't bowing.
[01:37:17] neoplatonic: "I hate kids!"
[01:38:32] neoplatonic: i'm glad that something kinda happened
[01:38:42] mrLang: Is it too early to ask, "What the fuck?"
[01:39:13] neoplatonic: no
[01:39:14] mrLang: "I'll send my giant teeth."
[01:39:19] neoplatonic: in fact, it's too late
[01:40:32] neoplatonic: uh oh
[01:41:13] neoplatonic: if you're going to fight a spear with some swords you better be fast
[01:41:42] mrLang: Wh... What? Was that an act break?
[01:41:50] mrLang: Did something important just happen?
[01:42:16] neoplatonic: her spear still needs a tune up
[01:42:48] mrLang: Where do you want the A-B break in you anime? "Uh... there?"
[01:45:21] mrLang: Was that San Francisco?
[01:45:31] neoplatonic: was she almost naked?
[01:45:50] mrLang: Not really.
[01:46:11] neoplatonic: kill someone already
[01:46:54] neoplatonic: *wink*
[01:47:01] mrLang: The queen wuvs her.
[01:47:09] neoplatonic: that's like my bedroom
[01:47:20] mrLang: Dark and empty?
[01:47:50] neoplatonic: shut up!
[01:48:03] mrLang: OUTLANDER!
[01:48:28] neoplatonic: there can be only one
[01:49:11] mrLang: That knot on her outfit makes me think she's about to join the marching band.
[01:50:41] neoplatonic: sounds like the prince has bad luck, not that assassins are after him
[01:50:51] mrLang: The assassins sent a cow?
[01:51:58] neoplatonic: oh great the prince is an ass
[01:52:11] mrLang: Name five princes who aren't.
[01:52:43] neoplatonic: erm
[01:54:04] neoplatonic: "sorry. all i have is a few diamonds on me"
[01:54:44] neoplatonic: kill them all!
[01:54:58] neoplatonic: KILL THEM!
[01:56:15] mrLang: "See ya'!"
[01:56:42] mrLang: Gee, I'm all excited for episode 2.
[01:56:50] neoplatonic: the prince is a terrible person. he counts as -4 lives
[01:56:51] mrLang: I hope nothing happens again.

Gungrave

2008-07-16T04:13:00.003-05:00

What a peculiar series. This review will be a first for me: a full series recap instead of the usual episodic format. Spoilers abound.

Our story is about a crime syndicate, about betrayal, about love and death and zombies. Above all, however, it's about two men: Brandon Heat and Harry MacDowel, childhood friends who grow apart as their goals in life change. Brandon and Harry meet while living in the same orphanage, where Harry first expresses his desire to take as much as he wants and give as much as he wants, to achieve freedom through power. The two become smalltime thugs, teaming up with three others to live poor but free and happy. They might have lived that way forever, but their chosen occupation was a violent one, and they eventually crossed the wrong man. Or rather, his brother, a weasel of a man named Deed. Deed's brother, the infamous "Mad" Radd, gets out of prison and brings Hell down upon Brandon & friends. Radd kills the three others, and is about to kill Harry and Brandon when a member of the crime syndicate Millenion interferes. Seems Radd crossed the wrong man, too. In addition to killing three quarters of Brandon's friends, he also gunned down Jester, the adopted father of Brandon's girlfriend, Maria, and a personal friend of Millenion's boss, Big Daddy.

So Radd gets swept, another in a long line of elite sweeper Bear Walken's victims. For a while, Bear is the baddest mofo in the series, though he's eventually eclipsed by both natural and technological means. With nowhere else to go, Maria consents to live in Big Daddy's mansion, unknowingly sealing her fate. Harry strikes out on his own, or tries to. Brandon, loyal to a fault, follows wherever he goes, continually choosing friendship with Harry and a rough life over going legit and settling down with his love, Maria. Brandon's motto: bros before hos. Before they can run off to the oftmentioned but never seen "somewhere far away," Brandon and Harry are attacked by Deed's gang, still seeking revenge and seeing the pair as easy targets. Again, Millenion saves them, and this time it inspires Harry to join. He and Brandon wipe out Deed's gang and begin to work their way up the syndicate ladder, Brandon as an enforcer and, later, assassin, Harry as a wheeler-dealer who's never without a clean white suit.

That's when the sci-fi hits. Gungrave is like two shows in one. Maybe three or four. For the longest time, it's a gangster show. Aside from characters like Brandon having unbelievable skill in dispatching enemies without suffering harm, it's much like American gangster movies. Dark, profound, tragic. For anyone who breaks Millenion's iron law, for anyone who betrays, there is only death. Friends, family, doesn't matter. Never betray, not even by accident. It might have been a better show if they'd stuck to the gangster stuff, but after all, it's based on a videogame that's light on plot and high on freaky mutant bosses. It'd be like expecting Kanon not to have romance, or Tomb Raider not to have boobs. Still, the videogame elements don't translate well at all. It starts simply enough, with sci-fi bits inserting themselves into the gangster story. A rival syndicate develops Necro-Rise, a technology that, wait for it... raises the dead. It also turns them into unkillable monsters who pose by far the greatest threat Millenion has yet faced. They're led by Brad Wong, an ex-soldier whose purpose in life is to kill lots of people. He's one of those types who are always looking for a challenge, and he finds that in Brandon Heat, now Millenion's top sweeper. Together with his brother-in-arms, Kugashira Bunji - one of three gunmen in the series widely regarded as "pretty much nutbunnies" - Brandon takes on the Necro-Risen soldiers... and loses. Luckily, they had a built-in expiration date. The process, yet in its infancy, was only good for ten days, a minor detail the good doctor failed to mention to his employers. They crumble to dust, and the tide turns against Wong, who, as his final act as a human being, gulps a Necro-Rise potion and shoots himself in the head. The result is a bizarre monstrosity that ultimately fails to cause any lasting damage. Bear Walken and Millenion ride to the rescue again, shooting the Hell out of the monster. For whatever reason, this works where it failed with the normal, less impressive-looking undead, and Wong doesn't get back up. That's a recurring theme in this show: enemies dispatched with surprising ease with little explanation beyond "we shot them a lot." I suppose that, too, is owed to its videogame roots.

The sci-fi goes away for a while. Harry secretly continues the research the rival syndicate had begun, as well as forgiving a friend who had broken the iron law, binding Balladbird Lee to himself through Lee's betrayal. This is where it grows apparent that Harry isn't the nice guy he appeared to be early on, the stalwart friend, the gangster with a heart of gold. He is Caesar, and the world itself may not be enough to sate his ambition. Harry goes further and further down the ends-justify-the-means path, compromising until it's no longer in his nature to do the right thing if it doesn't serve him, while Brandon watches silently, bonding with Big Daddy while at the same time distancing himself from Maria. He's ashamed of what he's become, a mass murderer, yet he's unwilling to leave Harry and the syndicate behind. Feeling he can't have both, he ultimately pushes Maria into Big Daddy's arms, putting her happiness ahead of his own.

Big Daddy retires, naming Random Old Guy his successor after a gut feeling tells him Harry wouldn't be the best choice. Harry responds by sneakily offing Random Old Guy and blackmailing Big Daddy into naming him the new boss. In-between, he makes the mistake of asking Brandon "never betray" Heat to turn on Big Daddy and back Harry's power play. Brandon refuses and pulls his gun on Harry, prepared to enforce the iron law. Only he's not prepared. He can't shoot his friend, no matter what. If only Bear Walken had been there, to be Brandon's second as he was Bear's when Bear's friend had to die for betrayal. Harry, lacking his friend's highminded ideals, shoots Brandon to death and names him "Betrayer."

Of course, Brandon had a backup plan, a secret agreement with Dr. Tokioka, inventor of the Necro-Rise tech, to raise him should he die. He comes back more whole than the earlier undead, albeit with a nasty case of amnesia, and with the doctor's help is able to survive far longer than ten days. Thirteen years pass and Brandon sleeps, or whatever it is he did while "dormant." Then the videogame takes over, and Gungrave truly becomes a different show. Episodes 17-26 are fairly self-contained. Watching the first sixteen adds to them, but you could watch the last ten alone and not be lost. Like Brandon, you would have vague allusions to the past, and everything would have an air of mystery about it. There's something to be said for that, and the sci-fi elements feel less out of place without context. Of course, you'd miss out on many of the series' best parts.

Watching only the first sixteen doesn't work, unless you want to imagine the ending, and in this case I can't recommend that. If you want a straight gangster story, you're out of luck. If you want over the top, cracktastic creatures and action that manages a surprising degree of emotional resonance, this is your horse. Brandon comes back with superpowers, specially designed, oversized guns, and sets to fighting monsters. There are Orcmen, living subjects who've had the improved Necro-Rise process used on them and are virtually invulnerable unless Brandon happens to be shooting them, in which case it takes one to three bullets to shatter them into a million pieces. Though he later gets special bullets designed to stop a certain other type of enemy and another faction develops anti-Orcmen bullets, it's never explained why Brandon is able to kill Orcmen so easily with what appear to be normal rounds. Sure, he has superpowers, but strength and speed can't make you fire bullets harder, and unlike some other characters, Brandon's weapons aren't a part of him. If there's anything supernatural about them, we see it only in results.

The other enemy, the only kind who poses a real threat to SuperBrandon, is the Superior. An advanced version of Necro-Rise that, despite being refered to as "experimental," succeeds on all its test subjects, turning them into Superiors. On paper, they're better than Brandon, but in practice none are a match for him. First up is Bob Poundmax, the glutton, who started out skinny so we could watch him grow fatter as the series progressed. He fights Brandon solo, reasoning that his superior power will make overwhelming numbers unnecessary. And he's supposed to be the smart one. Sigh. He harries Brandon a while, but ultimately goes down by being shot too much, at too fast a rate for his accelerated healing factor to keep up with. Despite this triumph, Dr. Tokioka feels the need to design anti-Superior bullets for Brandon, which admittedly prove quite useful in future battles. Too useful.

His second challenge comes not from a Superior, but his old comrade Bunji, who has his own special weapon: one that fires a paralytic toxin. Keeping him off-balance with carefully placed bombs - and again, going out of his way to fight one-on-one - Bunji defeats Brandon, more or less. Before he can deliver the killing blow, Mika interferes. Mika being the teenage daughter of Big Daddy and Maria, whom Brandon has sworn to protect because that's the kinda guy he is. She yells "Please stop!" at Bunji over and over, which understandably annoys the Hell out of him and causes him to shoot in her general direction. He intentionally misses every time, at point blank range, but since Mika's functionally retarded, she only screams for help. Her cries inspire Brandon to Rise Up and Overcome. Also, to punch Bunji senseless with his one good arm.

That done, Dr. Tokioka informs us that Brandon will only be at "70% power" from now on, thanks to damage suffered from the paralytic toxin. Whether because of the anti-Superior bullets, the fact that his weapon of choice isn't so much dependent on his physical prowess, or the show's writers blithely ignoring Tokioka's proclamation, the only evidence we see of Brandon's reduced effectiveness is occasionally clutching his arm in pain, as though it's an old wound acting up. It is, but it's kinda supposed to be more than that. At any rate, his new superbullets give him a huge advantage in the remaining fights.

Balladbird Lee challenges him next... alone, of course. Technically, he brought along a hundred and fifty Orcmen and some freaky thing that jumps on Brandon and explodes itself, but they scarcely slow him down. It's like placing a wall in front of you and standing there until your opponent finds a way past the wall. It's basically still a one-on-one match, only with a later starting time. Lee uses his hostage, Mika, to keep Brandon from fighting back, and sets to killing him slow-like. But that's not drawn out enough. No, he has to be completely stupid about it, and kill Mika first to add to Brandon's suffering. Because losing everyone else he ever cared about wasn't enough, right? And hey, it's not like Dr. Tokioka will show up in the nick of time to provide a convenient distraction. That never happens.

After Tokioka rides in on a white subway car, Brandon shoots Mika's restraints and she scurries off to relative safety. Instead of staying behind to fight Lee to the death, Brandon hops on the same car and, convinced Lee can't follow, joins them inside. By this point, however, Lee had morphed into a bizarre spidery creature and has no problem catching up, tearing open the subway car, and resuming his attack with renewed vigor. Tokioka ends up getting killed, but not before leaving Brandon with plenty of Superior-killin' ammo. A few shots later, Lee crumbles to dust, disbelieving to the last.

That's it for the Superiors, or would be if they couldn't just make more. The tragically misguided Bear Walken is next. Though he was fiercely loyal to Big Daddy, Bear's first loyalty is to his daughter Sherry. He tries to forbid her romance with Harry, but relents in the supposed best interests of daddy's little girl. Sure, let your only daughter marry an evil bastard because she thinks it'll make her happy. And then betray everything you know to keep them together. To be fair, Harry is always kind to Sherry. He seems to genuinely love her, insomuch as a man like him is capable of love. Still, Bear could've carried out his early threat to kill Harry "if he touches her," though, and Sherry could've damn well found someone else to love. Look at Maria and Brandon. They had adorable puppy love, yet Maria was able to move on with no regrets. Bear's final mistake is to undergo the Superior treatment and fight Brandon... alone, of course. He's rather easily dispatched, causing the least harm of the four Superiors, though he technically comes inches from killing Brandon.

The final superfight is against the newly enhanced Kugashira Bunji, who unlike the others, doesn't transform into a monster before getting shot in the head. I'm not sure why Bunji continues to fight Brandon, except that the plot demands it. He doesn't seem to want to kill him, and in their final battle he acknowledges that he's going to die. That's the tricky thing about the iron law. It sounds good - never betray, because it's wrong andohyeahwe'llkillyou - but who do you not betray? Maybe Bunji realized that Brandon had stayed loyal to Millenion, that by following Harry, Bunji betrayed his "brother" and the syndicate, and being prideful, he wanted to die fighting. He couldn't switch sides because that would imply he could find redemption, and in his mind he was beyond that. Nor would he beg for death, preferring to force Brandon's hand. That's my guess, anyways.

Brandon's falling apart like an old school necro-soldier, but he still has to find Harry. In the end, even Brandon betrays, choosing Harry over the syndicate, which has turned against its bloodthirsty master. With hundreds out to help Brandon bring an end to Bloody Harry's reign, he doesn't want to anymore. There's still good in Harry, and they end up on the same side in the end, fighting to the death. It shouldn't work, as several earlier attempts to make character deaths seem tragic fell flat, but it does. It so does. Harry finds some measure of redemption as he and Brandon are gunned down. More than that, the regret is palpable. He knows he went wrong, and for the first time you can believe he cares. But it's too late now. It's too late. He can't go back.

In addition to the basic plot, there were several things that stood out to me in Gungrave, good and bad. The Good:

The Ending - I cried. With two episodes left in the series, I hated Harry MacDowel. I was convinced he was evil, that any good in him died long ago, and the series as a whole was grating on me due to several factors I'll get to later. I was all but determined not to feel anything when he inevitably died. And yet, when he tries to defend Brandon and gets riddled with bullets, mortally wounded, it hit me hard. I felt bad for him, and the more I thought about it, the sadder his death was.

Loss - A recurring theme throughout the series, and an integral part of the excellent ending. A sequence in the finale illustrates this perfectly: a flashback to the time when Brandon, Harry, and their three smalltime crook buddies were alive and uncorrupted. When Brandon met Maria, and their romance took its first, ginger steps. It's like a third show, a happy show, but in truth it's the same show. Gungrave is about the loss of that happiness, that innocence, through a series of choices that can't be unmade. There are external circumstances, too, like Mad Radd, but mainly it's Harry's ambition that undoes it all. That and Brandon's steadfast loyalty. Gone their separate ways, Brandon might have lived happily with Maria. Without Brandon's support as an elite sweeper, Harry might never have reached the lofty position he did. Millenion would've held off the ten-day Necro-Rise assault without him, and it's possible that Harry would've failed to co-opt the technology for his own means. Had he not been so deadset on rising higher, ever higher, Harry could've had a fine life in Millenion. No one forced him, which I suppose was the problem. Harry was a leader, independent. No one had to motivate him, but he had too much drive for his and everyone else's good. Even once he was atop Millenion, he wanted more. Though he had plenty, he was never satisfied.

Humanity - All the characters were flawed, and for the most part, that was a good thing. They made mistakes like real people and got stuck in situations that no amount of skill or superpowers could get them out of. Bear Walken went from badass mofo to fool, but it made sense. It's hard to deny someone you love, or to abandon a friend, however logical a course of action it is. As a viewer, I found myself chastising the characters often for their stupidity, in that way only an omniscient observer can. They made the wrong choices because they didn't know what would happen next, because it felt right at the time, and because, like you and I, they aren't perfect. When I watch an anime, I always hope my favorite characters will choose well, but it's no fun if they always do. No one hopes that two plus two will equal four. The outcome is predetermined. It's only when failure is possible that success can be appreciated.

The Bad:

Mika - Why won't she shut up? One of the worst characters in anime history, she exists only to serve as Brandon's bauble, his object to protect, so that his assault on the syndicate isn't motivated solely by revenge. If it were, he could stop. Probably. But as long as Harry was trying to kill Mika for daring to be Big Daddy's child, Brandon had to keep fighting. Mika dutifully gets kidnapped and endangered over and over, displaying all the personality of a cardboard cutout. Not to mention her ridiculous hair. Black on top, gray on the ends? But... she's thirteen!? No one else in the series has hair remotely like that. Nearly everyone's hair is a normal color. Brad Wong had the craziest hair next to her, a rich red that looked like it came out of a bottle. None of this would bother me - I'd hardly notice - if not for Mika's defining... "character" trait. Every time someone dies, she freaks out.

"MOM CAN'T BE DEAD! NOOOOOO!!! EEEIIIIIIIII!!!"
"FAITHFUL BUTLER-SAN CAN'T BE DEAD! NOOOOOOOOO!!! EEEIIIIIIII!!"
"KINDLY DOCTOR-SAN WHO GOT HIS DEATH SCENE OVER WITH WHILE I WAS OUT COLD CAN'T BE DEAD! EEEIIIIII!! NOOOO! EEEEIIIII!!!"
"FATHER WHOM I NEVER MET AND WAS OBVIOUSLY DEAD YEARS AGO CAN'T BE DEAD! EEEEEEEEEEEIII! EEEEAAAA! NOOOOO! WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO MEEEEAAA??!!!"
"NICE OLD MEN I JUST MET AND WITNESSED DYING LIKE FIVE MINUTES AGO CAN'T BE DEAD! EEEEAAAAA!! EEIIIIII!! EEEOOOO!"
*SOB 9000*

I hate her so. Eventually, she resolved to stop crying, and almost kept her word. I wonder if the writers realized how incredibly annoying she was, or if that was some weak attempt at character development. I laughed so hard when Brandon told her "you're strong," as part of his "I'm going off to die and leave you alone" speech. I think they were aware, because in a series where the names Brandon and Harry are used a thousand times, almost no one ever refers to the girl as Mika, instead calling her "Big Daddy's forgotten memento" or something impersonal like that. She's an object, nothing more.

Anti-climactic Deaths - Mika didn't help here, but she was far from the only factor. The series' death toll includes everyone of consequence in the cast, except (sigh) Mika, and it's only twenty-six episodes long, so they kinda had to pack those deaths in there. The writers clearly want you to care about each death, but they often wait until after the guy's dead to give you a reason, flashing back to earlier in his life to show him during happier, more alive times. Add that to the fact that many of the deaths are silly - especially those of the Superiors - and Mika screaming "YOU MUST FEEL SAD NOW," and it just doesn't work. For instance, the old guys who were friends with Brandon in Millenion way back when. They were living peacefully for decades until Brandon dumped Mika on them, then of course, they get brutally murdered while utterly failing to protect Mika in any way. Because they're old dudes who weren't so hot in their prime. One of them is blind. It kind of made sense for Brandon to drop the girl off with someone, and it's true he didn't have anyone else to rely on, but man... The worst part is when he gets back and is surprised that they're dead. Like he expected them to know Blind Old Dude Fu or for no one to find them. The latter would preclude the need for protectors. Might as well have Mika stay at an abandoned house.

Also, I know I spoke well of humanity before, but I was not about to feel sad when Bear Walken died. Too busy being angry with him for his choices. Didn't help that, before fighting Brandon, he admitted to himself that he was in the wrong, that he put his daughter's insane desire to boink Harry ahead of everything Millenion stood for. Not that he'd admit his daughter was anything but infallible, of course. Oh, no. When Sherry was killed by a random thug later and Harry did the old one-eye-crying, I laughed. In retrospect, I suppose Harry really was hurt, but I felt nothing for him or Sherry when he screamed at her death. And one-eye-crying is always lame. How do you even do that? Is his other eye broken? Tear ducts don't work? It's absurd.

Easy Fights - I touched on this earlier. The fights with the Superiors were largely disappointing. Bob kept saying he was better, but he couldn't prove it. Lee acquitted himself well, but as soon as the anti-Superior bullets showed up, it was over. The other two fights were simply exercises in waiting for Brandon to shoot his opponent with a superbullet or twelve. The tension only returned once Brandon had second thoughts about burying a bullet in his target's head, when he confronted Harry and didn't immediately kill him.

Wacky Videogame Antics - Again, the Superior fights. Your mileage may vary depending on how much you like crazy monster thingies. Personally, I thought Balladbird Lee turning into a giggling spider was silly. I don't know what Bear was even supposed to be. Tiny arms and huge fists? Or were the fists floating? Whatever. He was more impressive as a supersamurai. This and the previous two combined to dramatically lower my opinion of the series. If it were just Mika, I'd consider it a great series, but there's too much silliness, too many forced attempts at eliciting emotion, too many empty battles that are over almost before they begin.

May/December Romances - This was a bizarre theme. Depending on how you count, there were as many as four romances in the series. It started innocently, with Maria and Brandon's young love, but we know how that turned out. The remaining three romances all involved a young woman and a much older man. Big Daddy fell in love with Maria and, with Brandon's blessing, pursued that love. He's a nice guy and all, but he was like an uncle to Maria, if not a father. Eww. Then there's Sherry/Harry. Harry wasn't too old when it started, but Sherry appeared to be prepubescent when they met. There doesn't seem to be any reason for their relationship aside from tying Bear to Harry and adding a smidge of sympathy to Harry. The final romance, which thankfully never went anywhere, was between Mika and Brandon. Mika, as is her wont, screamed her love at Brandon, who declined to comment. Mika was roughly fourteen by the time the series ended, while Brandon was dead before she was born, and had to at least be in his thirties before croaking.

It also bothered me that, of the three women with significant roles, only Maria was remotely interesting. Sherry and Mika were plot devices. I didn't mind that there were no female combatants, something that usually bugs me in action series, but more than one female character worth a damn would've been nice. Bonus if she doesn't fall in love with someone who was childhood friends with her grandpa.

Time Jumps - These were worse every time. It got to where I wasn't sure if an episode was taking place shortly after the previous one or x months/years later. They generally wouldn't say how much time had passed, and there were at least half a dozen significant skips, the most major being a horribly jarring thirteen-year jump. Harry kills Big Daddy and vows to wipe out everything he's ever touched, with the camera showing Maria, Big Daddy's wife and the mother of his child, whom Harry could easily find and dispatch given his vast information network. But apparently, Harry blacked out and suffered short term memory loss after that, or something - I'm guessing - because thirteen years pass and he does nothing. Then he's like "Oh yeah, Maria! I remember and still want to kill her!" The Hell was he doing for thirteen years? He could at least kill some of Big Daddy's friends or bust up his favorite businesses. Pollute that river he loved to fish at, break whiskey bottles... Maybe he did some of that, but it's never so much as implied. It's just HATE - thirteen year break - HATE. To be fair, Harry's pretty forgetful. He forgets his old friends for a while, though Brandon never does, and manages to forget Brandon after thirteen years. "Forget" or "block out of his memory."

The time jumps as a whole served to erode my interest in the series' events. You'd suddenly jump ahead and characters would have different haircuts, different voices, more wrinkles and be in very different places in their life. Again, it wouldn't have been so bad if they'd thrown up a little note saying "three months later" or "one year later." I think they did with the five- and thirteen-year jumps, or they mentioned it in dialogue, but the smaller jumps were just, "figure it out."

English Names - I watched the subtitled version, usually my preferred version, but I have to say, unless the dub is very poor, it should easily trump this. I have to assume this was always meant for international release, because the Japanese voice actors' attempts to say things like "Beyond the Grave" and "Balladbird Lee" are laughable. I'm not sure they're trying sometimes, like the producers just want to get the timing down for the more natural English dub. Oddly, when Brandon's name appears in written form, it reads "Blandon," though that's certainly not what anyone calls him. They're only too careful to pronounce English names and words correctly. This sort of thing happens in many anime, with varying results. Tends to sound better when it's a word or phrase than a name, especially since names are frequently repeated. It also helps if the name isn't stupid. Kugashira Bunji beats Balladbird Lee in any language.

Beyond the Grave - Not the character, the name, and this goes beyond pronunciation. Dr. Tokioka dubs Brandon "Beyond the Grave," Grave for short because... Let's not mince words. It was in the videogame, so it's in the anime. Probably why there are so many English names to begin with and stuff like "Beyond the Grave," which I know has a Japanese counterpart, isn't translated. The problem with "Grave" is, it's not Brandon's name. There's a tease that, oh, Brandon isn't himself anymore, he doesn't remember, yadda yadda, but it's quickly revealed that yes, he does. He has a nasty case of amnesia, but he remembers enough. He is Brandon Heat, and it's blindingly obvious to observer and participant alike, yet Tokioka and Mika insist on calling him Grave. Tokioka's hardly around and dies about midway through the "future" part of the story, so whatever. Mika, on the other hand, will not go away, and continues to call Brandon "Beyond the Grave" for no apparent reason. She's one of the first to insist that it's really Brandon under there, yet she takes forever to stop using his idiotic pseudonym.

Pretty much everything comes back to Mika. I was ticked when they jumped ahead thirteen years. Could not believe it. Episode sixteen ends on a cliffhanger, episode seventeen leaps ahead with no resolution... Ahead to Mika, who seemed OK at first but was most definitely not.

Death Note 11

2008-05-17T05:42:00.002-05:00

According to KIT, it's been four months since the events of episode seven, where Light made Ray Penbar's fiancee, Misora Naomi, kill herself offscreen. She did such a good job of carrying out Light's instructions that they still haven't found her body. Light's the only one who knows she's dead.

As we watch L and the Kira Investigation Team look befuddled, they turn on Sakura TV to see a live report from... Kira? The rough equivalent of Fox News in Japan, Sakura TV is happily held hostage by "Kira," forced into airing taped messages the same wave a dominatrix forces a submissive to accept his punishment. "Kira" proves his identity by offing a couple captive criminals, then the video airs, and newscasters start dropping. Not the ones on Sakura TV, they're Kira's buddies! The ones who've denounced Kira, though, as the evil bastard that he is, they die. L decides they have to stop the broadcast. Calling doesn't help, so Ukita takes off for the station itself.

"I hate evil and love justice," says prerecorded Kira. He calls the police his allies and pleads for an end to this silly business of trying to arrest him. Let him go about the business of creating a perfect world, free of crime. Yay! Let's all bonk evil on the head and hug the god of death. The best part is when he asks dissenters to keep it to themselves, a reaction typical of a spoiled brat. If you have nothing nice to say about your murderous overlord, don't say anything at all. Speak up and die.

Ukita gets to the TV station and, naturally, the door's locked. He pounds on it and shouts to be let in, but the security guard refuses. Just as Ukita pulls out his gun to force his way in, he suffers a lethal heart attack. What? Kira can't do that! Aizawa is pissed right off and determined to rush after Ukita, but L stops him. He doesn't want Aizawa to die, too. Aww, L's cute when he cares. "Kira" delivers an ultimatum. The police have four days to announce which side they're fighting on, or he'll... show another tape! He'll do that anyways, but there's one for "yes" and one for "no." Not much of a threat, since he obviously can't schedule killings if he thinks they might say yes. Hrm.

It's time for a badass Soichiro moment. Chief Yagami's wife goes to check on him at the hospital, where he was watching the live broadcast. Where he saw Ukita struck down. He's not there. He's crashing through the doors to Sakura TV in a commandeered bus. Hell yes! Once inside, he pops out of the bus in a hoodie, looking like the "You Gonna Get Raped" guy, and unleashes his badass voice on the security guard to ply the location of the studio from him. The scheming producer tries to worm his way out of stopping the broadcast, insisting that "Kira will kill us. Wah wah wah," so Soichiro pulls a gun. Die now or die later, but stop the broadcast. Muahahaha!

Two policemen show up to help, the poor fools. L calls the Deputy Chief, asking him to take control so a bunch of well-meaning police don't wind up dead. He's a little late, as the two on the scene drop dead while they're talking. L dramatically juggles conversations with the Chief and the Deputy Chief, adding cellphones to the list of mundane objects transformed into lively props, along with potato chips and pens. The phone bit's a touch silly, but I can't get enough of Death Note's arguably contrived dramatic scenes. L instructs Soichiro to walk right out of the station, casual-like. Instead of having him sneak out the back, or maybe take the bus back, L arranges for the entire police force to show up in riot gear, surrounding the building, shielding their faces and Soichiro's so he can, indeed, walk casually out, get in a car, and drive away safely. What'shisname from earlier, the KIT member who quit to hunt Kira as part of the regular police force? He's there, and it's all touching reunion styles. They almost hug, but they are manly men, so they don't.

One newscaster comes out in support of the police, inspired by their awesome display to... Well, commit suicide, basically. I couldn't do that. Someone's killing newscasters, and all they need is your name, your face, and a spare moment to end you? That's too much. Maybe I could do the weather instead? Partly cloudy with a chance of death from above. Fortunately, the lone newscaster's courage doesn't lead to a scene where people all over the world stand up to say their names, denouncing Kira and daring him to kill them all. It might work, but god damn would it be trite. So Kira will continue to crusade for "justice," killing many more people for the sake of our entertainment.

Soichiro returns with the Kira tapes, which L has Aizawa analyze. Then he watches them, and we learn what the "yes" and "no" tapes contained. "Yes" is full of childish demands, nothing like the chess moves Light makes. The police cooperate by feeding Kira information on criminals, he may or may not deign to punish said criminals, and L and KIT show their faces on TV. Even if you agreed with Kira, you'd have to be retarded to concede to that. "No" is basically the same thing in different words, which figures. Light hates to lose, but he's only this pathetic when he's backed into a corner. Makes you wonder what his version would've been like, had he been stupid enough to pull such a stunt.

I'm not sure why it was so vital that the original broadcast be stopped. Yes, illegal hijacking of the airwaves in a way. Yes, public executions. The police showing up to stop Kira was very inspirational, and more importantly, exciting. But doing so cause more people to die than allowing the broadcast to finish would have. You'd think the idea was to shut Kira out, to send a message to him that no, this is not OK. You don't get to air your stupid tapes. But then L gives the "no" tape back to Sakura TV and lets them air it. On it is the threat to kill either the Chief of Police, Soichiro's superior, whose identity is surely public knowledge, or L. Poor Chiefy, we hardly knew ya. Should've threatened the whole police force instead, or thrown in some politicians. One for one leaves them with a decision. Start holding phonebooks hostage and you'll smoke out L right quick.

Light is oddly happy about this turn of events. It creates confusion and might lead to L's death. Plus, everyone loves to have fans. But these lowbrow tactics besmirch the name of Kira, and he can't forgive that! He decides to find out what Kira 2 is up to by helping out with the investigation. Confusion's great and all, but this second Kira's clearly not as smart as Light, and anything the police learn from him could lead to Light's capture.

Light surmises that Kira 2 bargained for the eyes of a Death God, which is why he can kill without a name. Don't have to be a genius to figure that out, given what Light already knew. It takes more doing for L to figure out that this is a new Kira, but it's fairly obvious. His deduction would look less convenient if he didn't follow it up by asking Soichiro if Light can join KIT. It's all a bit pat the way Light and L figure things out near simultaneously and do the exact things one is hoping the other will. This one's not even a "three steps ahead" predicted move. It's just Light wanting to join KIT and L wanting him to join. Supposedly, L wants to get Light's untarnished opinion on the "Kira" tapes, so they're not telling him about L's conclusions. Why that requires pulling him officially into the investigation, I don't know. He's already met L and, of course, he knows his own father, but why endanger the rest of KIT? I suppose he figures they're not at immediate risk, since Kira only wants the supercompetent L, and Light can't kill him without incriminating himself.

We finally meet Kira 2 at the end of the episode, and he turns out to be a lovely young woman named Misa, who wants very much to meet Kira. And kill him, if it comes to that. Not too bright, this one. She's stronger, she says, because she has the eyes. That's true, but she still has to write down his name and wait forty seconds. Her advantage only lasts as long as Light doesn't know her real name. She'd be well advised to hedge her bets by carrying a gun.

Bleach 168

2008-05-13T21:26:00.001-05:00

So I usually write these reviews with the episode running in the background, but I’m think I’m going to forego that right now and just tell you what I remember happening. This may work or it may not. I figure that a filler episode deserves no less.

The episode begins, as all great anime should begin, with breasts. Rangiku’s breasts to be precise, then followed by her face, and she shouts at Captain Hitsugaya that they’ve found a new captain for one of the squads. She gives the squad’s number, but I can’t remember it. It’s the squad that Ichimaru Gin ran, before he turned traitor and left. Hitsugaya knows this already, because he’s a captain. Rangiku says something cute or obnoxious or both, like she always does.

I think we cut right to a big captain’s meeting next. Captain Commander Yamamoto announces the new captain, some guy whose name I completely can’t remember. He’s got tousled hair, a nice smile, a whole joie de vivre thing going on. The captain commander explains that the new guy’s been on an extended patrol hunting Hollows, and he’s returned without losing a single man. I suppose that’s impressive because every other shinigami seems to die right after being introduced. Everyone eventually all splits up and the captains stand around, posing, asking each other who supervised the new guy’s captain’s examination. Seems no one knows. Quite the mystery.

Now we cut to the house of the captain-less squad. Kira, the hapless lieutenant, is trying to tell his men that a new captain will be arriving soon, but, predictably, some of the guys are pretty resistant to the idea. They’ve gotten along fine without a captain so far, right. I sort of get the impression that Kira hasn’t really been doing much, almost as if Gin kept him deliberately hapless. Gin doesn’t seem like he would have been the best mentor.

The new captain shows up, and he has a purple eyeglasses guy with him, who is now going to be the third seat of the squad. There is mumbling and murmuring, and some big meat-headed guy says aloud that they don’t need a captain. The new captain ignores him, says that his only goal is to protect all of his men.

Then something happens that I don’t quite remember. I think Kira goes to visit Rangiku and he’s moaning about how badly things are going. She suggests that they have a drink and reveals that she’s been hiding booze in Hitsugaya’s office. Naturally, he catches them and yells at her.

Kira, inspired, decides to throw a party for the new captain. Everyone is sitting around little low tables, like they do in Japan, and the new captain enters. Kira explains the party, it’s going to be good for morale, see? It’s pretty tense. Awkward, even. Everyone looks to the captain as he mulls over a little cup of saki, hesitating, but he finally drinks it and everything seems to be going fine, until he passes out. Purple eyeglasses guy explains that the captain can’t hold his liquor.

Just then, everyone gets an alert that a clump of Gillian (yes, a group of Gillian is a clump) is heading toward Soul Society through some weird tunnel thing. I’m sure it’s been mentioned before. The new captain’s squad has been assigned to clear them out! But the captain?! Purple eyeglasses says they’ll have to do without him. They have their orders. So Kira and purple eyeglasses and a bunch of other guys head off to the weird tunnel place to fight the Gillian. It’s going pretty well. The Gillian just sort of stand there. One does manage to fire off a cero, but purple eyeglasses deflects it. However, everything turns bad when the giant train monster thing that roams the weird tunnel place shows up. Normally, the train monster would have been turned off, but it’s still on! Why? It’s a mystery!

Kira and the men try to run away, but they can’t outrace the train monster. That’s when the new captain shows up. He whips out his zanpaktou, it turns into some kind of energy cloud, and the train monster is destroyed. The men are charmed by him. Even the big meat headed guy loves his new captain now. He, too, wonders about why it wasn’t turned off, and promptly passes out again.

Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion: Stage 1

2008-05-06T02:11:00.010-05:00

The sound of locusts, a girl with green hair, sunflowers, young boys with giant eyes... I'm unconvinced it's anime until I see the giant robots. Two boys climb a small hill out in the middle of nowhere, and so far, there's only the sound of locusts. But as they get to the top, the soundtrack jumps to attention, and they both look towards the camera, surprised at the ominous music.

"2010 a.t.b., August 10th. The New Britannia Empire declared war on Japan." Okay. Evidently, them Englishes took over the entire world, except for most of Asia. The map we're shown has the Britannia attack leaving the US. Either someone was as bad at geography as I am, or there is no United States. At this point, I'm pretty okay with either option. During the attack on Japan, Britannia breaks out their 'Mobile Humanoid Armor Vehicles,' or "Nightmares." We've hit anime! With the Nightmares, the British Empire easily takes over Japan, which has 'its freedom, rights, and name taken away." That's right, just to make sure Japan knows it's been utterly defeated, the Empire takes away the name "Japan," and instead calls the whole country, Area 11. One of the boys from a minute ago is sitting by an army vehicle, while dead bodies are set ablaze nearby. The other boy, a purple-eyed fellow, stands up and says, "Suzaku, I'm going to destroy Britannia!" So, a minute and a half in, Japan has been taken over by tea-drinking, robot-wearing fops; a pile of bodies has been set on fire; and a young boy has set out on a life of revenge. Not that it stops the show from having a typical anime opening theme song that sounds cheery and upbeat, but is probably about isolation and suicide and dead puppies.

It's now seven years after the war, or 'freedoming,' and we're in the Britannia Suburb of Tokyo City. It's very shiny. A flying police thingie chases after a truck. Inside a nearby building, a TV reporter shows us images of a terrorist bombing from the week before. We pan out to see two men playing chess. A chess clock beeps, and one of the players, a scared, old man, is about to explode. He's playing against a noble who is calmly filing his nails. The old man's 'substitute' arrives through the door behind him, only to find it's a student. A purple-eyed student, in fact. "Lelouch Lamperouge," is his name. I hear he's of some rebellion. Lelouch's buddy, Rival, looks at the chess board, and exclaims that there's no way to win. I guess they aren't starting over. There's some banter to show how cocky Lelouch is, then he sits down and makes his first move with his king. The noble laughs, Lelouch smiles, and we're whisked away to a school to see girls talking about their "Lulu-chan." They think he's smart, stupid, and cute. The animators quickly get bored, and take us back to the stolen truck. But after a few seconds where we learn nothing, we get back to Lelouch, just as he's beaten the noble at exciting chess. Rival and Lulu leave the noble's place to see a public address by His Majesty Clovis, the Third Prince of the Britannian Empire, starting on the giant TV that just happens to be on the building across the street. He pretends to be heartbroken over the fighting and terrorist attacks. Blah, blah. Rival and Lulu chat about not crying over the dead, with Lelouch shoe-horning in the line, "No matter how hard you stretch, the world won't change." A slam against yoga, I'm pretty sure.

A camera shuts off, and Clovis walks down from where he gave his speech to rejoin a flippin' party. Very heartbroken. A military dude walks in to give Clovis some information. We don't hear what it is, but it pisses Clovis off. Military Dude tells him, "We've told the police that it was just some medical equipment." So, it's probably not. Clovis orders in some troops and alerts the Nightmares. A few horribly skinny people hop into their robots, and start them up with their ignition USB sticks by Lexar.

Rival and Lelouch are heading back to school in Rival's sort of femmy motorcycle - Lulu in the bitch seat - and talk more about chess. Rival is curious as to why Lelouch started by moving the king. "If the King doesn't move, then his subjects won't follow," Lulu says while reading. The stolen truck comes up behind them too quickly, and veers off into an abandoned building. The two stop to check it out, and Lelouch sees a green mist leak out from the top of the truck. Lelouch sees a crowd form to take pictures with their phones and talk about how someone should help the drivers. Seeing that they're just going to talk about helping, Lelouch runs in to help by himself. A woman with her cell phone out even asks if someone 'could at least call the cops.' Take THAT, modern society! The drivers are fine, but Lelouch can't get to them through the rubble, so he has to climb onto the back. He calls out to them, but the animation shimmers and all he hears is a disembodied voice say, "I found him." As he looks around to investigate the new voice, the truck starts back up, and Lelouch falls inside. The flying military thingies open fire on the truck, prompting one of the drivers to remove her hat. In the back of the truck, Lelouch is stuck with a big contraption that sort of looks like a giant, robotic Easter egg. He's about to pull out his phone to call for help, when the female driver, Karen (or "Kallen" as she's even called in the American dubbed version), walks in and over to a step ladder.

Somewhere, Rival is looking for Lelouch.

Just as the military is about to open fire again, a "smash hawk" flies out and blows up one of the flying thingies. It's basically a big rope dart, but it was shot out of the Nightmare that was hidden in the back of the truck. Karen blows up another flying thingie, just as the Britannian Nightmares arrive. They're using the Sutherland model of killer robot, while Karen is using a piddly Glasglow. Karen's Glasglow loses an arm during her retreat. It's looking bad for the terrorists (aw), but Lelouch got himself a transmitter (yay).

A doctorly-looking guy with purply/grey hair is talking to Military Dude about how they lost something secret to the terrorists. Military Dude is ready to pay off Doctorly for keeping quiet, but it turns out he's there to help. But it'd be nice if they told Doctorly what was stolen. He tells him and Woman Behind Doctorly that it was some poison gas. Of course, he tells them this in a voice-over while we see Lelouch sitting right next to the container.

Break.

The military sends out orders to infantrymen to find the container, but not try to retrieve it themselves. Then they bitch at them cause they're all Elevens looking for Britannian citizenship. Lousy Elevens. The other driver has been hurt, but is still trying to drive. And does so, right into a hole. He opens the back of the truck, revealing Lelouch and the container to an infantryman, who quickly jumps inside. After a quick fight, the infantryman is revealed to be Suzaku from the opening. Evidently, Suzaku is Japanese, working for the Empire, and Lelouch is Britannian, looking like a terrorist. They try to figure out why anything's anything, but don't get far. The container opens itself. Suzaku throws Lelouch to the floor, covering his mouth from the gas he expects to bellow out. However, inside is just the green haired girl we briefly saw in the opening. Lelouch tries to help the girl, but the military bursts in to call Suzaku a monkey then order him to kill Lelouch. He refuses, saying he can't shoot a civilian, and is promptly shot in the back by the commanding officer. As the rest of the military officers close in on Lelouch, the driver reaches for a switch that blows up the front of the truck. Nobody's happy about this. Especially Clovis, who orders the Shinjuku Ghetto destroyed. Nobody can know about... the girl? How badly they all just fucked up? At least one of those. More Nightmares are released, and they start to open fire on anyone they see. Soldiers go door-to-door, murdering people.

Lelouch sort of freaks out. Rightly so. Doctorly complains that since the 'gas' was already released, there's no use for his "Lancelot" and is bummed they don't get to collect data on it. Lelouch is trying to help the green-haired girl out, but runs into the military shooting children. Before he can give a flowery monologue, his phone rings, giving away his position. The man in charge of the local murdering goes to shoot Lulu, but the green-haired girl yells out and runs in front of the bullet, getting shot in the head. Lulu gets shaky anime eyed over the girl's body, and before he can get shot or fully go insane, she grabs his arm. During a vision of some sort, filled with production art, she offers him a contract; "In return for power, I want you to grant one of my wishes. If you agree to the contract, you will live as a human, but differ from other humans. A different source, a different time, a different life. The power of the King will make you isolated." Either as a part of the vision or as a cutaway, a man with his back to the audience says, "The union of Ragnarok." Lelouch binds the contract, stands up over the still dead girl, and addresses the military, a hand over his left eye. "Aren't you going to shoot? Or have you realized it? That those who are allowed to shoot are only those who are prepared to shoot?" He removes his hand to reveal his eye has changed, and grown more anime-like.

The guy in charge shakes, unable to shoot. "Lelouch orders those of Britannia, you guys... to die." The reply from each man is "Yes, Your Highness!" They each put their gun to their own head, and fire. Lelouch takes a moment to pontificate about how stuff sucks. But now, he has power. And he smiles over the bodies.

Welcome to the show.

Bleach 167

2008-04-17T22:53:00.006-05:00

Remember last time I mentioned how http://www.deviantart.com/ would be filled with drawings of Grimmjaw? I was right. Just go over there, search under his name (or “Grimmjow”), and be filled with horror. Some people trace other pictures, some jerk spasmodically with a pencil in their hand. Some draw Grimmjaw and Inoue in love (oh my Gawd) without regard to anatomy or perspective. Sure, there is an occasional quality piece, but just imagine all the people sitting out there, thinking, I must draw Grimmjaw. That frightens me.

So after what seems like a five minute recap of what’s been going on, we return to see Ichigo slashing Grimmjaw. But good. Grimmjaw falls to his knees, and Ichigo starts to relax, but Grimmjaw curses him. Does he really think this is the end? High up above, Inoue calls out for Ichigo. Watch out! We see blood splatter through the air. There is so much blood that it covers the whole screen, and that serves as a nice little transition to the next scene.

Seems that it’s lecture time on Bleach. Here’s how this works: Hollow eat human souls to feed the emptiness in their own souls. However, some Hollows have a greater thirst, and they start to feed on other Hollow. These cannibalistic Hollow all tend to gather together, and then they do, they all naturally meld together to form Gillian. Gillian are powerful, but have no consciousness. On occasion, though, there are Gillian formed from Hollow with exceptionally strong personalities, and the resulting Gillian might rarely retain its sense of individuality. Now, the narrator is explaining all of this the animation on screen shows, you know, Hollow and then Gillian, but then pans to a weird Gillian with a gate for a face. That could be kind of creepy. I think I saw a guy like that in an alley once, but I was pretty drunk.

These smart Gillian will eat other Gillian, and in turn become Adjuchas. Now we see a leonine Hollow leaping up from the sands of Hueco Mundo. It shakes its head, roars at the weird moon. Adjuchas eat each other, just like everything else in this wretched realm, and if they don’t continue eating, they regress back into plain ol’ Gillian and can never evolve in Adjuchas again. We watch the leonine Adjuchas chasing down other Adjuchas without mercy and eating them. It’s covered with green blood.

A shadow suddenly covers it, and it turns to face a whole slew of bigger Adjuchas. One threatens to eat the lion thing, and we pan over the new group, and they look distinctly familiar, maybe like some of the Arrancar who’ve been wiped out previously. The leonine one pauses for a second, and then attacks quickly, biting three of them in quick succession. They scream in agony. Like little girls.

One of the Adjuchas asks his name. It’s Grimmjaw, naturally. The other introduces himself as Showlong, who did, indeed, die a little ways back when Captain Hitsugaya froze him to death. Showlong and the others are on their way to becoming Vasto Lordes, the very highest level of Hollow, and they need a strong leader, like Grimmjaw, to lead them. They want him to be their king.

End flashback, and we see Grimmjaw skewering Ichigo with his claws. He pulls out his hand and they jump apart. Grimmjaw glowers at Ichigo. He hates Ichigo, especially the way he looks at Grimmjaw, for, no matter what’s happening, no matter how badly Grimmjaw is beating him up, Ichigo always looks like he knows that he’s going to win in the end. He attacks again, but Ichigo blocks his hand with his sword. Ichigo says that maybe Grimmjaw is upset that, he, a mere human, is fighting on equal footing with him.

Too bad that Grimmjaw has two hands! Ichigo looks surprised when he gets stabbed again. Grimmjaw drop kicks him like a football. Grimmjaw doesn’t care who he’s fighting. He’ll kill anyone who looks down on him. I think that Grimmjaw has deep, deep insecurity issues. He pulls back and his claws start to glow blue and…lines appear out of them, stretching up into the sky. They look strange, and not that scary, but this is apparently Grimmjaw’s greatest attack: Desgarron. That means laceration, in Spanish.

Flashback again, back to Adjuchas Grimmjaw and his merry band. Showlong says that they’re giving up. Even after eating three thousand other Hollow, they can’t feel themselves becoming any more powerful. Hence, they have evolved as far as they can. Grimmjaw scoffs and invites them to die in a ditch somewhere. I wasn’t aware that Hueco Mundo had ditches, but okay. He starts to leave, but Showlong begs him to eat them. They can go no further, they accept that, but Grimmjaw can continue to evolve.

In the now, Grimmjaw fires off desgarron. It mainly consists of those shiny blue lines dashing toward Ichigo. It’s not that impressive. Overall, the animation for this episode is of poorer quality than the last one. Yawn. Ichigo blocks desgarron with his sword and gets pushed way back. Grimmjaw laughs and thinks that he’s going to win! He recalls the flashback we just saw, and he says, fine, he’ll eat his companions. They’ll know what it’s like to evolve as part of his own flesh. He’s the king, after all.

Too bad Ichigo interrupts his thoughts, because he sticks his sword into one of the desgarron blades and breaks it apart. He tells Grimmjaw that he wants to win too, and he opens his eye and we can see that it’s his normal, human eye (by now he only has a quarter of his Hollow mask left, mind you), and he moves in to attack! Grimmjaw fires off another desgarron, but Ichigo sticks his sword in it and rides the wave like Mary Poppins riding through the sky with her magical umbrella. Ichigo shouts something about defeating all his enemies and saving his friends as Bleach’s determined-to-win music plays. The desgarron blades all fall apart and Grimmjaw just stands there as Ichigo stabs him.

Grimmjaw stares at Ichigo as he withdraws the blade, and he topples backwards. We see leonine Grimmjaw again, walking alone along the wastelands as he stops to look up at the moon. Mournful cello music plays. Blood pours from Grimmjaw now and he falls to the sand but Ichigo catches him by the arm. Ichigo’s Hollow mask falls away completely and he slowly lowers Grimmjaw to the ground, where he lays on his side with his eyes closed. Ichigo looks at him for a long time before finally turning away.

Frankly, I’m not sure how to feel. On one hand, this is just a cartoon, and these people aren’t real. On the other hand, you look at Grimmjaw and you think, he’s nothing more than a victim of circumstance. He’s vicious and angry because, if he’s isn’t, he dies; but he does have some noble qualities. He thanks Inoue for healing his arm. He doesn’t eat his companions, because they all become arrancar together. In the end Grimmjaw is a pitiable figure. So powerful, yet still terrified of being condescended to, and all he knows how to do is lash out. Point is, complex characters are good characters, and sometimes Bleach does things right. And Ichigo catching Grimmjaw as he falls? Very nice.

Ichigo goes up to Inoue. She’s happy that he’s back to normal; Nel is just happy that Ichigo is alive. Ichigo and Inoue hold hands and look into the sky. Everyone is waiting for them.

Next episode: Seems to feature someone who is decidedly not Ichigo. And the “Shinigami Golden” has Nel saying goodbye for some reason. Rumor has it that we are facing terrible, horrible filler episodes for a prolonged period. I’m sure this will be fantastic.

Bleach 166

2008-04-14T20:53:00.006-05:00

Last we reviewed Bleach, the gang was heading into Hueco Mundo to rescue someone from Aizen and his evil Spanish guitar music. Maybe Inoue. I’m not sure. I am sure that she has huge breasts. They fight some big Hollows, they meet Nel and some insipidly annoying sidekicks, Rukia and Renji join them and they crash into Aizen’s massive fortress.

Then they start fighting. And fighting some more. Everyone powers up, and powers up again, and it’s kind of like Dragonball Z where everyone yells for half an hour before unleashing a discombobulatingly devastating attack. Now, that doesn’t mean that any of this is very good. It’s entertaining though.

So Ulquiorra stabs Ichigo, our very favoritest protagonist, right in the chest. Grimmjaw frees Inoue, takes her to Ichigo, and tells her to heal him so that he can beat up Ichigo properly, and not in the half-assed manner that is Ulquiorra’s preferred idiom. They exchange tentative blows, and Grimmjaw fires off the greatest cero ever, but it’s not actually aimed at Ichigo. It’s aimed at Inoue and Nel, right behind him. Ichigo has to put on his Hollow mask to save the gals, which is exactly what Grimmjaw wanted all along. Everyone freezes; Grimmjaw has a menacing sneer; Inoue doesn’t know what the hell just happened. Ichigo looks at her, she’s scared, and he tells her not to be afraid, to relax. He’ll end all of this soon.

Grimmjaw is like a kid in a candy store. Do kids still go to candy stores? I assume so. With a cry of “Grind, Pantera!” he unlocks his sword. A huge windstorm whips up, and Ichigo tells Inoue to put up her shield, which she obediently does. The sand blows away and we see Grimmjaw, transformed into a some kind of feline antelope thing with a great mane of blue hair and fantastic eye makeup, and I'm pretty positive that an entire generation of amateur anime artists have been inspired to draw this handsome guy. Deviantart or whatever it's called is going to be overflowing with crudely drawn pictures by fanguys and -girls of this Pantera thing. Whatever. He roars, shaking things up so much with the sheer power of his vocal chords that even Ichigo is impressed.

Grimmjaw goes right on the attack, jumping up and kicking Ichigo through the landscape. Now, mind you, the landscape here consists of massive red columns rising up from the sand, so being kicked through them probably hurts a lot. Grimmjaw meets him at the other end and kicks him some more, and then slashed down at Ichigo with nasty nasty claws, sending Ichigo straight down through a big gray column. There’s a lot of smoke and Grimmjaw floats above looking for Ichigo, and they actually animated his eyes moving around, which is a nice touch. Usually people just blink on this show, or their eyebrows move a bit, and that’s about it.

Before the dust even clears Ichigo flash steps right behind Grimmjaw and fires off his GETSUGA TENSHOU! Grimmjaw just laughs. He hates Ichigo’s eyes, and, now that he mentions it, so do I. Who likes yellow eyes?

Cut away now to a ledge over on the fortress. We see one of the Espada, the large breasted one, and if you read the manga (and I know you do), then you know that her name is Halibel. Three of her hot arrancar lieutenants, Mila Rose, Apache, and Sun Sun, are yapping about the battle they’re watching between Ichigo and Grimmjaw. A huge blast of wind unsettles them all, and Halibel steps forward and says that’s it’s understandable that they’re afraid. Mila Rose and Apache look at each other and pretty much admit that it’s true. Halibel goes on some more about their fear, telling them to remember it, and then muses on how powerful Ichigo is, with his mightly reiatsu and evil aura. It’s almost like watching two Espada fighting.

Back to Ichigo and Grimmjaw. They’re flashing around, explosions abound, huge shock waves rattle the air. Grimmjaw slams Ichigo into one of the big red columns and notices how Ichigo can keep his Hollow mask on for longer now. Much longer. Remember how at first he could only use it for eleven seconds? I’m pretty sure more than that has passed, even in cartoon time. Grimmjaw wonders why, but doesn’t really care. He just doesn’t want the mask to break off in the middle of the fight. He thrusts a razor sharp hand at Ichigo, but our guy catches it and says that he doesn’t want Grimmjaw to release his own form yet. Then Ichigo slashes Grimmjaw right across the chest, and blood spurts all over. Ichigo presses the attack, but Grimmjaw parries his sword with little arm blades, and then flies into a whirlwind of kicks. Ichigo avoids them, but it’s just a feint, and Grimmjaw smacks him right back to the earth. Seems that Ichigo can’t really keep up with Grimmjaw’s speed and agility. Too bad.

He dives down to finish Ichigo off, but Ichigo is waiting for him with his sword. Grimmjaw manages to avoid it, but still manages to get a sword dragged along his arm. They attack and slam into each other and throw up a huge atomic bowl of sand.

More fighting, kicks and blows, and Grimmjaw dashes around to outflank Ichigo. The animation is really much better than usual. The producers should take more time between episodes (there was a two week gap between the last and this one), if this is the kind of quality they can produce when they’re not being rushed. I wouldn’t mind the wait, and neither should you. More blows are exchanged, and Ichigo gets knocked up along a column but manages to skid to a midair stop.

Grimmjaw snorts and aims his elbow and fires off a quintet of weird missiles. Ichigo avoids them, but realizes that (again) they’re heading toward Inoue and Nel. He corrects his mistake and intercepts the projectiles with his back, and they must really hurt because he spits up blood. Ichigo says he’s fine and looks directly at Inoue, who starts freaking out because she has a sudden vision of her brother as a Hollow, from way back in the second episode of the series. Remember that?

Ichigo flies down to face off with Grimmjaw. He notes that Ichigo is breathing prettily heavily. He jerks up his elbow and casually fires off an elbow missiles at a big red column behind him, and it sort of breaks in half. Five of those in Ichigo’s back? He must be hurting, and to prove the point, his Hollow mask starts to crack a little. Ichigo says he’s not even close to his limit. That pleases Grimmjaw to no end, but then his own mask starts to crack! Can’t anyone find a non-crackable mask here?

Inoue watches them fight some more and continues her freaking out. The eyes are the thing, you see. They remind her of her brother’s terrible, terrible Hollow eyes. Down below, Ichigo’s mask is really starting to go to pieces and Grimmjaw finally gains the upper hand, kicking him into one of those big red columns, and it falls apart too. Nel starts to mutter something that I don’t care about, then she begins to cheer Ichigo on, because what he really needs now is a cheering section. Then she starts to yell at Inoue, something to the effect that Ichigo’s using a terrible, ominous power, and being cut and thrashed because of you, Inoue, so the very least you can do is cheer for him. Inoue has an epiphany, naturally, and starts to talk about her womanly feelings. Point is, everyone came to save her. How could she be afraid of Ichigo?

By now half of Ichigo’s mask has fallen off. Grimmjaw makes like a spinning top (awesome) and slams right into him. They even animated the very moment of the hit, with Ichigo grimacing in agony. Grimmjaw says that this is the end, and he even looks a little sad for Ichigo. Ichigo pants and pants some more.

But, “Don’t die!” Inoue shouts from above. “You don’t have to win. Just don’t, you know, get hurt anymore.” Gee, thanks. Ichigo looks amazed, however, but doesn’t have much time for that, as Grimmjaw dives toward him with a cry of “Kurosaki!” Ichigo, I suppose inspired by Inoue, suddenly grabs Grimmjaws hand, says that he can’t afford to take any more hits, and cuts the Espada, but good.

Next week: More Ichigo and Grimmjaw action. Grimmy does the voice over, and his voice is just full of anger and hatred. He's not evil; he's just sad and misunderstood. I feel like I'm the only one who understands that.

Romeo X Juliet 6

2008-03-28T23:36:00.006-05:00

Dr. Whirlwind stands atop the effigy and demands the innocent people be set free. "Now that you have the genuine article, surely you've no need for these imposters!" The crowd's all, "Hey, yeah! What the fuck, dude?" The guards aren't having any of that, though. They yell at the crowd and point sharp things at them. When Dr. Whirlwind reminds the guards that their duty is to protect the people, the crowd again goes, "Why, yes. That man has a valid point." Everyone yells at everyone until a guard overlooking the ruckus gets impatient and lets loose a flaming arrow, hitting Dr. Whirlwind in the shoulder. Lord Dipshit turns with a chuckle and says he'll let the fake Whirlwinds go free as 'compensation' for getting shot with fire. Once the innocent men are set free, Lord Dipshit tells Dr. Whirlwind that once he's dead, "we'll reveal your true identity." Knowing that his family would be next on the chopping block if that happens, Doc says that he can't let that happen. He looks down at the still-flaming arrow and gives the famous 'Don't Cry for Me, Neo Verona' speech - which I'm sure is very touching - then drops the arrow on the tinder below the effigy. The crowd looks on, not quite sure what just happened, and Juliet, of course, loses her shit and runs away.

Romeo's flying above the city, as he's doing any time something important is going on, and sees the fire. He sees someone from the crowd being beaten by a guard and asks what's going on. Lord Dipshit (Cerimon) tells Romeo that the Crimson Whirlwind is dead. "He said he was no match for the great Cerimon and set himself ablaze." I'll stick with 'Lord Dipshit.' Romeo does the shaky anime eye before flying away on his magic horse, but doesn't get far before spotting Juliet crying below him. He lands then runs up to her, saying he's so happy she's alive, because he was so sure she was the Crimson Whirlwind, which is just silly, I mean, HER? The Whirlwind? That's just stupid. Right, Juliet? ... Juliet?

... oh. Juliet tells Romeo that she can't see him any more and Romeo asks why. She tells him, as dramatically as she can, that she is the real Crimson Whirlwind. Romeo's eyes get huge and he clearly can't believe it. Despite the fact that mere seconds ago, he was so convinced that she was the Whirlwind. So convinced, that upon hearing of the Whirlwind's suspected death, he was off to cry in a corner with his Dashboard Confessional CD. But now it's a shock, for some reason. Before the silence can get anymore awkward, Juliet flips off a railing to a walkway below where she runs away. I bet all the cool shit is happening off screen. That's why everyone keeps running there.

The next day, Benvolio is expositing that his father considers the whole 'Whirlwind thing' to be done. Adding the understatement of the year, "Threatening to burn innocent citizens alive was simply going too far. My father plans to punish the captain of the police [Lord Dipshit]." For no conceivable reason, Romeo almost lets it spill that the Whirlwind killed last night was a fake. This clown is part of the ruling order?

After the break, we're in court. Because that's where you go to spice up your drama and/or action story. I know I can't get enough of parliamentary procedure. Romeo and his father take a seat high above everyone else, while Benvolio's dad is joined by Lord Titus down below. Lord Titus is laughing like an ass and clearly drunk. [Point of reference, Titus Andronicus was Shakespeare's tragediest tragedy, actually losing popularity in Victorian times for being too bloody; I feel good things coming] The first bit of business today is a decree from His Majesty the Archduke Montague saying, "Martial law is cool; agree or disagree? Also, disagreement means death." Benvolio's dad is the first, and only, to stand and disagree, saying that to continue to let bad things happen will, like, not make good things happen. The Archduke tells the court to shut up. He's not being oppressive, pshaw. "Is it not the father's duty to punish the child when it errs? The father must whip the child, even as tears stream from his own eyes. For a family to live under a single roof, there must be discipline above all else." Turning his back to the court, the Archduke bellows that if the governor wishes to protect the commoners so much, he should become one, and decrees that Vittorio de Frescobaldi (Benny's dad) be stripped of nobility. The court then votes on both the martial law bill and the denoblement of the de Frescobalid name. Everyone in court stands to show their affirmative vote, including Lord Titus, who can't look Vittorio in the eye. "Don't take it personally," he says. Hey, I'm with you. The bearded bitch is scary.

Team Odin rides on a gondola looking sad and pensive. Antonio asks everyone if the Doctor's family knows that he died. But no one answers.

Benvolio and family are being driven out of Neo Verona. Romeo flies down on his horse to see his friend off. Benvolio tells Romeo that they're bffs, and that if he ever needs anything to just pick up a magical, steampunk phone and give him a call.

Mrs. Dr. Whirlwind is telling Juliet that they're thinking about moving to the country. The city's too... the-military-wants-all-the-poor-dead, nowadays, "so my husband wants to leave." And, just to make us sadder, their little girls are in the background playing with Antonio, having the greatest time ever. Juliet tries to say something, but Mrs. Doctor butts in, "He believes in you. He trusts that the iris still blooms." Then one of the kids just has to ask, "Where's daddy?" Without faltering, Mrs. Doctor tells the kids that their father has to stay in town to watch over his patients. Which the kids totally buy. After their cart is full, Juliet tells the family to be safe, and Mrs. Doctor replies, "And may the whirlwind blow again. He lives within you even now, so keep your spirits up."

On their way back, Juliet asks why Mrs. Doctor didn't blame her for the death of Mr. Doctor. Curio says, "Lancelot left everything to you." What? First of all, we're starting to pull from the wrong set of mythos. Secondly, does that answer anything? Does he mean to say that Mrs. Doctor doesn't blame Juliet because she knows Juliet was there to watch, and already blames herself for it? Shut up, Curio. Francisco adds, "Besides, he became the Crimson Whirlwind; the real Crimson Whirlwind." Okay, the both of you are in the expository penalty box; you may only speak when the plot absolutely demands it. As they get closer to wherever the hell they're going, a shadowy figure walks out to greet them. Juliet and Curio get ready to attack, but Francisco stops them, saying he's an ally. Proof of which can be seen by his doofy looking badge.

What's up, mysterious stranger? "Vittorio de Frescobaldi and his family are set to be assassinated. This is presumable by order of the archduke himself. The elite guard is waiting to ambush him on the outskirts of the city. They will attempt to make it look like the work of bandits." Well boy, you are sure full of information it would've taken a full scene or two to dole out artfully. Thanks for getting us to the last act! Hope to see you again when the plot gets bogged down unnecessarily by emotional tertiary characters.

In the Carriage of Imminent Doom, Benvolio is trying to comfort his crying mother. "But we have to leave our home behind and move outside the city..." with POOR people! Dad tries to paint a sunny picture on this crapfest, when the cart hits a pothole and shakes violently. We cut outside to see that the carriage is stopping by some neo ruins... yes, ruins in the futuristic, still thriving, floating, Victorian-like Neo Verona. Aside from the buildings that can be seen past the cliff, they're pretty much in the middle of nowhere. When Dad looks through the peephole to talk to the driver, he's almost stabbed in the face. Dad is ready to stay and fight off the driver-assassin for a few seconds while his family runs, but Benvolio and mother only get a few steps before a small fleet of soldiers come running out of nowhere. Nobody expects the Neo Veronan Inquisition. Just as things look dire, Team Odin jumps down like so much Major from Ghost in the Shell and attacks. It should be noted that Juliet, while still dressed as Odin, is NOT dressed as the Crimson Whirlwind for this fight. While the boys take care of the guards, Juliet squares off with the driver-assassin. She tells the family that, if they wish to live, they'll come with her. They start to run but the driver throws a dagger towards... any of them, I guess. Juliet deflects it with her sword, but falls to the ground as if she's been hit. I'm not really sure what happened there. Pulled muscle? The assassin comes in to finish his job, just as a Ryouma is heard nearby. Juliet, horribly hurt somehow, is just barely able to look up and ask if it's Romeo. But it's not. It's... this guy.
If we're dipping into Arthurian mythos, I'm declaring all bets off. My guess is Zach from the Final Fantasy VII series.

Shigofumi 4

2008-03-25T23:23:00.003-05:00

I think this series is growing on me. It’s unique, it’s filled with real emotional depth, and it isn’t afraid to leave things unsaid. The audience isn’t assumed to be stupid, and I respect that. So should you.

It’s a tense tennis match. 40-15. So maybe not that tense, if you know how tennis is scored. The girl tosses the ball up, it hangs in the air an impossibly long moment, and the girl smacks it over the net and right past her opponent. Yahiro wins! Pretty handily, too. The girls shake hands and then face the judge. The judge, another young lady, stares down at Yahiro with something more than admiration. Their tender moment is interrupted by a gaggle of younger girls surrounding Yahiro and calling her “sempai” and such. The judge looks at her and smiles, and a single white feather drifts down from above.

After the intro, we find Yahiro with the judge, Nanae, and they’re talking about all the overeager new young girls fighting for Yahiro’s attention. Nanae tells Yahiro that the best way to get rid of them is to get a boyfriend. Yahiro gets upset and turns around. Nanae tells her that she (Yahiro, that is) likes to be teased, and then she hugs her from behind. With something more than admiration.

That single feather we saw earlier finally falls to the ground and Fumika and her faithful staff, Kanaka (I can never remember her name), stand in front of a house. Yahiro, first name Ran, lives there with her father. Kanaka wants to know about the shigofumi to be delivered this time: it’s especially thick and heavy. Fumika won’t say what’s in it, naturally, so instead Kanaka asks about what we saw happen in the very last episode, with Kaname running up onto the roof after Fumika. Flashback, to Kaname asking “Mika” why she shot her father, and he’s saying that he’s been looking for her ever since. Fumika says a command to disappear, and, after some hesitation, Kanaka takes them away from it all. Back in the animated here and now, Kanaka is curious, but Fumika says that she doesn’t remember the boy at all.

Just then Ran runs out of her house and straight into Fumika, who holds up the shigofumi for her. After explaining what the damn thing is, Ran says, “Maybe next time,” and takes off again. Fumika speaks the sender’s name, and this freezes Ran right in her tracks. She turns around, smacks the shigofumi to the ground, and says that she doesn’t know that person. Oh, but I think she does!

At the train station, Ran is sitting by the window while the rest of her teammates toss candy back and forth. She’s looking pensive, and Nanae comes up and touches her on the face with a cold soda can. Nanae thinks that something is wrong, but Ran denies it, as any sane person would. A shigofumi?! Pfft. The younger girls loudly ask if they want to play “old maid” with them. Nanae (team captain, as it turns out) tells them to have a little more respect for their fellow passengers. Ran is the cool one, and proceeds to joke with everyone. Just then the train leaves, and we see Fumika standing all alone, with her undelivered shigofumi. She says they’ll have to get a pass to leave the city, and Kanaka is pretty excited. So am I!

Now we turn to Kaname and his family. His father, Noji the detective, is pouring stew over his rice, and Kaname tells his father that he saw Mikawa on the day of the incident at school. Last episode, remember? Noji slowly lowers his bowl and mutters, “Mikawa Fumika?” It’s impossible! Are you seeing the connection here, faithful readers? Fumika is pretty clear. The surname, Mikawa, is the same as the writer that Fumika quoted, too. I see plot threads being expanded.

Back with the tennis team. They’re in the country at a training camp. Nanae and Ran are ordering supplies, but Ran continues to look disturbed. She has a vision of people standing in the store’s doorway, and gasps, but the vision ends and a hip, attractive couple walks in. Ran stands rigidly, and Nanae stares at her. Afterwards, they’re riding a bike (Ran in front, Nanae hanging on behind her), and Nanae asks Ran if she really dislikes men that much. Ran says that she lives with her father, but Nanae cleverly rebuts that Ran doesn’t think of her father as a man. Ran scowls, but then she gasps (again), for Fumika is standing right in the road in front of her!

She holds out the letter, says that it’s from Tateishi Naoko. Ran mutters something about abandonment and flies off without taking the shigofumi. Kanaka isn’t really surprised. Getting a shigofumi could be scary, but Fumika vows that the letter will be delivered. Another voice says that young people are so very confident, and we pan up to see another girl, Chiaki, sitting in a tree above them.

Chiaki, a rather cute blonde, is dressed like Fumika: jacket, hat, short pleated skirt, but she has a scarf too. She jumps down from the tree limb. Yes, we can sort of see up her skirt. Woo? So Chiaki is the shigofumi carrier for this particular area of Japan. She has her own staff-thing, Matoma, who speaks in a calm, masculine voice. Have I mentioned that Kanaka sounds like a stupid teenage girl? Chiaki looks Fumika over and explains that shigofumi carriers are dead people, and thus they don’t change, but Fumika, Fumika, she’s growing. What exactly is going on here?

Enough of that. I want to see the tennis girls again, and I am happily obliged. Ran is having a tough practice, and taking it out on the younger girls. Later, back at their big group house, Nanae and Ran stand in the kitchen chopping up vegetables. Ran cuts her finger, and Nanae runs over and sucks the blood away. With something more than admiration. Then she asks who Tateishi Naoko is. Ran confesses that it’s her mother. Nanae thought that Ran’s mother had died a long time ago, but that’s obviously not true now, is it? Turns out Ran’s mother really had an affair and ran off over ten years ago. Ran hated her mother. Hated her even when the man she ran off with beat her up. That’s a powerful hate, but I know that some things can be unforgivable. At least, they can be unforgivable for a very long time.

Night falls, and Ran is alone in her room. The door opens and she excitedly turns toward it and cries, “Nanae.” But it’s only Fumika. She doesn’t say anything, only holds out the letter. Ran takes it and throws it in the trash. Kanaka is indignant. Ran says that she can do whatever she wants with the letter, and Fumika supports her. She leaves, and the shigofumi remains in the trash.

The next morning the girls are all running. Ran keeps having visions of her mother (I assume), and she trips on a rock and falls. Next thing we know she’s on a bed with her ankle wrapped up and an ice pack on it. Nanae is treating her, and she apologizes and holds out the shigofumi. Ran sits up and asks if she’s read it. Nanae asks Ran to read it herself. She will worry and wonder if she never does. Nanae puts the shigofumi into Ran’s hand and leans in close. She knows that Ran is scared, but she will always be with her. Their faces are just inches apart, and we’re suddenly looking outside, at trees, then at bottles of water on a shelf with light streaming through them, and I do believe that we have artfully sidled away from something much more than admiration between Ran and Nanae. I am reminded of Part One, Chapter 30 of Nabokov’s Lolita, where the Author leaves us at the moment of entanglement between Humbert and Dolores to contemplate an image Humbert might have once painted.[1] This, my friends, is skillful ambiguity, and I tip my hat to the writers.

We see Nanae leave the building. Ran lies alone on her bunk with the shigofumi still in hand. She tosses it to the floor and mutters, “Nanae, you tease.” But what is the tease? The letter, or something more?

We see the bottles of water again. Turns out that the sunlight shining so prettily through them is being concentrated on one tiny point on a shirt, which starts to smoke.

At the tennis courts, the girls are practicing, until one of them sees the house on fire in the distance! Nanae looks on in horror.

The house is burning, quite right. Ran limps along the hallway, but flames and falling rafters are sort of getting in the way. In the distance, Fumika and Chiaki watch from a tree limb. Chiaki tells Fumika not to get involved. She looks slyly at Fumika and says that they are merely messengers, and it is a major violation to do anything more. Kanaka assures Chiaki that Fumika is merely ensuring that the shigofumi was delivered, but Fumika says nothing at all.

Ran manages to make it outside, but now she’s surrounded by billowing black smoke. She may die anyway, and tumbles to the ground. The shigofumi falls out of her hand. She reaches toward it, now wanting to see what’s written. She starts calling for her mother, and a statue in the courtyard stares down at her, in a very matronly way, and something like a tear runs down its cheek.

It’s not a real tear, of course. It’s a raindrop. A storm begins to douse the fire, and soak the shigofumi. A little farther away, the tennis team arrives. Nanae runs to find Ran, who is still prone on the courtyard floor. She looks at the letter and asks her mom not to leave. She has a vision of her mother, with another man, retreating into the distance, and we hear little Ran calling for her. In that tree, Chiaki asks Fumika if she caused the storm. Fumika says that it wasn’t her. Someone else did it. How kind of them. We see the matronly statue again. Fire alarms ring in the distance.

Flashbacks. Ran’s mother is talking, reading the shigofumi aloud. She’s sorry that she left, but Ran turned out well anyway. The woman talks about different matches that she went to watch (apparently without Ran ever knowing). She urges Ran to do her best. Now, Ran and Nanae lie on a rock over a creek. Ran talks about the letter, about how her mother went to see every single match of her daughter. Nanae asks Ran what kind of person her mother was. Ran, by way of answering, takes Nanae’s hand in her own and says, “A tease.”

[1] If you haven’t read Lolita, then go read it.

Blood+ Finale on Adult Swim

2008-03-24T22:52:00.007-05:00

This weekend [AS] reached the end of a long, tortuous road: Blood+ reached its fiftieth, and final, episode, and no one cared. Maybe someone liked this show; maybe they cried a little bit at the very end; maybe that person and I could get along and be friends, but I somehow doubt that.

This was, quite simply, a horrible series. So horrible, in fact, that “horrible” is quite frankly too weak a word to use. An atrocious series. An abominable achievement. An abortion of animation. It’s that bad. A storyline that could have comfortably fit 20 episodes was stretched into a bloated 50. The characters were nothing more than cardboard cutout stereotypes. In some episodes, the dialogue seemed to consist of every other line being “SAYA!” The plot, oh the plot. Where did it ever make any sense? The animation wasn’t very good, either. Awful, just awful.

I don’t know what was worse: that thousands of man-hours were dedicated to creating this monument of crapulence, or that I watched most of the episodes, thus letting go of tiny little slices of my life that I could been using to—I don’t know—drink beer or sleep. I’ve been trying to recall some of the better moments of the show, so that I can at least point to one moment or two and say, “Well, maybe this one scene validated all of that,” but I just can’t.

All I can think of was the one episode, maybe 32, where Diva invaded the crew’s cruise liner so that she could molest Riku. However, the scene, the idea—much like they very concept and execution of this entire series—turned out vulgar and crass, instead of achieving the haunting sublimity that we wanted so much.

Death Note 10

2008-03-20T03:35:00.001-05:00

Now, what you've all been waiting for, a friendly game of tennis! Well, not so friendly. Light is trying to figure out L's true identity while L tries to determine whether Light is Kira (spoiler: he is), and they're each using the match as cover to analyze every word and move the other makes. The match itself is dull - stiffly animated and not trying to be an accurate representation of the real thing - but during the match we get a look inside the competitors' heads as they try to anticipate the next move. They know each other well.

Light's dad, the elder Yagami, is under pressure from his boss, who's under pressure from the media. They argue about stuff, and Yagami assures his boss that L is trustworthy. After their match, L reveals to Light that he suspects him to be Kira, "but only 1%." Then they have tea, and L shows Light the messages Kira made prisoners leave in episode four. Light tells him about the hidden message, which I still think wasn't originally intended to be a plot point, and L reveals... a fourth message!?! Light is shocked, because he knows this last one is fake, but he doesn't show it, correctly guessing that L is trying to goad him into throwing a fit. It's a clever ploy, since Light's ego is his greatest weakness, but he's just a bit too smart to fall for it. Maybe if he hadn't had his guard up already. Light turns the tables on L, accusing him of being Kira, but overplays his hand by asking for proof that he's really L, something L already predicted he'd do. L continues to elevate his personal risk in an attempt to flush Kira out, and is seemingly on the verge of inviting Light to the investigation headquarters when they receive simultaneous phone calls! Light's dad just had a heart attack!

It's not Kira, of course, and it's not fatal. He was just stressed out from the case. While they're all together at the hospital, Yagami confirms that L is indeed L, so Light gets what he wanted... or does he? L explains why he suspects Light (the Ray Penbar disaster), and Light says he'll help with the investigation, promising his father that he'll "send Kira to his execution" himself. Heh. Light's little speech has Yagami convinced that he can't be Kira; even L thinks he's sincere. Yagami reminds us why he's the one true hero in the series, explaining to Light that while he believes Kira is evil, more than that he believes the power to kill is evil, and he pities whoever was burdened with such a power. His words cut straight to the heart of the series. Had Light not found the note, he'd have likely become a great detective. Maybe he'd even develop the capacity for love. As it is, he's doomed.

Light is torn up inside. He feels horrible that anyone could think he might be the vicious mass murderer Kira. Like, totally! He asks L if there's anything he can do to prove his innocence, going so far as offering to be locked in a cell for a month, his every move observed. L declines. Alone with Ryuk, Light shows his true self, barely able to contain maniacal laughter as he talks about how great it was to find the note and how thrilled he is by the prospect of the utopia he intends to build atop a mountain of corpses. We shift locales to a scummy news network willing to run any story - the more sensational, the better! They're out of ideas, but don't despair, here's a package from Kira himself! Cassette tapes and a letter, proof of his Kiraness and a message to the world.

Shigofumi 3

2008-03-06T23:14:00.003-05:00

A schoolboy stands on a train platform, ostensibly waiting for that train, whilst listening to his mp3 player, playing a game on his cell phone. He’s piloting a little ship around, shooting stuff, looks like he reaches the next level, and the screen says, “YOU ARE ALIVE.” Telling, no?

The train approaches. Wind flips his hair around, and he takes a step toward the edge of the platform. His eyes become glassy; he takes another step to the edge. He’s pretty close. Suddenly, the train roars by, and he yelps and jumps back, away to safety. Cue intro! This episode is sponsored by Bandai, MediaWorks, and Lantis.

We rejoin the show on a roof. Some students are sitting there and talking. Kotake is the kid we saw on the train station. Sen is the hip-looking one. Kaname wears glasses and looks smart. Kotake asks the others if they’ve ever thought about jumping in front of the train. Kaname is incredulous. You’d die, of course. Kotake says that it’s not about dying, it’s about making the jump. There’s no difference, Kaname says. Sen seems to get it, though. Kaname says that he’s never thought about dying. Kotake asks Sen if he’s ever thought about it. The hip guy thinks for a bit, and then answers, no! He looks strange though, and when a hot girl comes to get him for lunch duty or something, he looks at Kotake for a few moments, and it’s maybe a little uncomfortable. He goes down with the hot girl. Kaname chides Sen for being so forgetful. Kotake says that humans manage because we can forget sadness and pain. Kaname points out that’s from a game he’s been playing.

Cut scene, to Sen with the girl. They’re talking and joking in a science lab. There is no audio, and we focus in on Sen.

Later, Kotake is at home playing a video game. Looks like it’s on that fancy new Wii. Lots of hand being moved around. His cell phone rings and he, still playing, answers it. Kaname asks if he’s heard the news. No. Sen is dead.

The scene abruptly changes. A couple of guys in an alley are beating and kicking another guy. Apparently, they’re pimps, and he got their prostitute pregnant. Sure, she aborted the baby, but she’s still ruined, in the eyes of all prostitute-dom. Someone suddenly says “Wait” and we all turn around to see our most favorite-est little shigofumi deliverer, Fumika. She tells everyone that her job comes first. The pimps tell her to scram, and move to toss her out away. She easily flips two out of her way, uses her staff to knock the gun out of the hand of the third, and delivers the shigofumi, that letter from the dead, to the guy on the ground. He accepts in, taking everything in good fun, and grateful to not be dead yet. He takes the letter out of the envelope and sees a piece of paper with a bloody red handprint on it.

He’s confused. Fumika repeats that it’s a letter from the dead. The staff leans in and says, “Right, father?” Fumika leaves, as her job is done. “You’re not here to save me?” the guy asks. No, her job is just to deliver letters. She walks away and the pimps move in to finish off the dude. He screams in agony. Fumika and her staff talk a little bit about how he had it coming, but she gets a notice that another shigofumi needs to be delivered.

(As an aside, letting aborted babies write shigofumis seems pretty twisted. I bet the Christianists would love that.)

The next morning Kotoka stands on the train platform and listens to two girls talk about Sen. There was no suicide note. They can’t understand why someone would want to die. Kotoke arrives at school and it’s besieged by reporters. They’re asking students if Sen was being bullied. Some moronic kid says that he has to tell his mom to tape the news for him tonight because, you know, he might be on it. Kotoke enters the classroom, and there’s a little stand of flowers and some more girls are saying that they were Sen’s friends. They would have helped him. Kaname tells Kotake that the principal wants to talk to him.

He sits in a room facing a line of teachers and administrators and stuff. The school’s reputation will be affected. They demand to know why Sen committed suicide, but Kotake has nothing to say. Later, he’s on the roof with Kaname and watching a news report where Sen’s father is being interviewed. The man insists that nothing was wrong at home, and that the cause of Sen’s death must have been some problem at school. Kotake turns the screen off, and he and Kaname wonder if they were ever really friends with Sen. Seems like they didn’t really know that much about him, and Kaname wonders if maybe it’s natural to just not know that much about a person. He talks about a girl he knew in middle school, who one day shot her father. He and girl were…pretty close, but he doesn’t understand what happened. “What others are thinking is beyond the scope of our understanding,” he says. The show then devolves into an extended discussion on the problem of other minds, with the boys arguing about McDowell’s reductionist viewpoints.

Okay, so that actually doesn’t happen. Instead, Fumika floats down from the heavens. Her staff, in pendant form around her neck, wonders why people commit suicide. Fumika says that it’s because humans are broken. They just have too many flaws. The pendant laughs and we watch as a feather drift into the air, like so many broken people.

Next we see Kaname (remember, he's the smart guy with glasses), looking dour, in his room. Kotake lies on the floor in his own room. He’s watching the news. One woman says that Sen must have been bullied at school. A guy says, no, he must have been abused at home by his father. Someone else says it’s the “Boredom Syndrome.” Kotake turns them all off. They’re all wrong. Just…fade to black now.

The next day Kotake is still wondering why Sen killed himself. Even if it’s impossible to know what others are thinking, he still wants to know. We're given a lot of internal monologues in this episode, which goes to show that we can indeed know what an animated person is pondering, if not a real one. The door to the classroom opens, and in walks Sen’s father. The classroom, he declares, is now a court. Everyone starts screaming.

Of course, the news crews arrive quickly. Mr. Sen has barricaded the room pretty well, by stacking desks against the doors (no one has ever defeated desks stacked against a door), and he says that he just wants to know why Sen died. It’s a natural feeling. You can sympathize with the man, and maybe under the same conditions you might do the same. A girl says that Sen was always cheerful. She doesn’t know what happened.

Outside, the old cop from the last episode (remember, the one who didn’t shoot Asuna) shows up. Noji is his name, but he’s here because his son is in the classroom too. He looks to the side and sees Fumika, and he calls out to her, but she disappears. It was nothing, he tells someone.

Back in the classroom, Kotake is thinking (flashbacking) about the phone call from Kaname, the one where he learned that Sen died. “You’re joking,” Kotake says, and the conversation is juxtaposed with the screen of his computer game, where is character is stuck against the wall and losing life. His little fox creature dies, and the game asks, “CONTINUE?” Cruel. In the here and now, Mr. Sen asks Kotake is he was close with Sen. Kotake says yes, and Mr. Sen asks if he knows what happened, if someone was bullying Sen, if Kotake is covering for someone. A real friend would want whoever is responsible for Sen’s death to be found.

Kotake gets angry, and asks Mr. Sen why doesn’t he know why Sen died, since he’s his father. Mr. Sen says that he never abused Sen. He didn’t do anything wrong. He doesn’t get the chance to say anything more, because just then the barricaded door flies open, and all the desks get shoved out of the way for little Fumika.

Outside again, the cops are sitting in their big van. Noji worries about his son, Kaname. The SWAT team arrives.

Kaname gapes at Fumika. She’s here to deliver a shigofumi, for Kotake, from Sen. Kotake takes the letter. Mr. Sen comes in to grab it instead, but Fumika gets in the way and gives him a nasty look. As Kotake starts to open the shigofumi, Mr. Sen tries to take it again. Fumika takes out her huge gun and holds it against the man’s head, which seems pretty amazing, considering how short she is.

Kaname’s eyes narrow and he has a vision of that girl from middle school with her gun. “Could she be…?”

Fumika tells Mr. Sen not to interfere. She’s really dedicated to her job, although at this point I don’t see the point, because she’s already delivered the letter. Does she really care what happens after that?

In the hallway, the SWAT guys move into position.

Kotake starts to read the letter, but Mr. Sens asks him to read it aloud, and the boy agrees. Dear dead Sen talks about their rooftop conversation. He admits that sometimes he’s wondered, what will happen if I jump? It’s not about dying, it’s not about wanting to live. Kotake has a vision of standing on the train platform and standing next to Sen, who smiles at him and jumps. Then he jumps, and then everyone jumps. It’s about the jump.

The letter ends. There wasn’t a reason, Sen says. Just like taking a different route home. He was just in the mood. Finis, and I stop to think about that. Is suicide really sometimes about the jump, and not the dying? Perhaps, or are we glossing over the pain and agony that can drive men and women to take their own lives? I’m sure that there are those who know people who have committed suicide without any apparent reason (maybe you’re reading this right now), and there’s just an ache inside because you want to know why but you can’t, for there is an impenetrable barrier between life and death. I hope that sometimes it is about the jump, and that maybe someone can find some solace in that.

Mr. Sen doesn’t believe it. Kotake tells him that Sen really did write that, but he doesn’t get to say why, for at that moment the SWAT team tosses in a flash grenade and it explodes with a blinding light and Mr. Sen is apprehended.

Mr. Sen gets dragged away. Kotake stands up and says because he and Sen were friends.

Meanwhile, Kamame runs up some stairs. We flip outside, to where Fumika is standing on a roof watching the entire scene. She mutters something about how death doesn’t save humans; they just disappear. The staff asks what she means, and Fumika says that those are words from a writer, Mikawa Kirameki.

“Mikawa!” Kaname shouts from behind her. At least, he asks if she’s Mikawa. He’s the guy from middle school, he tells her. Fumika stares at him, and he asks why she shot her father. The staff gasps. We suddenly see a girl lying in a bed, I’m assuming that she’s in a coma or something, and the book on the table next to her is by Mikawa Kirameki.

Screw It: Random Recap #1

2008-03-01T02:43:00.006-05:00

Due to a vague hardware issue, I cannot play the anime series I've been reviewing. I was going to recap episode two of Kitaro, or any of the other series I've been neglecting, but instead, will have to stick my hand into the Mystery Box of Anime and see what shows or movies I have laying around to talk about. So... let's see...

Ah, Cowboy Bebop. One of the first anime series that introduced me to what good anime could be. Up until I caught an episode of this series on Adult Swim, I equated all anime with seizure-inducing, way-too-fucking-peppy cartoons badly dubbed into English. And it seems that Cowboy Bebop was the gateway-anime for a lot of fans. I won't bother with a lot of character descriptions or backstory since, if you're reading this site, you most likely know these characters well. So, let's jump right in.

Cowboy Bebop: Episode 20 ("Pierrot le Fou")

The episode starts out with the shadow of a fat man in a tall top hat against a building. A POV shot flies us up and over the building, while the sound of a cape flapping in the wind plays in the background. A set of legs and a cane fly through the air over 'The City,' as two security agents step out of a car. As the agents help an important-looking man out of a building, the formerly flying man walks down the alley towards them before gliding several feet closer. The agents ready their guns and the man shows his face. "I have come here to take your lives," he tells them.

Titlecard.

Spike plays pool in a dimly lit hall. He wins, of course, and the unnamed man playing with him walks away without a word. Spike lights a cigarette outside and happens upon the fat man entering bullet upon bullet into the security agents, the important-looking man, and the car, using his cane-gun. Spike looks unimpressed. That is, until the man twirls his cane-gun, turns around, and greets Spike in a low voice. Spike dives behind a trashcan as the Penguin-looking fat man unloads a few shots. He fires off some shots, two of them hitting Non-Penguin in the chest, however they bounce off of a green field of some kind. Non-Penguin laughs and grits his teeth, making a sound that makes me uncomfortable. Non-Penguin hovers into the air and comes at Spike. If you've never seen this episode, this is the moment that Non-Penguin (Pierrot) becomes one of your favorite badguys. The dude's fucking creepy. The two engage in fisticuffs for a short while before Spike fires off a few more rounds, finding Non-Penguin really hard to hit. With a series of somersault kicks that Guile himself would be envious of, Non-Penguin leaves Spike on the ground, helpless and with a cane-gun pointed at his face. Before he can leave Spike a mess on the pavement, Non-Penguin is startled by an alley cat. He turns to try and shoot the cat - which, for some reason the seemingly invincible assassin can't hit - which lets Spike find a canister of explosive, plot-convenient gas. He rolls it towards Non-Penguin and shoots it. The resulting explosion takes out the entire block, probably killing dozens of families sitting down for dinner, and lightly tosses Spike into a wall. As he gets up, a knife pierces Spikes right arm, and Non-Penguin is standing behind him. Spike runs, but Non-Penguin fires some sort of Spike-seeking grenade that goes off just as Spike hits the nearby river. The nearby river that was probably built by the same people that leave giant, explosive canisters littered in back alleys. The shadow of Non-Penguin stands in front of the water for a second before fading away.

Jet's standing on the roof a building hitting up one of his contacts, Bob, for information on the crazy fat guy. Bob isn't keen on sharing information on this guy, but eventually gives up the name, "Mad Pierrot." Jet looks up at the audience, a little stunned, to make sure we heard the same thing.

Back on The Bebop (the spaceship), a bandaged hand reaches for an orange. Faye, of course, gets to it first. She sits on the table to eat the orange and berate Spike, who is covered in bandages. As he is wont to be. Faye drops the orange peel on Spike's head and walks off.

Later the same day, Bob is still telling Jet about Mad Pierrot. Based on the lighting, Bob's been talking about this guy he doesn't want to talk about for hours. Turns out, Mad Penguin has been killing top officials at the ISSP (Inter-Solar System Police) and everyone who gets a look at the guy without dying, eventually gets hunted down. "They say he appears with a smile, and he leaves with a smile." Plus, there's that creepy-ass floating trick he has. The dude's like The Penguin and The Joker rolled into one. Also a vampire.

Ein goes to tell Ed she has an e-mail, which she immediately takes to Faye. It reads: "Hello, boy, you're invited to a wonderful party..." Faye figures out that the e-mail was sent from that weird guy who almost killed Spike, and tells Ed that they can't tell him about it. She doesn't show it often, and tries not to, but she clearly cares about these people. Well, she doesn't want them hurt. Of course, they do kind of pay her rent... In any case, it doesn't matter, because Spike was standing behind her the whole time. The e-mail came from 'Space Land,' which sounds like a stupid amusement park for the future. It's like having a smaller, less-authentic, probably-smelling-of-vomit Disney World underneath the real thing, where all the people dressed up like cartoon characters just lay on the ground with their cartoon heads off. Spike wonders aloud if 'this is the one [he] won't come back from.' When Faye looks at Spike, semi-concerned, semi-annoyed, he says he was just screwing around. Bounty hunters have their own sense of humor.

Jet calls and Ed tells him that Spike left for 'somewhere.' He already knows who Spike went after, and asks Ed for a favor before the scene abruptly ends.

Spike lands outside of Space Land and steps out of his ship (Swordfish II), then grabs his side, still not healed from his last fight. Making sure he looks cool, he puts his hands in his pockets, his face down, and struts into the park. 'Cause if you're gonna die, do it looking like you don't care. Spike walks through the closed amusement park, which is full of rides covered with cartoon animals, which I guess are prevalent in space. At least it's night, so the shadows make everything look more like a Silent Hill game than Disney. There's a good twenty seconds where the only sounds are Spike's footsteps. A rarity in media these days; especially in an action series. Producers are so afraid that people will get bored if there isn't something happening every two seconds, that a soundtrack is almost always filled with some kind of noise. As Spike enters the center of the park, Mad Penguin turns on the lights and welcomes him to his doom. He then throws his arms into the air as fireworks 'plode behind him, the rides turn on, and slightly slowed down carnival music plays. Bullets are exchanged, glass shatters, and Mad Pierrot bounces around like Daffy Duck.

Spike takes shelter in some sort of holodeck set to that ice level in Super Mario 64, where a Navi-like sprite continuously informs him that, "It's dangerous in here!" Pierrot slides down a hill on a penguin and greets Spike with a cheerful, "Hi!"

Jet talks Ed through an ISSP database, that 'doesn't exist to the general public.'

Elsewhere in the park, Spike manages to shoot Pierrot a few times, but it's only to remind us that Pierrot has some sort of body armor. The bullets bounce off and Pierrot flies off laughing. Spike shoots and kicks a few animatronic cartoon mascots for good measure.

Ed finds 'it' and Jet tells her to find a file with the codename 'Tongpu.' She tries a few times to hack into the file, but is rejected.

Spike is hurled through the air by an explosion, landing in a rollercoaster car that takes off down the track. Pierrot passes Spike in another car, and wraps a whip around Spike's neck, dragging him out of his car and onto the track behind Pierrot. Spike's ride doesn't last long, as Pierrot tosses a grenade onto the track, letting Spike fall into the water below.

Ed hacks the file, which contains a flashback with a groovy techno soundtrack: A man in white lays helpless on the floor of a white room. Quick shots of vials and cells being injected are intercut with shots of the man in white gaining weight and looking sick. Various experiments are done on the man, including one where he gets shot and a green force field protects him as he shakes violently from pain. All the while, a black cat with two differently colored eyes looks on. The Ghost of Exposition Past voice-overs: "ISSP Assassination Ability Improvement Experiment, experiment sample chart number 46. Codename Tongpu. Confirmed a strong regression of the mind during the experiment." The AAIE was cancelled, and number 46 was to be kept out of sight and mind indefinitely. However, during his transfer, Tongpu sort of flipped out and escaped. Jet takes over and explains that Tongpu was first just out for revenge, but now seems to just like killing folk, and his mind is still regressing. "So, he's like a child with superhuman fighting abilities... there's nothing as pure and cruel as a child." Sweet. When I have a kid, they're so getting a chest cannon and laser eyes. But on with the show.

Spike pulls himself out of the water and Pierrot starts launching grenades at him. Faye flies into the action in her racer and opens fire on Pierrot. With a few grenade shots, Pierrot hits a giant pig statue which knocks Faye's racer down and forces Spike to dive through a store window to take cover. Thanks Faye. Why don't you sit out the rest of this episode? Pierrot laughs at Spike, lying helplessly in the store. As he tries to get up, Spike knocks a toy cat out onto the sidewalk. It starts to meow innocently, and Pierrot starts to freak the fuck out. He flashesback to the flashback we saw in the last scene and shoots the toy, but regains his composure quickly and shoots the gun out of Spike's hand, just as he was running away. A parade of giant, animatronic cartoon characters is coming up the road between them, as Pierrot points his cane-gun at the degunned Spike. Lights from the parade flash in and out as the two stare each other down. Spike reaches for a throwing knife he's been hiding behind his back. The light shines on Spike's cybernetic eye, which just happens to be the same color as one of the cat's eyes. Pierrot falters for a second, giving Spike his chance to toss his knife into Pierrot's leg. Spike gets a bullet in the shoulder, which isn't a big deal for an anime character. Pierrot, seeing the knife in his leg, starts to bawl like a six-year-old who just scraped his knee. As he screams for his mommy, literally, the parade meets Pierrot and tramples him. A giant cartoon dog steps right on Pierrot, ending the screams. Spike looks on, with the blank stare that only comes from watching a murderous man-child get smooshed under the foot of a giant, dopey dog with a snare drum. Jet calls Spike on his iPhone to tell him they've figured out what Pierrot is, but Spike calmly tells Jet that it doesn't matter anymore, then hangs up. Spike stands up, and as we pull away from Space Land, informs us that he 'hates theme parks.'

See you space cowboy...

Shigofumi 2

2008-02-26T23:57:00.002-05:00

Last we left our show, Asuna had just murdered Shouta. Murdered him with a knife, and now Asuna is stalking toward the shigofumi-delivering-girl. I can’t remember her name right now. Her staff is crying that they should leave because Asuna is bitch ass crazy, but Fumika (that’s her name) says no, she’s not. She’s just like everyone else. Fumika asks Asuna if Shouta was really her lover, or if she even had a lover.

Asuna smirks and says that she has many men. Fumika says that she understands. Asuna runs at them with her knife, but Fumika gives a command, the staff whirls and a clock thing appears, and Fumika disappears just as Asuna is about to slash her throat. We get some pretty good insane running action, but then Asuna just grits her teeth and looks around at the empty air. She turns back toward Shouta. Still dead.

Fumika rematerializes back in Shouta’s rooftop shed. The staff asks Fumika if she’s mad at her, but Fumika just says that someone made her (the staff that is) leave the shigofumi for Shouta to find. The staff goes on, expressing astonishment that a shigofumi could say such a thing, but Fumika isn’t surprised by that, either. She’s quite stoic about everything.

The scene shifts to the empty bedroom we saw in the previous episode. Something about that room… Fumika gives another command and the staff turns into a pair of white wings on Fumika’s back and she flies up into the air (which is what you do with wings). The staff’s pendant turns into a necklace, and she and Fumika talk a bit more about men and lovers and what could have made Asuna murder her father. Fumika thinks a little bit, and we see the naked white female body covered with letters (again from the last episode), and then a pistol going off, and Fumika seems to suggest that maybe Asuna didn’t kill her father after all. Which I suppose would make the girl a little bit better. At least, the Romans punished patricide more severely than plain old murder.

But didn’t Fumika say in the last episode that the writer of a shigofumi always tells the truth? Is there some kind of metaphysical truth that we have to contemplate as well?

We cut back to the river. Asuna is on her hands and knees trying to dig a hole to bury Shouta’s body. She’s using her little knife, so I bet it’s going to take a while. She looks angry and determined; she’s having flashbacks, first of fighting with her father and then stabbing poor Shouta. Her expression becomes more pained than angry. It’s going to take a really long time to dig a hole with a knife.

The next day (I assume), and we’re at a happy home for children. Asuna and Miku are playing with a ball in a yard. Inside the social worker lady from the last episode is talking to the kindly older woman in charge (again, I assume, but my assumptions are usually right). The older woman says that Miku is a little shy, but as we watch Asuna finds a way to get her involved in the ballgame and everyone smiles with joy. The social worker says that Asuna is a good sister, and the older woman says that’s because their father was a pretty shitty guy. Jeez, everyone knew that.

Flashback time. Asuna and Miku stand on a street corner and talk to some man we don’t know. Asuna walks into school. She’s sad. She makes her way to the classroom and finds that people have written across her desk: “SEX MODEL! THRIVING BUSINESS! Part time jobs are against the rules!” Thank you, translators. Also, kids are jerks. Next scene, we’re in that bedroom again. Asuna is standing in a robe next to her father. The robe comes off, she’s naked, and a bunch of guys start taking pictures of her. She’s dead-eyed. Her father talks to some guy. The cameras. We see a line of cameras, with lenses extending, suggestive naturally. Next the room is dark and Asuna is alone and covered up again.

Asuna talks to her father in an alley. She wants a day off. Her father accuses her of having a boyfriend. She hasn’t time for one. She needs to keep working to pay for his medical bills. He’s going to get Miku involved. Someone requested her. The little girl owes him too, after all. Raising two girls is expensive! Asuna stabs him. Mission accomplished: making Asuna not so crazy, just angry and exploited. So why did she kill Shouta?

In the room at the shelter, Asuna is looking at her knife. Miku comes and asks if she can sleep with her. They get in bed. Asuna says that everything will be okay, and Miku says that she loves her sister. Asuna thinks that she’s protected her sister. Next day she’s walking along the river when she hears a commotion. She goes over to see that Shouta’s body has been discovered, and she runs off.

Two cops, looking for Asuna, visit the group home. They’re asking about Shouta. Asuna watches them from around a corner and flees like the criminal she is. She’s confused about how they’ve related Shouta with her. She never talked about him to anyone. She steals some clothes, cuts her hair short, and hops on a train to make her escape. She can’t call Miku anymore. Fumika appears. She has a delivery.

Commercial break, and we’re back on the super-efficient Japanese train. Fumika’s staff is making chatter. Fumika says that she has a shigofumi, from Shouta. Asuna has the responsibility to accept it. Asuna is incredulous. Fumika doesn’t care; everyone dies. How a person dies-if there’s meaning behind it-is more important. Asuna pulls out her knife and runs at Fumika: to kill her! But Fumika swings her staff, knocks Asuna off her feet, and sits on the girl and points a huge gun at her face. Fumika says that if she shoots, everything about Asuna will disappear, but the girl must still have attachments and regrets left. Asuna thinks of poor, dead Shouta.

Next we see Asuna sitting by herself in the aisle in the train. Fumika stands in the little compartment between cars. She flips the gun around her finger and throws it back into her bag. She says something about it’s just another shigofumi to deliver, but we all know better. She’s becoming emotionally involved in all these crazy peoples’ lives.

Asuna sits back down. People board the train. She opens the letter. She runs off the train before it can leave and down some steps. Fumika stands, ghostly, on the stairs, but Asuna runs past her and the shigofumi girl disappears as Asuna flies by.

The two cops that were at the group home are walking down the street. The older one tells the younger one (“the rookie”) to be careful of Asuna. She’s pure-hearted, so more dangerous than a criminal after money or possessions. You have to watch out for pure-hearted criminals.

Asuna runs and runs. We see what Shouta wrote to her. He’s sorry that he never noticed what kind of girl she was (troubled), and he thanks her for believing in him and his rocket. Asuna berates him. How could he be so stupid? She killed him! But, she’s really berating herself. She killed the person who believed in her. She’s the fool here.

Meanwhile, the cops are asking around, showing people pictures of Shouta and Asuna. People are pointing, and I presume they’re on her trail now.

Asuna runs. Her inner monologue kicks in. She hated Shouta. She always lied to him. She was never class president. She never played the piano. She never, I don’t know, promised him a rose garden or something. They were always in the same building. She, to be exploited, and all she could see was the dark roof of the bedroom. He, to build his rocket, and he could see the sky above. Asuna, here and now, bursts into the rooftop shed. She takes the tarp off Shouta’s rocket. She keeps thinking. She never believed in the rocket. What she wanted to believe in was their futures. If the rocket could launch, everyone would be better. Asuna breaks down when she sees that Shouta named the rocket “Asuna & Miku.”

The older cop arrives at the foot of the building.

Asuna writes something else on the rocket and pulls away the support struts. She runs to the launch controls (Shouta had finished all of the preparations).

The cop walks by the bedroom. His younger partner runs to catch up.

Asuna pressed a button, and a one-minute countdown starts. She stands up to see the older cop step out onto the roof. He’s been looking for her, and chats her up a bit, tries to be the good cop. The place used to be an old amusement center. As he’s talking, a strong wind comes and blows the tarp back onto the rocket. The launch will be ruined! Asuna yells and runs, pulls out her knife and dives at the rope holding the tarp to the rooftop.

She cuts the rope, the tarp flies off. We see that she’s added Shouta’s name to the rocket along with hers and Miku’s. She, smiling, falls to the earth. Then she gets shot. The younger cop did it. His partner had told him to be careful of her, after all.

The rocket goes off. Asuna mutters something, that Shouta needs to give it his all. The rocket lifts into the air, high into the air, and Miku, away in her playground, watches the trail of smoke racing into the sky. Asuna can see it, too. She’s sure that Shouta is in heaven, because he was kind and decent. She’s going to hell, because…well, you know. Fade out.

Evening. Miku is standing on the walk and holding a teddy bear. Fumika has come with a letter for her. It’s an unusual letter, but it has the most beautiful sentiments in the world.

Hakaba Kitaro (Gegege no Kitaro) 1

2008-02-14T02:33:00.008-05:00

"No matter how often you scrutinize the past, it cannot be changed." A man is sleeping in his out-of-the-way house one night, when there's a knock at the door. As he goes to answer, the voice on the other side says, "We recently moved into the old temple next door." Without further prompting, the man opens the door, and finds no one there. He closes the door and finds a gift on the table behind him. He opens it, shrieks, and drops the contents on the ground. Two eyeballs look up at him. Welcome to the show!

The man, Mizuki, is led down a hallway by an older gentleman, in a funk about the whole eyeballs-in-a-box thing. "Do you believe in ghosts?" the older man asks. Before Mizuki can sigh and walk away in disgust, he's led into a hospital room where a polite green skeleton is staying. Mizuki is horrified of the ghost, who really looks more like a zombie, even as the zombie-ghost pours a cup of tea and offers it to him. He really seems like a decent guy.

Mizuki rides a train and somehow sees a flashback to a scene he wasn't a part of. One unnamed doctor tells another that 'these patients' have no pulse, heartbeat, or body heat. It's like they're dead, but, like, not. "If the public discovers that patients at a civic hospital are becoming ghosts, we'll have a big problem on our hands," someone says. Mizuki is a part of a private investigation into how these ghosts came to be, and has been given the address of 'a few potential suspects.' What Mizuki's actual job is, who hired him, how they know about these suspects - or anything else, really - is not explained. What is explained, is that the address Mizuki was given, is the same as his. I guess the disembodied boss man missed that part.

Later, at home with his mom, Mizuki looks out the window to see two 'hitodamas' (human souls taking the form of fireballs - Wikipedia!) fly into the air. He runs after them and sees them duck behind that old temple that voice from last night mentioned. Without hesitating nearly long enough, he enters the temple to investigate, finding a room with a lit candle perched atop a skull. As he stares at the flame, a scary looking woman who might as well be out of a Tod Browning movie comes out behind him. Again, Mizuki is horrified, even though the freaky woman is really nice. She even offers him a spoonful of frog eyes. He freaks out and tries to run away, only to get caught by a mummy. The mummy picks Mizuki up and tells him to calm the fuck down. The mummy's a decent fellow, too.

The three sit down and the mummy explains that those of the Ghost Tribe hate to fight. "Ghost Tribe?" Mizuki asks. "The Ghost Tribe lived a peaceful existence on Earth long before the dawn of man. But then the humans appeared..." And we fucked everything up. Again! Humans, being the bastards we are, chased the Ghost Tribe underground, where they had to hide during the day. At night, desperate for food, they'd come to the human world and hunt "frogs and crickets." Frogs and crickets? These are the worst hellish man-beasts ever. The only members left of the Ghost Tribe happen to be Mrs. Freak and Mr. Mummy. And just to make things worse for these overly nice monsters, Mr. Mummy contracted some sort of ghost-sickness. The two have come to the human world seeking a cure. They even went to a hospital, where Mrs. Freak gave some of her 'power' to two dying patients so they wouldn't suffer. Hence the ghost-zombie. Upon hearing this, Mizuki informs them that he's going to have to report them for... turning people into ghosts. Mr. Mummy begs Mizuki to forget he ever saw them, saying that if people find out about them, they'll be killed. He even cries a little. Pussy monster-things. Mrs. Freak tells Mizuki that she's pregnant, and asks that he at least wait until she gives birth to have them killed for being different fron everyone else. Mr. Mummy continues to beg Mizuki to keep quiet, but then his elbow turns into a purple mist and his arm falls off. Because of the sickness? I'unno. But Mizuki runs the hell away.

Mizuki debates whether or not to report the Ghost Tribe people. It turns out to be a moot point, however, as the ghosts in the hospital faded away to a green ash. So, I guess no one cares now. As Mizuki walks home he asks himself, "Even ghosts die?" Then, in a panic, he wonders what happened to the Ghost Tribe couple. He runs to the temple to find the two dead on the floor. "The Ghost Tribe is finished!" he says to the corpses. They've probably figured that out already.

Leaving the dried out husk of Mr. Mummy, Mizuki takes Mrs. Freak to a graveyard and buries her. As he walks away, the wind picks up and he hears a baby cry. From the mound of dirt where he buried the woman, a baby digs himself out. You know... anime is kind of fucked up.

The baby crawls to Mizuki, who falls over, gasping for air. He considers killing the 'monster' wondering what horror he'll bring to the world. The baby crawls on top of Mizuki and touches his nose, in a cute-ish, baby sort of way. Mizuki, as he's wont to do, runs away in fear. As he does, we see bits of the baby rolling on the ground after Mizuki presumably threw the kid off. The baby cries next to the corner of a bloody tombstone, bleeding from where his left eye used to be. Hearing his son's cries, the left eye of Mr. Mummy falls out, grows a tiny body, and runs to comfort the baby. Mr. Mummy-Daddy-Eye names the child Kitaro, ties a leash around him, and drags him out of the rain, explaining that he's the last survivor of the Ghost Tribe.

Mizuki returns to the graveyard and looks at the bloody tombstone. He feels... something. Probably.

Elsewhere, Daddy-Eye sits Kitaro down and runs off to find his son some clothes. Kitaro immediately crawls off and wanders in Mizuki's house, where Mizuki is sitting, wondering what he should have done. Probably not toss a baby eye-first into a sharp surface. Next thing we see is Kitaro licking Mizuki's hand with a smile and one big-ass eye. You know... anime is kind of REALLY fucked up. Mizuki decides that he'll take in the baby, because he's just a baby and he poked his eye out and stuff. Daddy-Eye approves from outside.

Years later, Kitaro is a freak who scares the locals and walks real slow in big sandals. A woman spies Kitaro in an alleyway, apparently talking to himself. She can't see the tiny, bebodied eye talking to him. Daddy-Eye is telling his son he has to live with the humans, since he's the last of the Tribe and all. Kitaro isn't so keen on the idea. And neither is Mizuki's mother. Back home, she tells Mizuki that she wishes they could just send him somewhere.

That night, Kitaro sneaks out and Mizuki follows him. He hears Kitaro talking to his father, but Mizuki doesn't see anyone with the kid. Mizuki follows Kitaro to a wooded area, where he sinks into the ground. Mizuki digs into the earth trying to find the boy, but comes up emptyhanded. He waits back at his house for Kitaro to come home, and watches Kitaro slip a piece of paper in a crack in the wall. He gets fatherly with the child and asks where he was all night. Kitaro gives a smug smile and asks for his ticket back, saying it's a place humans can't go. Mizuki says he's keeping the ticket, and Kitaro stands in the hallway stunned.

Mizuki runs out to the spot he saw Kitaro sink into the ground, ticket in hand. As he gets to the spot, he too sinks into the dirt. Kitaro looks on from behind a tree, his big eye being all big and surprised. Mizuki falls through the ground into a cavern. A barrel moves and a zombie-ghost pokes his head out and asks for the ticket. Unfazed, for some reason, Mizuki complies. The zombie-ghost is surprised the ticket is real; "You'd usually have to wait until you died," to get one. The zombie-ghost steps out of the barrel and tells Mizuki that it doesn't really matter if he's alive or dead, it's his job to give ticket-holders the tour. Mizuki says that there's really no need, since he'll be going back now. However, the ticket is one-way. "Welcome to Hell."

Mizuki's mother, distraught over her son's disappearance, is visiting an old woman who looks a lot like someone who should be a member of the Ghost Tribe. She tells Unnamed Mother Lady that her son is no longer a part of this world, and that a Mononoke (spirit, ghost, what have you) is responsible. Mother Lady knows instantly that Kitaro is the one responsible, and asks what she must do.

Kitaro is talking to his father in the graveyard when Mother Lady runs up to him and demands he take her to where her son is, even after Kitaro tells her she won't be coming back. Daddy-Eye comes out of hiding to present Mother Lady with another ticket, since, "Any mother would want to see her son..." The Eye and Son lead Mother Lady to weird, skull-cliff and tell her to take a ladder down to find her son. Breathing heavily, Mother Lady flashbacks so we can hear the weird woman say, "The only way to escape from a Mononoke is to push them down into Hell." With a shove, Kitaro falls down off the cliff, as weak, deformed children in 300 would. He screams and fades away into the mist far below. Believing her son avenged, Mother Lady laughs maniacally as her hair turns white. A policeman runs up behind her and asks her what's going on. She points and tells him she pushed a spirit off the cliff, but it's revealed that she's standing in the graveyard and probably crazy.

Kitaro, alive and well... or whatever, walks through a forest with Daddy-Eye on his shoulder. "Father, I guess humans are a little bit interesting, after all."

Shigofumi 1

2008-02-13T23:47:00.001-05:00

So some of you are complaining that we aren’t really fulfilling our duties to keep you all up to date on the newest, hippest anime, so here, to shut you up, we present Shigofumi. This is pretty brand-spankin’ new. Episode one premiered just last month, with eleven more planned. We hear that some plot points were altered because of “recent circumstances in society at large.” Maybe that has something to do with poisoned dumplings from China. I love dumplings.

Two girls are standing by a wall of windows, talking about the letters from the dead that death gods deliver. One girl, naturally, doesn’t believe. The other insists that it’s true: “A girl brings it!” Because girls always bring bad news.

We fly out into the dark, cloudy city and drift down toward a crime scene. A bloody crime scene, complete with a chalk outline of a body. A detective bosses around some lowly cops. We drift back up into the sky just in time to see a girl floating down. She has little white wings, a short black pleated skirt, double-breasted jacket with a high collar, and a big hat, sort of like a train conductor’s cap. Neat. She lands on a roof and the wings disappear in a flash and turn into a big staff. The staff starts talking (you can tell that it’s talking because a crystal in the head shimmers). It’s annoyed: “Why can’t people just say it?” Why do they have to wait until they’re dead? The girls says that some things can only be said when you’re dead.

Back from the intro music, and we’re settled on another roof. A little shack on top. Posters of rockets and space shuttles. A girl is making fun of a boy because of his terrible handwriting. She falls off the couch and he’s more worried about his notebook that she’s reading and her. That annoys her terribly, because girls like to be the center of attention. He calls her Ms. Class President (because she’s a class president). She looks around the room and leans back to stare at the star chart taped to the ceiling. The boy watches her, until she starts rubbing her thighs together (they’re exposed by a short schoolgirls’ skirt, natürlich) and he becomes terribly embarrassed and whips about to face the desk.

“Ayase!” he tells her. He’s about to tell her something, while still facing the other direction. He still hasn’t learned to look at someone when you’re about to confess. Luckily, his faux pas isn’t too devastating as her phone rings at that precise moment. She picks up, says a few noncommittal affirmatives. Her first name is Asuna. She hangs up.

They found her father.

The boy sits in the waiting room at a police station. Asuna, escorted by two detectives, comes out of the elevator. They’re going to take her home. She looks sheepishly at the boy and apologizes. The next day in class the boy is fidgeting with his cell phone, apparently about to email Asuna with it (I wish I had a cool cell phone like him). The student in front of him is watching news about Ms. Ayase’s death on his own phone (freakin’ awesome). The boy heads back to his rooftop abode. We still don’t know his name yet, but he looks pretty sad, thinking about Asuna and all.

He reaches the roof and finds smoke billowing out of his shack. He runs in to find the formerly-winged girl and her staff. The staff sucks up all the smoke and the girl and the boy face each other. She’s Fumika. He wants to know who the other voice belonged to, as well, but Fumika doesn’t answer. Instead, she reaches deep into her satchel (letting go of her staff, which handily floats) and pulls out a letter. The screen turns into a “MAIL!!!” icon, and Fumika stands close to the boy with an envelope. It’s for Ayase Asuna’s lover.

The boy blushes, waves his hands in the air. Fumika is confused. He explains that he and Asuna go to different schools but met on the roof during one of his test rocket launches. Well, it was a failed launch, actually, and he went out to fiddle with the l’il rocket when it did go off, enveloping most of the roof in smoke. He found her, stunned by his ineptitude. And she’d been coming back to watch him ever since.

The staff gushes over this chance encounter. The boy explains that Asuna liked coming to look at his rockets, but she’d never been able to understand how they worked. Cute, and stupid. Fumika concludes that it’s a one-sided love, with him being the only side. A one-sided line. They do exist. She gets up to leave, for he’s obviously not Asuna’s lover. I’m surprised that her short skirt hasn’t flustered the boy yet.

The boy stops her. What if he were, in fact, Asuna’s lover? Fumika says then that the letter is from Mr. Ayase. The boy is flabbergasted. It’s a shigofumi, Fumika explains (hence the title): a letter from the afterlife. If I knew Japanese I would probably say something like, “Well, yes, it means ‘death letter’ or ‘after death letter’.” Something like that. So let’s just assume that I’m saying that.). The shigofumi is the last message from the dead. There’s a lot of zooming in on Fumika’s golden eyes. The boy doesn’t say anything, and finally starts laughing. Who could believe that? Surely not I.

The dead don’t have bodies, the boy says. How could they write letters? Now the staff pipes up. Some dead people do have bodies! There are apparently phases to death, and up to level four you still have a body. You can write letters and eat. So being dead is just like being alive, except not. There’s some more talking. Some yapping. The staff is named Kanaka. That’s what’s important. Fumika wants Kanaka to shut up. The thing is just merchandise, anyway.

The staff wants to leave. Asuna has no lover. Fumika looks sideways at the boy. She starts to leave really slowly. The boy thinks feverishly for a bit, and he yells for her to stop. He’ll accept the letter. Kanaka says that he’s not Asuna’s lover, and the boy counters that it’s not right for the letter to not be delivered. He’ll become Asuna’s lover. The staff cheers him on. Go love!

Next we see Asuna and her little sister packing things up in their home. Looks like they’re orphans now. Japanese orphans. Like in Grave of the Fireflies. Asuna cuts a string with a knife, and she stares sadly at the blade. Things aren’t that bad, Asuna! Don’t give up! Her sister distracts her, and then her phone rings. It’s the boy calling, checking up on things. Agh, he looks terrified. You know that feeling, when you’re about to call someone you really like and the phone is ringing and you’re terrified that they’ll actually answer and you’ll have to talk to them? That’s how he looks. Well, she does answer. They chat for a while. Asuna’s been busy at town hall (with the death, of course). She says that’s she feels fine. She must be really strong. Or suicidal! Her sister keeps talking to her. She’s going to hang up.

Fumika and her magical staff are watching the boy. He keeps Asuna on the line. He wants to confess his love, but all he can manage is telling her that his rocket is almost ready to launch. He wants her to watch. She smiles and says that she’ll come when he’s ready. She calls him Shouta. Shouta, a good, solid name for a good, solid rocket scientist.

Shouta hangs up and the staff berates him for being so cowardly on the phone. He explains that girls—living girls—want confessions to be delivered face to face. Fumika says that he’s wrong. Any confession will do? Kanaka wonder what will happen if the rocket blows up during launch. Will that ruin Shouta’s chance at love? Probably. Who wants a man whose rocket doesn’t fire? Shouta and the staff argue a bit. Doesn’t he know that you can’t win against merchandise? Fumika watches them and thinks that this might take a while.

We have a few scenes with Shouta soldering circuit boards, mixing up some solid rocket fuel, testing his rocket. We juxtapose this last bit with Asuna in an office signing something. Shouta calls her. Fumika eats the pizza that he’s ordered. We don’t hear what he tells her, but they’re both smiling. It must be good. Fumika eats the entire pizza while they’re talking. Score! Long conversations are always good.

Night comes, and Shouta struggles to name his rocket. “Asuna” is too predictable. Maybe he’ll name it “Miku” after her little sister. Fumika comes upon him from behind. She wants to know why Shouta believes in the shigofumi, when most people scoff. He explains that it’s because Asuna always believed that he could launch his rocket. You’ve just got to have faith, woman. Fumika says that’s a simple explanation, but simple is good.

The next day, I assume, Asuna and her sister are talking to a woman at their house. Looks like they’re going to be moving. Shouta admires his rocket (under a drape). He yawns because he was up all night thinking of a name for it. He wanders back into his shack. Fumika is gone, but the shigofumi is on the floor. Should he read it? Dare he read it?

Fumika and Kanaka are on one of the lower levels of the building. They’re arguing. The staff accuses the girl of disliking when shigofumi are returned. Fumika says that’s because she has respect for the job. They come across an open door and look inside. There’s a big bed with purple sheets, a ladder, some boxes, stage lights. What’s going on here?! I might have an idea, but I don’t want to say. Fumika looks at the bed in horror. The screen flashes and up comes the image of a naked girl flying through the air. Her skin is covered with letters. Can’t read. Japanese. Back to Fumika. It’s time to go. As she’s walking away the staff says that maybe Shouta needs some more time alone. Fumika suddenly looks in her satchel and discovers that the shigofumi is gone. She looks back at Kanaka, who admits to leaving it behind. The instructions said…

Fumika runs back up to the roof. Shouta is standing in his shed with the note crumpled in his hand. He demands to know what’s going on. How could Asuna have killed her father? The note says, “The one who killed me was my daughter.” Shouta doesn’t believe it. Fumika says that death brings out the honesty in people, but he tosses the note to the ground.

Next scene. Shouta runs down the street, thinking that it’s all a lie. Asuna and her sister say farewell to the woman from before. The woman drives off in a really tiny car. Really tiny, like a car that a really tiny person would drive. Shouta finds them. He’s panting. Next thing we know Asuna and Shouta are sitting on an outside bench in the dark. He says that he’s never seen her sister before, and Asuna replies that now it’s just the two of them. Shouta perks up, like it’s the two of them, the boy and the girl, but she continues that it’s just her and her sister now. He’s crestfallen, but hides it well. The girls don’t have a mother. Asuna will be going to a “facility,” and she’ll drop out of school and work. She’ll give up her own dreams of college so that her sister will be able to afford going some day.

Shouta thinks that Asuna can’t be a killer. He shouts that the rocket is finished. If it flies, will Asuna go out with him? She thanks him politely, but declines. No! She starts saying something about being a class president and something else, but Shouta looks to the side and sees Fumika and the staff. He jumps up and tells them that Asuna didn’t do it. Fumika says that shigofumi don’t lie. Behind him, Asuna stands up.

Shouta turns around and tells Asuna that they should leave. And then she stabs him! Shouta falls to the ground and bleeds all over. He looks dead. Poor Shouta. I kind of liked him. Asuna looks crazily at Fumika and staggers toward her. Fumika says that living people are liars, weak and ugly. Asuna swings the knife up and down at them.

Lovely Idol 5

2008-02-06T00:09:00.002-05:00

My previous reviews have mainly focused on a few characters: Tomohiro the manager, Ruri his sister, and Mizuki the girl who sings for vengeance, but there are actually a few more girls. We start off this episode with Miu, the tall brown-haired girl, still trying to make a dog noise. Remember that last episode in the studio, instead of barking, she meowed. Turns out she still doesn’t know what a dog sounds like, as she keeps meowing. She’s even animated with a cute cat face and all that. The other girls are astounded, either by her obstinacy or stupidity I’m not sure.

Tomohiro suddenly bursts into the room, without even knocking. The girls have been asked to appear in a commercial with Sayuki one of the members of the original group of girls. There’s going to be dancing and bikinis on a beach and some kind of suntan lotion. It’s all very provocative, but I hear that’s par for the course in Japan. Harrison Ford once appeared in a bikini in a Japanese commercial. The girls assume that Sayuki demanded that they star in the commercial with her. They have no basis for making that assumption, but I think it’s sound.

Miu meows in pleasure and starts to practice the dance moves. Mizuki looks over the storyboard of the commercial with some anxiety. Tomohiro assures her that she, too, will be dancing in a bikini on a beach, and she becomes even more anxious. Tomohiro looks puzzled, because he’s a guy, and guys simply aren’t capable of telling what a woman is thinking. Besides, what girl doesn't want to appear in a commercial in a bikini? Miu grabs everyone and they start practicing their routine. They’re terrible, uncoordinated, and but there are plenty of shots of them in their tight outfits. Mizuki looks especially bad, and you can actually see the terror on her face as she’s moving around. I was actually pretty surprised, just this once, as most anime characters can either just scowl or smile. This show has real emotion depth, let me assure you.

They all arrive at the beach for the filming. Miu keeps meowing. Mizuki stares at the ground and sighs a lot. Off to the side Sayuki and Aneeki (the other manager) are sitting at a table covered with a big umbrella. We find out, finally, that Aneeki is Tomohiro’s sister. And also, I suppose, Ruri’s sister. Maybe there were clues about that earlier. Excuse me for not knowing Japanese. I mean, Ruri and Aneeki even had a scene together in the last episode, and Ruri didn't call her onee-sama or anything. Maybe Ruri hates me, just like I hate everyone. Anyway, it turns out that Aneeki is the one who demanded the new girls appear in the commercial, not Sayuki. I don’t know why. Now do I know what this is important. I probably could have just edited this part out. Tomohiro walks over and Sayuki gets all tongue tied. Aneeki puts him into a devastating choke hold of some type. Sayuki says that she hopes that he enjoys her work today. I think there’s something more going on here.

The new girls, meanwhile, have changed into their bikinis. They’re all different, and we get good, long, lingering shots of how they bend and pose. We zoom in on Mizuki’s ass and she looks a little horrified. One of the younger girls, Mai I think, complains about her childish one-piece. Suddenly, all the male crew members start cheering and running over, but they pass all the other girls and head straight for Ruri, who, while also wearing a one-piece, is built like a brick house. The other girls are in awe of her. Oh, and while all this is happening, Mizuki is nowhere to be seen. She’s probably off crying somewhere.

The girls watch Sayuki practice her routine a few times. They’re amazed by her professionalism. The director calls them all over to get ready. Tomohiro goes to Sayuki and tells her that she was wonderful. She looks disappointed and says, “That’s all?” Being a guy, he’s confused, but then he smiles and adds his thanks, for helping out his new girls. Now Sayuki looks like she’s about to cry.

The girls line up to show off their routine before everyone. Mizuki notices all the guys staring at her and clamps her eyes shut, but they don’t go away. They're real, Mizuki, looking at you with their eyes. Aneeki tells Tomohiro that if they don’t dance well there’s going to be big trouble.

The music starts and the girls begin to dance. The following scene is so ridiculous that I have to stop and watch it a few times. I think I cackled a bit. They’re not in sync, they look terrified. Miu is making up moves that aren’t in the routine. Mizuki is flailing about like a beached whale. She falls down. The director stops everything and berates everyone for wasting her time. She’ll just use Sayuki. Tomohiro runs over and bows and begs for another chance. The director looks like she’s about to agree, but Sayuki suddenly comes over and stabs Tomohiro in the back: the girls aren’t good enough. A woman scorned, eh?

The girls retreat to a dark shack where they sit, wallowing in their terrible shame. Mizuki stands apart because this is all her fault. Tomohiro comes and reassures them that even in failure there is a lesson to be learned. They go to watch Sayuki and the actual filming of the commercial. Soulful background music plays while Sayuki dances and talks about suntan lotion. The director says good job and they all start to pack it up, but Sayuki suddenly starts to feel guilty about what she did. Sure, Tomohiro is a clueless boob, but do the girls need to suffer because of him? I say yes, but Sayuki disagrees. She says that she wants to film using all of them. The director says sure (because she must not be on a budget). She gives the girls one hour to practice.

They run off to improve their coordination. As usual, Mizuki is the worst. Miu goes to check her out. There’s this weird scene where Miu is trying to watch her and Mizuki is sort of dancing and squeaking at the same time, turning away so Miu can’t see her. They finally stop and Mizuki admits that she can’t dance if someone is watching her; she’s embarrassed. The other girls note that she’s never embarrassed when she sings, but Mizuki says that it’s different. Then, the other girls, pretty much one-by-one, also admit that they’re embarrassed. Ruri admits that she’s a terrible dancer. Mai imagines that everyone is a pumpkin. Another girls (Tomoho? Tahoe?) pretends to write “person” on her palm and then swallows the word. Mizuki agrees to try. Then they all turn on Miu for being so crazy and exuberant. She agrees to be a part of the team. They start to get all weepy and reflective, but Mai screams that they need to practice.

Back in the shack, Tomohiro thanks Sayuki for giving the girls another chance. She says, “Don’t you have something else to say to me?” He looks confused again.

Everyone lines up on the beach. Mizuki concentrates and begins to see everyone with a big green pumpkin head. I didn’t know they come in green. Looks weird. The music starts, they dance, and at the end we see the director, scowling. She suddenly smiles. Excellent!

Everyone really does pack up now, and the girls bow to everyone in thanks. Sayuki keeps asking Tomohiro if he has anything else to say to her. Aneeki comes and beats him up, and she takes Sayuki away. Sayuki looks back over her shoulder and thinks that she wanted Tomohiro to tell her that she looked cute. I’m actually kind of disappointed that they added that last part. One of the “strengths” of the show is that it relies a great deal on things that are unsaid. I hear that women communicate nonverbally a lot, maybe one of them writes this. Except for that last scene. Some guy animator probably kept being really obnoxious about not knowing what Sayuki really wanted Tomohiro to say, and I bet the woman writer just added that last part to shut him up.

Final scene, the girls get a dvd of the commercial. They gather around to watch. All they see is Sayuki. They’ve been reduced to tiny background dancers during the final shot of the spinning, shining suntan lotion bottle. How disappointing. Oh, these girls. Will they ever get their big break?

Lovely Idol 4

2008-01-28T23:43:00.000-05:00

It’s been a while since I watched “Lovely Idol,” and I’d kind of forgotten what the show was about. Luckily, I had my reviews to rely upon, and quickly got back up to speed. I’m quite sure they’re the only English language resource of their kind, which makes us the English Speaking World’s Number One “Lovely Idol” Resource. I can’t speak for what the Japanese have about “Lovely Idol.” I’m sure someone had erected a golden statue of Mizuki or something. If you’ve forgotten who she is (and you probably have), go read my reviews again.

Tomohiro (the girl’s manager) is talking to a recording engineer of some sort, and extolling the virtues of his new set of girls. Everything is going swimmingly, until his sister, Ruri, shows up, ostensibly to deliver an umbrella, but I think she’s just being nosy. The recording engineer takes them down to the recording studio, and they see Yui, one of the older idols, doing some…recording for her newest drama CD. The engineer also gives them a bag with a DVD of the latest episodes of “Magical Girl Sunny,” who fights monsters or something. Yukimi, another of the older Idols, is one of the voice actors. Tomohiro and Ruri also get a big stack of scripts, so that the girls can all practice their anime voice acting.

Tomohiro and Ruri are walking outside, and Ruri is complimenting Tomohiro about how hard he works for everyone. She promises to help him as much as she can, but Tomohiro suddenly becomes very concerned and starts to tell her about the thing she has to work on most herself. He sort of trails off and doesn’t tell her, and Ruri gets self-conscious because now she doesn’t know what’s so terribly wrong with her. At that moment it starts raining, and that provides a good distraction for Tomohiro to run off and leave her alone, despite the fact that she’s the one with the umbrella.

Back in the studio, the girls are perusing the scripts. Even Mizuki (remember that she’s the one singing for revenge). Ruri encourages them all to practice reading. Ruri decides to act as the cute dog. She has the cutest habit of referring to herself in the third person. It’s not annoying at all. So the girls start reading aloud. Mizuki is the evil villain, and she does sound pretty evil, if being evil means having no personality she’s got it nailed. The other girls all vary. Some are terrible; others not so bad. Ruri barks pretty well. They discuss their notes and touch upon the subtle vagaries of the performing arts for a while.

Back at the Tomohiro/Ruri homestead, Tomohiro wants to tell his sister something, but, again, he just can’t bring himself to say it. I don’t see how this guy can handle the cutthroat world of pop-star management. Ruri goes to her room and works on something secret. The next morning Tomohiro, still in bed, gets a call from Ruri. He’s come down with a bad flu; the girls can head over to the recording studio on their own and he’ll meet them there. Ruri tells him not to bother. She’ll take care of everything. She’s even made a business card of her own! She hangs up on her confused brother, but I can see precisely what’s happening. She’s going to supplant him as manager. Now we can see which child was loved more.

On the street Ruri tells the others that Tomohiro isn’t coming. They say that they can’t go without their manager, but Ruri announces that now she’s the manager. I’m starting to like her now. Cue commercial break.

At the studio the girls listen in as Yukimi and the others record for the latest episode of “Magical Girl Sunny.” Ruri and Aneki, the manager of the older groups, are bickering about Tomohiro. Ruri adores him; Aneki thinks he’s a moron. They leave that debate unresolved. Back to the recording. All the voice actors are in a big studio reading together. I kind of thought that voice actors recorded alone, and then everything was mixed together, but I’ll let this slide for the sake of drama. Mizuki notices that the script being read is not the same one that the girls practiced with the day before. It’s an old script (they didn’t notice, presumably because no one must watch “Magical Girl Sunny;” everyone I know says it’s terrible). They get the new scripts, and the recording engineer says that they need someone to voice the little dog.

The new girls line up in the studio, except for Ruri, who’s being a manager. One by one they woof a bit, to see who’s the best dog. Awful. The last girl meows. She doesn't even get the concept. The recording engineer kind of sighs and says that they’re no good. Ruri asks for another try for the girls, but he tells her, quite rightly, that they won’t get any better. Now Aneki (that other manager) starts to pile on too, castigating Tomohiro (who isn’t even there) for bringing on a bunch of stupid amateurs. Okay, I added “stupid” myself, but I’m sure that’s what she’s thinking. The recording engineer listens nervously. Aneki insults Ruri some more, until finally Ruri demands to try being that damn dog herself. Miku smiles, as if this is what she was planning the entire time. I mean, you’d obviously want to get rid of a younger, prettier, more ambitious rival manager, wouldn’t you?

I sort of forgot to mention that Tomohiro has dragged himself out of bed and shows up outside the studio in a little surgical facemask. He can’t go in because the “recording” light is on, but through the glass he can see Ruri bowing or something. Just then Aneki grabs her and hurts him a bit. She does it out of love.

Ruri gets into the studio and marches up to the microphone and barks her best bark. She turns around to see the recording engineer just smiling at her. No one says anything, so she starts to assume that he must be silently laughing at her ineptitude, but then he shouts that she’s perfect! Yukimi waggles a big stuffed bunny at her, and Mizuki starts the one-person-slowly-clapping thing at her. Everyone joins in! Ruri has vindicated the entire team!

They’re walking home that evening, and Tomohiro flashes back to the studio. Yukimi is talking to him through her stuffed rabbit. The rabbit says that the new group isn’t so bad. Okay. Then the rabbit tells Tomohiro not to forget about Yukimi. The rabbit goes away, and she looks sadly at him. What’s that about? Did he have a relationship with every single one of the older girls? Back to the present, Ruri can tell that something is on his mind, but he doesn’t tell her about Yukimi, and she seems satisfied with his terrible, terrible lies. Ruri gives Tomohiro all of her homemade business cards and states that she’s retiring from being a manager. She runs to join the other girls, and all is well in pop stardom.

Blood+ 1

2008-01-27T22:55:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time I saw a movie called Blood+. I don’t remember much of it, but it did feature an attractive, laconic girl with a pointy sword, and the animation wasn’t that bad. There was one scene in particular, with a monster roaring on top of a building engulfed in flame, and the point of view was rotating around it, as if you were watching the scene from a helicopter above. Most animation doesn’t try movement like that, so I was pretty impressed. That might not mean much, since I’m also impressed by a big stack of pancakes.

We start off today with a bang. I can only assume that we’re in Vietnam, because it looks hot and steamy—sultry,even—and there are soldiers and peasants, and some weird bat-dog creature is killing people. Suddenly, a feral-looking girl with a pointy sword kills the monster. Then she starts killing people, like a woman with a baby. Stabs them both with one thrust. Then she cuts up a man. The soldiers start shooting at her, to no effect. She skewers a few of them too. A man with a camera takes pictures of the girl as she stands surrounded by a field of the monsters. I have no idea what any of this means; I’m sure it will be explained later. Cue the soulful intro music. This is Blood+.

A young girl, Saya by name, attempts the high jump. It seems a lot of anime include the high jump. I’m sure it symbolizes something. Or maybe the Japanese just haven’t discovered dodgeball. Anyway, she runs at the bar, attempts a classic Fosbury flop, and everything is artistic. She looks at the clouds as she sails over the bar. She lands on the mat, but the bar falls down. She failed. Failed miserably. Her friend comes over and they lay together on the mat.

Eating a big box of food afterwards, her friend hugs her again, and they watch some American planes fly overhead. We have exposition discussion: the girls live on Okinawa, the planes are going off to war, and Saya’s memory only extends back one year. That must be pretty important. A boy named Kai comes to pick Saya up for a doctor’s appointment. I’m kid of sad that Saya and her friend won’t be hugging anymore. We focus in on some shoes lying on the group; will that be important?

Kai and Saya ride through town on a little motorcycle. More exposition talk. Kai used to play baseball. Kai’s father took in Saya, and now they’re all one big happy family. Isn’t that nice? They ride past the sea and Saya gets to look at the seagulls and glistening water. Going in the opposite direction is a big black van, however, and it’s bristling with antennae and radar dishes and other electronic looking thingies.

A voice, presumably of the van’s driver, informs someone in an office that they haven’t found what they’re looking for yet. An American military officer is talking to Van Argiano, a fancy-looking dude in glasses who’s eating candy. Two of whatever they’re looking for have escaped, and they’re most likely in Okinawa City. Isn’t that where Saya is located? I don’t like the look of this!

Saya lays in a hospital bed with an IV stuck up her arm. A helpful radio voice talks about some unsolved murders, but why should Saya care about that? She’s the star of the series. She’s looking at a bird outside the window. A blonde woman with glasses tells Saya to just stay still until her IV is done. The woman leaves, and Saya muses on the futility of attempting to defy fate. Afterwards she’s walking down the street. A crowd is gathered around a cellist playing his baroque cello music. Intriguingly, one of his hands is bandaged. Saya suddenly closes her eyes and begins to, I don’t know, remember things. She’s wearing a pretty dress, running down a hall toward a stone tower. She’s unlocking a door, and, back in the here and now, shouts, “NO!”

She falls over into some bushes. The cellist, a rather handsome fellow with long hair, stares are her, and Saya gets up and stomps away. She’s quite mortified. We can tell because her face is as pink as a cherry blossom. Saya rushes home and catches the other members of her “family” playing catch in the park. Apparently that’s illegal, and she suddenly decides to be lawful and chastise everyone. It’s all in good fun. Inside, she discovers that she forgot her shoes! She has to rush back to school to retrieve them. She makes her dad and Riku, her little brother, promise not to eat dinner without her. Just as she’s running out, David, a friend of her father, enters. He needs to talk to the old man.

Saya trots off after looking through a window at the two guys. She doesn’t notice the man with a huge cello chase staring at her from the park.
David accuses Saya’s dad of keeping her around to replace his dead daughter. His real daughter, because when someone dies you want to replace them right away with a stranger. David seems to work for something called “The Syndicate.” Original, huh. He drops off some money and leaves.

At the school, everything is dark and wicked in the night. A teacher sits alone in an office. A moth casts a huge shadow on the wall. She runs toward the tree where she and her friend were sitting, but the man with the cello emerges from the shadows and approaches her. She doesn’t run away, because rapists and murders never emerge from shadows, I hear. “At last we meet,” he intones, quite woodenly, and brandishes a nasty knife. Now she runs.

Saya bumps into a teacher. They look around the tree, but the cello man is gone. Saya is near-hysterical that she’s seen that serial killer the radio guy was talking about earlier. A huge hand suddenly grabs the teacher’s head and he gets yanked up into the air. We hear lots of crunching and snapping sounds. Saya, again, doesn’t run away, but looks out. “Teacher?”

His body drops back to the ground. A weird bat-dog monster drops down after him. Saya takes off. Two still shots show her face, the monster jumping after her.

Meanwhile, guys in front of electronics state that they’ve found what they’re looking for. Some helicopters take off. Also meanwhile, Saya’s friend brings back her shoes, and Saya’s dad calls Kai and tell her to get Saya. It looks like Kai is in some kind of alley, and that maybe he’s been beating guys up, but I could be wrong. I really have no idea what’s supposed to be happening there.

Saya runs into a library and locks the door. She lets out a sigh of relief, but the monster breaks through and she falls to the ground. She gets up, she’s been cut all over, and limps away. Saya turns the corner and waiting for her is the cello rapist guy. He tosses a knife at her head, but it misses at the last moment and hits the monster thing instead. Another knife stabs the monster in the eye! An eyestab!

Kai arrives and finds a dead teacher. The cello guy throws the monster away and carries Saya up some stairs into a science lab. Of course, we have some long, panning shots of the science lab. Cello man tells Saya that the monster is a “chiropteran.” It’s a blood sucking fiend. He opens a compartment on his cello case and takes out a sword. He also removes the bandage around his hand and reveals a twisted, curled set of claws. I would want to hide that too. He takes the sword and cuts his clawed hand so that it starts to bleed. Saya starts to feel uncomfortable, sort of like how I’ve felt throughout this entire episode, and tries to back away as the cello guy comes close and drips his blood all over her. He holds it up to her mouth, suggesting something. He really needs to work on his technique. He’s not smooth at all.

Saya tries to stumble away and begs for some mercy. Please! Put her (me) of her (my) misery. The chiropteran walks through the door. We zoom in on its wounded eye, which is healing up quite nicely, thank you. The cello man quite calmly drinks the blood pooling in his own hand and saves Saya from a swipe by the monster. He embraces her tightly on the floor and presses his lips against hers. It’s a very tender scene as blood starts to drip from their lips. Just then Kai runs in and illuminates them with his flashlight. I bet he’s assuming the worse. Then he hears a roar and shines his light on the monster sitting in the corner. Cello guy sits over Saya and tells her to fight. Fight for her life!

Her eyes go wide and she has a wicked flashback to her time in ‘Nam, when she went crazy and cut up all those monsters and people. Yes, she was that girl in the opening sequence. She remembers the cello guy standing over her. She remembers running down that stone corridor and unlocking a certain door, which, now, she realizes is something she shouldn’t have done. What could be behind that door?! Her eyes turn red. Cue end credits for another anime premiere. A young, hot girl with a sword. Sexually charged violence. A convoluted back story which I’m sure will be awkwardly explicated over dozens of episodes. Par for the course.

At least I liked the moth shadow flapping on the wall in the darkened school.

Elfen Lied: Episode 9

2008-01-27T01:27:00.001-05:00

We open on the music box, playing the melody of the theme song. Li'l Lucy gives Li'l Kouta the stink eye and the two stay quiet for the moment. Li'l Kouta closes the box and Lucy admits that she likes the song. Kouta seems pleased that she's pleased at things, but is distracted by her horns. Lucy starts to get angry and considers killing everyone. Really, everyone. Her vectors hover across the ground, but before Lucy can get a kill-shot, Kouta practically attacks her with giddiness. Her horns are the best things he's ever seen. Kouta extends his hand in friendship, saying he's staying with family and has to go home in few days, but would like to hang out until then. Lucy gets a flash of the Random Girl from last episode who sold out Puppy of Imminent Doom, and scoffs at Kouta's friend request. She walks off with Kouta yelling that he'll be back to meet her the following day at the same spot.

News Lady on the TV reports that there are no clues regarding the child murders that took place that morning/last episode, and they're looking for a child believed to be 'involved.' Li'l Lucy is taking a shower, with the sun, apparently:

She calmly walks out, turns off the TV, and heads to the 'fridge, revealing in the foreground three dead bodies on the floor. This... isn't her house.

The next day, Li'l Lucy stands in the rain at the path where Puppy is buried and looks to the sky. Either the bird she sees sounds just like Li'l Kouta, or she's remembering how Kouta said he'd be back to see her. Either way, she doesn't see Kouta. Suddenly embarrassed by her icky feelings, Lucy looks down at Puppy's grave and tells him that she just, "wanted to be by [his] side." Aw. Before she can add, "No, really!" two police officers walk out of the forest. They talk about how it sure does suck that there was another murder and all. One of them even adds, "This is no time to be looking for a missing girl..." It isn't? I know we know the missing girl and the murderer are one in the same (Li'l Lucy), but the police don't. Isn't "crazy, child murder on the loose" a great time to be looking for missing kids? If only to use them as bait, even. One officer stops as if he's found Lucy off to the side of his peripheral vision, and Lucy raises a vector. But, it's science-fiction, so no one really has peripheral vision. He was only stopping to note the rain was started up again, and they walk off.

Li'l Lucy sits in the rain and Li'l Kouta appears from nowhere to place a ski cap on Lucy's head. "If you don't like those horns, then just keep them hidden." I guess murder was a little drastic. The two go to sit in a mountain-side shrine to get out of the rain. Li'l Kouta tells Li'l Lucy that he happened upon her after sketching a landscape in his sketchpad, and, well, she was looking all sad and stuff. Then when he found out she liked the music box melody, and oh, it was like it was meant to be! The two listen to the music box for a while in silence. Again.

Out in town, Li'l Kouta tells Li'l Lucy they'll play again and runs home. Li'l Lucy actually looks a little happy for once. But that can't last, so two more police officers ride up on bicycles and tell her to go home because it's dangerous outside this late. "And hey, you wouldn't happen to know the whereabouts of a little girl who looks just like you and is suspected of being involved in that child killing, would you? Nah. Go on home unescorted." As Li'l Lucy walks off, she realizes that if the police know there was another murder, then they've found the last place she was staying, and can't go back. She comes to a house with a happy family talking and playing inside. It physically hurts her to hear it. The mother inside the house tells the kids to behave and wait for their father to come home.

Cut to: Father's home! He notes that it's quiet and dark inside the house, possibly because his family's been murdered. Then he sees Li'l Lucy, shadowed in the hallway and assumes it's his daughter. He starts to ask why it's so dark inside, but --

-- his head falls off. The camera pans down to show the mother dead on the floor. "This will stop the noise for now," adorable Li'l Lucy says to the bodies.

Behatted Li'l Lucy stands in the woods, waiting for Li'l Kouta, and mentions that it's 'been three days,' presumably, since she's last seen him. Just as she starts to doubt he'll ever come back, we hear gasps as Li'l Kouta jogs up the path. Li'l Lucy's happy to see him, until he tells her that he came by to tell her goodbye, but they should play all day. Li'l Lucy seems confused by this human word... 'play' is it? The two start the day off with a bus ride. Inside, Li'l Kouta has to explain what zoos are. "I really like looking at strange animals," he says. Oops.

The two walk through the zoo hand-in-hand, again, unescorted while a murderer is running around killing children and families. As Li'l Kouta tries to decode the zoo directory, Li'l Lucy overhears a couple talk about a new murder. She gets a little annoyed upon hearing this, and very matter-of-factly, voice-overs, "I need to kill someone again and find a place to hide." Realizing that she just calmly thought about homicide as a normal part of her day, Li'l Lucy freaks out, retreating into a dream world. Apparently, the same one Yuka visited in Episode 4, because the mannequins are back, this time with glowing, blue eyes. She asks herself why she's been killing, and she responds to herself, "Because you like killing people." There's some back and forth between herself and she tries to reason with the voices, embodied by Li'l Lucy doppelgangers wrapped up like mummies, but Li'l Lucy finally snaps out of it. She tells Li'l Kouta that she spaced out due to the heat, and he suggests they find a cooler place. If they were older, and this was a slightly different media, the muted porn-guitars would kick in right here.

They find a stream... somewhere, and the two start splashing each other almost immediately. After a short, yet spirited water battle, the two sit in the sun, back to back and naked, letting their clothes dry off. Lucy turns to Li'l Kouta and tells him that today was the most fun she's ever had. She even starts to tear up. He tells her that she must be exaggerating, but she responds, "I'll never forget about being with you today," and puts her head on his shoulder. It's actually kind of sweet. However, being the show that this is, you have to know that the happier and sweeter a scene is, it only means more badness will come later.

On the bus ride home, Li'l Lucy asks about a festival Li'l Kouta is going to tomorrow. After the festival, he's headed back home, so it would be the last time the two could meet up. But, Li'l Kouta already promised to go with his cousin, which for some reason means no one else can go with them, I guess. She tries asking him if his cousin is a girl, getting a little jealous, but is interrupted by a bump in the road. Too embarrassed to ask the questions again, the voices fill in for Li'l Kouta. They tell Li'l Lucy that he's probably going with a girl. and imply that it's because he loves someone else. As she starts feeling sorry for herself, the voices add, "If you want to stop these feelings, all you have to do is kill." She insists that she'd never be able to kill Kouta, but as she comes out of her hallucinatory state, she's on top of Li'l Kouta, both hands wrapped around his throat. She stops, of course, and while still confused, Li'l Lucy asks Li'l Kouta, "If I ever kill a lot of people... will you kill me?" Reasonable question from a little girl. Li'l Kouta just sort of stares at her, and the bus driver apparently didn't notice that one of the only two passengers on the bus almost killed the other, because the bus doesn't even slow down.

The two stand on some steps watching the ocean, the attempted murder forgotten. Li'l Lucy starts to sing the melody from the music box, and Li'l Kouta joins in. The two look back at the ocean and the light from the setting sun just barely makes it into frame. I'm not sure if it's the shot itself, or the fact that song has been engraved in my skull as that creepy song Lucy sings in the first episode, but this scene is both beautiful and creepy as all fuckout.

A street light kicks in overhead as the two say their goodbyes. Li'l Kouta says that he'll be back next year and that they should get together again. Li'l Lucy finally forces out the questions again, asking if Li'l Kouta's cousin is a boy or a girl. He tells her his cousin is a boy, understanding what's going on for one of the few times in the series, because we should all know the cousin he's meeting is Yuka. She tells him that she'll come see him off at the train station, and before he can protest, she runs off. To kill, most likely.

The next day, Li'l Lucy stands over the grave of Puppy and tells him that she finally met a person she can confide in. More to the point, if she sees him before he leaves, she'll tell him how she really feels about him. Get ready for badness.

At the festival, she finds Li'l Kouta, but before she can work up the nerve to talk to him, Li'l Yuka comes in and starts crying. She doesn't want Li'l Kouta to leave, either. Seeing that his cousin is really a girl, and that Li'l Kouta is comforting her, Li'l Lucy starts to tear up again. As she's staring at the cousins, a drunk bumps into her, knocking her to the ground. Laying in the dirt, she says aloud, "He already had someone he liked." The voices produce a Kouta clone to tell Li'l Lucy, "There's no way I would like a girl with such weird horns." He's only into normal-horned girls. She asks him why he was being nice to her, and he tells her again, "I like looking at strange looking animals." She reels back, having a physical reaction to his words. Looking back up, she sees Headless Li'l Kouta taunting her. Even Dead Puppy falls from the Heavens in front of her and bleeds all over the dream world's floor. Random Girl shows up, not only to taunt, but to show off the gaping wound in her face that Li'l Lucy had given her. Feeling really overwhelmed, Li'l Lucy turns to vomit. I hope she remembers to crack a window in the dream world. One of the Li'l Lucy doppelgangers walks in and tries to comfort her. She tells herself that she's only going to keep feeling like this until she admits she's right, "This world is not a world that I should be in. Change the world... into my world."

Back in the real world, another drunk walks up to Li'l Lucy and complains that she's in his way. Onlookers start to gather to look at the unconscious girl to ask what's wrong with her, but without really helping. She stand up, and says goodbye to Kouta. The drunk demands she move, and the hat Li'l Kouta gave her comes off. Not unlike Clark Kent taking off his glasses. Everyone in the crowd around Li'l Lucy is cut in half, with one swift movement of a vector. Everyone else nearby starts to scream and run off, thinking a bomb just went off. Li'l Lucy shows no emotion as she walks off towards where she saw Li'l Kouta and Yuka. A woman, noticing Li'l Lucy is covered in blood, stops to ask if she's okay. Then her head falls off. She's out to kill everyone. Kanae, Kouta's sister, is hiding just out of Lucy's sight.

We cut to the train station later that night, where Kanae is trying to convince her family that a little girl with horns was responsible for all the blood and screaming at the festival. Li'l Yuka stands close to Li'l Kouta during the explanation, clearly believing at least a little bit of the story. Nearby, Li'l Lucy is watching. With a voice-overed, "Liar!" we're thrust back to present day. Lucy wakes up to hear Yuka and Kouta talking about rice porridge. Mmm. We zoom in slightly on Yuka. Obviously, the main target of Lucy's rage, at the moment. Could be a can of Red Bull in a second. As long as Lucy's mad at something, she's happy.

Outside, Nana and Mayu have arrived back at Hotel Runaway. Nana's sure Lucy is back and notes that it's too quiet. Lucy may have already killed the cousins. Mayu doesn't like that idea, and runs for the door before Nana can stop her. Before she can get to the door, Lucy slides it open. She gives Nana the death stare and we cut to the end credits.

If I can ramble on for a moment, one of the things that really bothers me about fiction villains (and for the sake of argument, I'm considering Lucy a villain), is that they are often just 'the bad guy.' Big handlebar moustache and a maniacal laugh, tying any dame he sees to railroad tracks. They often serve no purpose but to be against the main character. But Lucy is very different. She's a 'true' villain; you can empathize with her on certain levels. Maybe not the severing heads level, but the parts about feeling ostracized for something she can't help, feeling powerless, alone. Twisted as her motivations might be, they're there, and they have a very basic theme to them. A villain can never just be the bad guy; they have to be humanized in order for them to feel real. In order to make them truly terrifying. This episode and the last are here to humanize Lucy and make you care for someone who can kill a dozen people with batting an eye. And, as far as I'm concerned, they did an excellent job.

Elfen Lied: Episode 8

2007-11-30T01:07:00.001-05:00

Nyuu is thrown back into some decorative stuff they keep around at Hotel Runaway for fight scenes. Yuka runs to Nyuu's aid (people run to her aid a lot in this episode), even though Nyuu cries out for Kouta. Nana yells at Nyuu to stop playing, "'Cause things won't go like last time!" Mayu joins Yuka, and Nana just doesn't understand how bursting into someone's home and throwing them across the room could be considered offensive. As she ponders, Kouta spins Nana around and smacks her hard. He's a little protective of his hos. Nobody understands why anybody is doing anything, and no one's talking about it. Except for Mayu who starts apologizing for everything that's ever happened. Nana insists that "Lucy" is the bad person here and can't understand why everyone's helping her. Nana's just trying to be a good girl. If I didn't make jokes, I'd just cry into my keyboard. Off-screen, Nyuu is unconscious and Kouta goes over to help Yuka. Nana runs off in a cloud of title screens:

Nana cries and talks to herself outside, on the steps. She turns when she hears Mayu running after her. She's brought Nana her purse. Nana tries to run off again, insisting that she hates them all because they're trying to make her the bad guy. When she tries to storm off further, Mayu grabs one of Nana's arms, which promptly pops. The dog watches on in... nothing, really. It's a fucking dog.

Some time later, somewhere else, Nana and Mayu sit to be in denial about stuff together. Mayu asks if Nana isn't the bad one, "suddenly doing that to Nyuu." Nana goes, "Nuh-uh!" Then -- it's a helicopter! That's how scene transitions tend to work in this show.

The helicopter lands outside Diclonius HQ and Kak Jr.'s assistant steps off in a re-introduction that lasts far too long. She's lead down a hallway by Nana's father's assistant. I'm great with names. In short: she was border-line kidnapped and hasn't showered in a few days. She's carrying a bag, which we soon find out, is holding her former boss' severed head, and she's there to deliver it to his father. See? He even has his tongue sticking out in typical, comedic fashion so you know he's dead:
The assistant more-or-less asks Kak Sr., "Yeah, I can go now, right?" She's very nonchalant about delivering severed heads to family members. I'm surprised she doesn't ask for a tip. Kak pulls out a gun. So, no, you can't go. Since Assistant Nonchalant has seen Kak Jr.'s horns, Kak Sr. can't allow her to go around blabbing about it. She gets the shaky, anime eye, then tries to run away, but were hear a shot and --

Back with Mayu and Nana, Nana has apparently told Mayu about all the cool stuff that Lucy did in episode one. But Mayu has only been formally introduced to Nyuu; she doesn't believe Nyuu could've done anything that awesome. To prove that her arms and legs don't exist anymore, Nana jumps up and pops off an arm. She goes in to try and explain the vectors by floating two of them out around Mayu's head, but since only the audience can see them, it doesn't really do anything. Mayu's eyes are big and what-the-fucky, I'd guess from the arm popping off. Which makes her stupid considering that's now the third time she's seen Nana remove an appendage that night. Mayu makes clear her confusion and worry to Nana, asking, "What?" Nana explains that she'll show Mayu 'what' and gets a dead look in her eyes as she pulls back a vector. Mayu stares in... stupidness, and Wanta the dog barks at the writers for making such an obvious fake-out. Mayu'll be fine. Just --

Assistant Nonchalant (AN) is shocked, SHOCKED, that the man holding a gun and standing over his dead son's severed head actually shot her. Director Kak tells her that he'll stop shooting her if she tells him who else saw his son's horns. She says that there was someone else there, but she was in shock and can't even remember his face. He lets AN fall to the floor saying, "That's too bad." Laying in her own blood, NA ads that the person who was there was looking for a girl the professor took in. This piques Kak's interest. NA gasps and gives off a good death-stare. But, it's just another bad fake-out, as the director orders a medical team to his office. NA looks up, hopeful and perky, "Does this mean... you're going to save me?" He is. However, only so she can take his son's place. He turns his son's head around to face NA and the audience.

The head of a statue slides to the ground, in an actual attempt at juxtaposition between scenes. Nana, I'm sure at the last second, decided to mutilate the statue instead of Mayu. It finally clicks for Mayu that what Nana and Bando have been saying are true; it wasn't just a coincidence that these two people had the same exact story about Nyuu/Lucy. After bearing her soul, Nana freaks out a little, remembering that Papa told her to keep that all a secret. Mayu interrupts Nana to say that there's nothing bad about Nyuu. In fact, she's stupid innocent. Nana reluctantly agrees that 'Nyuu' isn't the violently cool person she knows, but that she's clearly Lucy. She's horribly confused.

At Hotel Runaway, Kouta and Yuka have put Nyuu to bed and are watching over her. Nyuu's suddenly come down with a fever for reasons that aren't all that apparent. As they talk about what to do, Lucy wakes up. For the moment, she looks at Kouta and fights back the tears.

Back at Elsewhere, Nana feels that something bad has just happened. "She woke up..."

Diclonius HQ. The director and Papa recap the audience about stuff we don't care about for a few seconds. Then, the director drops a few bombshells: First, he was using his son's research to get a hand on the virus that causes Diclonius-ism, and not the cure. Second, he knows Papa let Nana escape. Third, the director is, "God's proxy!" God could always more proxies. So, to get Lucy back and terminate 'Number 7,' the director authorizes use of Number 35. No doubt another Diclonius. Fun stuff.

At the hotel, Lucy stands up and stumbles out of the room, against Kouta's sort of protest. Lucy mumbles to herself that she 'blacked out' again, which I take to mean she doesn't remember what happens when she's Nyuu. Out in the hallway, Lucy says, "I'm going to kill that stupid girl," and promptly falls over. Kouta runs to her rescue saying, "You're the stupid one here." Completely ignoring her murderous intent. Lucy looks at Kouta with her blushing face.

The cousins have put Lucy back in bed and Yuka goes off to her place for some medicine. Kouta watches over Lucy, neither all too sure what to say. As Lucy starts to pass out again, she dreams/hallucinates of her backstory.

Wavy lines, wavy lines...

Li'l Lucy is in a bunk bed with a woman standing over her. The woman walks out of the room and off-screen to tell whoever's out there that, "That kid has a fever again. I wish she'd stop doing that. I had a date tonight..." Total love. As Mother of the Year bad-mouths 'that kid' some more, Li'l Lucy decides to go for a walk. Out on a forest path, she falls face-down in the dirt, where a puppy comes to help. She tells the puppy that she's okay, really. She's not lonely or nothin'! Then she cries.

At school, Li'l Lucy is called out by three boys. They've poured milk all over her bag, and when she doesn't respond with violence, they push her over. I guess this is the Future Violent Criminals Club. As she's on the floor, they taunt her more and start dancing like special ed students just before the pizza party. A random girl comes to help Li'l Lucy, but Lucy isn't really looking for help. "All the children here are miserable," Li'l Lucy says. "Because, when you're miserable... You need something that's even more miserable than yourself." I like Li'l Lucy. If she had a newsletter I'd sign up in a second. Random Girl helps Li'l Lucy clean off her bag and extends a hand of friendship. Being that this is a flashback and there are only a few minutes left in the episode, Random Girl is probably a bitch.

That night, Li'l Lucy sneaks out again, this time to feed Puppy a loaf of bread. As Puppy of Imminent Doom eats, she tells him that if he weren't around, she wouldn't be able to take it. After dinner, she tells the puppy to never go towards the school, because people suck. But does the puppy listen? No, he's a dog.

We cut to a dream Li'l Lucy is having. She's alone in darkness cursing humanity - not unlike most of my dreams - and starts to reach her arms out towards a bright light. As she does, vectors shoot up from the ground. She wakes up in fear or pain and looks around to see handprints covering the walls of her room.

Then, feeling like maybe Random Girl could be a friend, Li'l Lucy tells her about Puppy, and even brings her out to the path to feed him. Random Girl promises to never tell anyone about the puppy. So, of course, the very next scene has the bullies showing up in class, just the four kids in the room for some reason, with Puppy in tow. For the first time, Li'l Lucy is visibly pissed. The first thing that ever showed her any compassion is in danger. The bullies get excited that she's finally fighting back and demand she cry. Lucy kicks a bully, who turns to another and tells him to beat up the dog. Without missing a beat, the other kid kicks the puppy into a wall. It's pretty horrific. I mean, yeah, Lucy exploded a few hearts out of guys, but this was a puppy! The lead bully pontificates that it's much more effective to indirectly attack Li'l Lucy. Oh, the things you learn in school. He then picks up a vase and beats the dog to death with it. ... yeah. Li'l Lucy looks on in horror as Random Girl runs in to say the bullies are going too far. In an instant, Li'l Lucy lost both of her friends. The bully starts to get up, noting that the puppy sure seemed to die quickly. Li'l Lucy voice-overs her previous thoughts: "Because, when you're miserable... You need something that's even more miserable than yourself." Then the bully holding her back explodes, painting the room a nice shade of red. This is quickly followed by the exploding of the other kids, including Random Girl.

Li'l Lucy buries Puppy out by the path and cries. She grabs her horns as if she's trying to pry them off, just as she hears someone behind her drop a music box. She looks back to see Li'l Kouta standing behind her...

So, the moral of the story is that it's better to live alone and afraid, because if you try to make friends, someone will kill your puppy.

Bleach 140 and 141

2007-11-06T21:59:00.000-05:00

Has it been that long? Perhaps we will review not one, but two episodes in this one entry. So as to spare you the pain of watching them for yourselves. Because we know you don’t.

Bleach 140

So if you’ve been reading you know that the shinigami are busy fighting some Espada, and it’s not going so well. Urahara just manages to avoid the energy blast from the spaced-out Wonderwice. The kid stares at his hand, and so would I if my hand could fire purple bolts at my friends and enemies. Urahara asks what it is, but doesn’t get an answer because everything goes all red behind him and he falls to the earth in pain. Yami appears behind him and explains (naturally) that Wonderwice just fired some super fast Cero thing. Not quite as powerful as the full version, but twenty (gasp!) times faster. I’m glad they tell me that’s twenty times faster. It makes me gasp in awe. Anyway, Yami starts laughing and firing off his little blasts in rapid succession at Urahara and calls him a “sandal wearing bastard.”

Luppi looks on in disgust. He turns back toward Rangiku, who he’s managed to catch again. She notes that he talks too much, and that grosses her out. Luppi looks like he’s about to abuse her, but, suddenly, half of his big white tentacle things become icy and frozen. He turns around and sees Captain Hitsugaya! The little shinigami tells the Espada that his zanpaktou is the most powerful ice-based sword, and that as long as there’s water around it was reform itself again and again. That seems pretty bad for Luppi, because the Earth’s atmosphere is filled with water! A bunch of giant ice columns appear around Luppi and come crashing in on him. He screams like a little girl Espada.

Yami scoffs some and prepares to keep firing at Urahara, but that wily shop owner appears behind him! Yami asks how he’s still alive and fires another bolt at him. It’s a direct hit! But, no! Urahara appears right behind him (again) and delivers a powerful blast of his own. Urahara explains (people like explaining on this show) by inflating some weird balloon doll Urahara-shaped thing. It’s a decoy, to confuse one’s enemy. Urahara switched places with the doll and let Yami fire away at it. Yami fires off another blast, but Urahara completely blocks it. Turns out the attack just isn’t effective against him anymore. He prepares to whup Yami’s ass.

Meanwhile, Ichigo is being kicked around by Grimmjaw. He’s on the ground, panting and sweating. His mask won’t hold together, so he’s completely useless. Grimmjaw does a flying kick and blows him away again. He impales Ichigo’s forearm with his sword and readies up a big Cero to fire at his brain. Just then, however, ice envelopes his hand. It’s Rukia! Commercial break!

We return from happy commercial hand, and there’s Rukia again. She fires off her White Ripple and freezes Grimmjaw in a big block of ice. She runs up to Ichigo and starts yanking on the sword stuck in his forearm. It’s a tender moment (almost), but Grimmjaw bursts out of his ice prison and grabs her head. He was clearly unimpressed. He’s going to Cero her brain now, but another energy blasts suddenly interrupts him. What could this be?!

It’s Shinji, the helpful Vizard. You remember him, right? He was helping to train Ichigo with his new powers? Turns out Shinji just can’t avoid a good rumble, even if he doesn’t want to get involved in shinigami matters. Weird clown music starts. Grimmjaw flies to attack, but Shinji avoids him completely. They fight for a few moments, until Shinji puts on his Hollow mask. Even weirder music starts up. Grimmjaw is surprised, and Shinji pushes him away before pressing the attack. Turns out he’s pretty good. He loads up a huge Cero and fires it at Grimmjaw. Grimmjaw deflects some of it by firing off his own little Cero quickly, but he’s still quite injured.

Shinji comes to look at him. Grimmjaw jumps up to attack, but he doesn’t complete the maneuver, for at that instant Ulquiorra appears. He announces that the mission is accomplished. Negation things appear all around the Espada and pull them back toward Hueco Mundo (cue Spanish guitar music). Even Luppi gets yanked back, because he survived Captain Hitsugaya’s attack. He vows to crush the little shinigami, and I don’t think that Espada’s so cool anymore. What an ass. Urahara is pissed that he didn’t get to kill Yami. Everyone is quite unhappy, to be honest.

Ulquiorra stares at Ichigo and notes that he’s at the limit of his power and makes some ominous statements about the future.

Bleach 141

I have to admit that I really like the present opening. Good song, good opening graphics. Just hits the right mood. I hope that the next opening doesn’t suck.

So into the episode. Orihime is in her home writing out practical advice, such as where to find the towels and when to put out the garbage. She looks at a weird bracelet on her wrist and starts remembering things, namely Ulquiorra giving her said bracelet. The bracelet hides her from everyone and everything, lets the Espada track her, and she can pass through physical objects with it. Ulquiorra gives Orihime twelve hours to say goodbye to one person, and one person only. End flashback. Orihime looks sad and stands up and walks away. We zoom in on the notebook in which she’s been writing; it’s empty. Guess even her penmanship is hidden whilst she wears the bracelet.

We cut away to a filler scene. The shinigami from the last episode are being bandaged and tended to by Urahara’s crew. There’s much yelling and running around. Captain Hitsugaya watches Urahara fume about something. The captain realizes that Soul Society better step up its preparations for the upcoming battle royale with Aizen’s folks.

Back to Orihime. She’s walking down the street and her big breasts bump into someone. She starts apologizing, but the guy doesn’t hear her, or even see her. “I walked into some breasts,” he says, “but where are they? WHERE?!” Orihime is confused and wanders over to a store window. She has no reflection. No one can detect her, and she puts her hand through the glass to see if she can indeed pass through physical objects. Next we see her at her school, where she’s staring at Ichigo’s desk. She hears some people in the hallway and starts to run, because she’s apparently forgotten that no one can see her, but nonetheless manages to knock over a desk before hiding under the teacher’s big desk. Two of her classmates, Asano and that other guy, come into the room. They note the overturned desk and muse on how so many of their classmates are missing from school.

Orihime wanders outside and sits under a tree and thinks about her best friend, Tatsuki. She runs to find her in line for karate practice. Some irresponsible kids behind Orihime suddenly kick a ball through her. The ball lands near Tatsuki, and she stares at it, and in Orihime’s direction, but she of course can’t see her. Tatsuki runs off and Orhime looks very sad, but she doesn’t say goodbye to her. She goes to stand on a pier and looks at the moonlit water rippling below her.

We next find Rukia sitting on the floor of a room. She can’t reach Orihime on her special shinigami phone. How many minutes does that plan have? Rukia closes the phone and turns to look at Ichigo on a bed next to her. She thinks back (flashback!) to a bunch of Vizard, one of whom, Hacchi, the big guy with pink hair, has just healed Ichigo’s injuries. The boy needs to rest now, he says, and Rukia stares the ground. Back in the house, Rukia stares at Ichigo some more. She decides to go find Orihime, but Ichigo’s little sisters suddenly appear. They convince her stay and eat with them. Yuzu has drawn Rukia’s face on the rice, or macaroni and cheese, whatever it is. Aren’t kids cute?

Later, we find Rukia washing the dishes. She runs into Ichigo’s father and apologizes again for getting Ichigo involved with delinquents and ruffians (she must have told him that a bunch of bullies beat Ichigo up). She leaves the house, but not before Ichigo’s dad offers some fatherly advice. This scene doesn't really add anything to the show.

Back with Ichigo, all the food is eaten, and his little sisters are asleep on the floor next to him. The curtain rustles in the wind, and Orihime walks through the fabric to join them. She’s come to say goodbye to Ichigo, but stops to notice Yuzu and Karin asleep nearby. Orihime suddenly realizes that she’s in Ichigo’s room and starts blushing. She thinks to herself that the room smells like him. She reaches down to take his hand. The show is veering into uncomfortable emotional territory here, and I’m not quite sure what to think.

She leans over Ichigo, moving in for that kiss she wants to give him. But she can’t do it. She starts crying and pulls away. Orihime waxes poetic, wishing that she’d had five lives to live, so that she could have eaten five lifetime’s worth of food, and had five careers. And so that she could have fallen in love with the same person five time. That person, of course, being Ichigo. She doesn’t say this, of course. We have to realize it for ourselves, but I’m sure that some of you won’t get it, so that’s why I’m telling you.

So now things make a little bit of sense, with the overall series, particularly Orihime's insane desire to help Ichigo and fight alongside him when she’s obviously weak and undertrained. Orihime is crazy, but, from what I’ve determined through research and observation, love makes people crazy. She just wants to be with Ichigo. I feel a twinge of regret for having mocked Orihime so much these past few years (years?!), but the twinge turns out to be indigestion and I’m okay again.

We look back at Orihime’s notebook. We can see that she’s written “Goodbye halcyon days.”

Bleach 139

2007-09-18T22:11:00.001-05:00

In this very special episode, our intrepid cast of humans and shinigami face off against the squad of Espada who have invaded the real world. Ichigo puts on his Hollow mask, and Grimmjaw raises his eyebrows quite simply because it’s an awesome-looking mask and Grimmjaw is upset that he doesn’t have one. Ichigo immediately attacks, Grimmjaw blocks, but Ichigo fires off his black Getsuga Tenshou at point-blank range. It’s the end for Grimmjaw, I’m sure!

Meanwhile, Captain Hitsugaya has turned Yammy into a Yammy-sicle, but the Espada just breaks out of the ice hunk. Yumichika is fighting Lupi, but getting thrown about with great vigor. Lupi states that he can’t fight him one-on-one, and tells Ikkaku to come help his buddy. Ikkaku, being macho, has no intention whatsoever of helping. Lupi merely tells Yammy to let him fight Hitsugaya as well, because he’s going to take on all four shinigami at once, and he begins to pull out his sword. Egads! What does this mean?

Hitsugaya knows, and he flies at Lupi and releases his bankai at the same time, hoping to finish Lupi off quickly, but Lupi releases his zanpaktou anyway. A blast of wind blows Hitsugaya away, and then a huge white tentacle comes out of nowhere and pushes the shinigami into the distance. The captain does manage to block the big tentacle and scoffs a bit at Lupi. Some more dust blows away, and we all can see that Lupi has not just one, not just two, but eight tentacles, and they all attack Hitsugaya at once and he falls to the earth, at the same time cursing his fate to be hit by eight huge pasty white tentacles: a fate worse than death. Lupi looks at the rest of the shinigami with some malice in his eyes.

While all this is transpiring, Rukia arrives back in the real world (recall that she was “training” with Orihime back in Soul Society). She runs into the Urahara shop and we all talk happily with Renji for a few minutes. This is just to remind us that Urahara promised to go out and fight, too.

Back to Ichigo, and we see his initial attack dissipating. Grimmjaw is left winded and bloody in its wake, but still standing. Ichigo stands there looking at him for a few seconds (doesn’t he only has eleven seconds in which to use his mask?) and fires off another Getsuga Tenshou. Grimmjaw blocks this one, as well, but Ichigo appears right behind him and fires off one more. Grimmjaw is caught between the two in a nice black explosion of spirit power. He’s falling toward the earth and Ichigo flies off after him; Grimmjaw wakes up and fires off a massive red cero and then we get a nice commercial break. Time to heat up some noodles and trade some commodities.

Ichigo cuts through the cero and he and Grimmjaw trade sword blows for a bit, yelling and grunting all the while. Ichigo gets cocky and tells Grimmjaw that’s he’s finished and prepares for the killing blow, when, you know, his mask breaks. Grimmjaw is taken aback, but then smiles (he has a a really nice smile), and proceeds to kick Ichigo’s ass.

In the park, or the forest, whatever, Lupi is twirling his tentacles about like a pinwheel and beating up the three shinigami (Ikkaku, Yumichika, and Rangiku, remember). Yammy, bored, is watching, and Wonderwice is trying to catch a dragonfly. He’s pretty cool. Lupi catches the three shinigami in his tentacles and brings Rangiku in close, noting that she’s pretty sexy. Now, this is exactly what I would do, because her breasts are pressed up over the tentacles and glistening with sweat. Fortunately, this isn’t hentai (you know, with tentacles and stuff), and Lupi merely pops some spikes out of another tentacle and threatens to skewer Rangiku but good. That’s when a red bolt shoots along the ground and up and slices the offending tentacles right off of Lupi’s body. Urahara approaches in his own particular style, which is pretty casually.

Finally, we return to Orihime. She’s finally running back toward the real world. Two nameless shinigami are escorting her, and she’s thinking about how she’ll really be able to help everyone fight this time. (No, she won’t!) An ominous voice cuts through the darkness and the air opens. Ulquiorra appears.

Meanwhile, as Urahara is introducing himself in the proper anime manner, Wonderwice suddenly grabs for him from behind. Now, I’m not sure if this is an actual attack, or if the kid just likes Urahara’s hat, but Urahara really reacts badly, firing off another red bolt at Wonderwice. Urahara notes that he’s a strange one, and Wonderwice suddenly holds up his hand, crackling with raw spirit energy (much like my own hand), and everything suddenly blows up. Again.

In the dark tunnel with Orihime, Ulquiorra blasts his guards to pieces. She begins to heal them and Ulquiorra watches, impressed. He tells Orihime to come with him. Aizen wants her power. I want some ice cream.

Genocyber: Stage 1: A New Lifeform: Part 1

2007-09-12T00:57:00.000-05:00

Okay, here goes. I snagged this OVA after hearing it was a 'cult' favorite and had gore compared to Elfen Lied. I'm honestly not sure I can recap what goes on in this show, because, well... there are scenes in this series that I'd have to compare to being in a car wreck: it's not until you're outside of the car and the ambulance is pulling up that you realize something has just happened, but holy shit did something just happen. You blacked out for a second when the airbag hit you, your shoulder hurts for some reason, someone in the distance is crying, that might be blood in your mouth, but when asked about what happened, you just stare blankly until someone helps you back up. Of course, there are also scene comparable to driving from Toledo, Ohio to Chicago, Illinois in one, uneventful stretch. So, don't get your hopes up just yet.

We start off with an old video being recorded in a lab. A doctor explains that they've hooked up a human subject to a PSI-scanner. The scanner shows that there are 'images' and 'shadows' displayed. "This is known as the 'mind shadow'. Within this shadow, lies a still unexplored universe." He says that what we call 'life force' blows like a wind through these shadows. He calls this wind, "Vajura." He's built this big device that'll amplify the Vajura to 'near infinity.' Tanya, some girl, is inside it now, about to get her Vajura blown up. Yeah, I thought I'd come up with a decent joke for that, too. Mr. Doctor Man explains that increasing the Vajura will give birth to, "a hitherto hidden power of unbelievable proportions," sounding a lot like someone about to do something stupid for their own selfish reasons. "From that inner cosmos of creation and annihilation will come the child." A Hilton sister? "My child... Genocyber!" Oh. So, not as bad?

Credits: Hong Kong in still-frame glory. Little bit in, we hear a reporter announce that the "Council of Advanced Nations" has ended individual national armies. Evidently, the armies of the advanced nations pooled their armies together into the United Nations' Troops. Which sounds more like a football team. "Ladies and gentlemen... here are your United Nations' Troops!" If 'council of advanced nations' didn't tip you off, this show takes place in the future. Well, future relative to 1993. It's the 'early 21st century.'

In a... fenced in pile of ruble, a young boy is being pushed around by a rowdy teen while three others watch on. The boys are part of some underworldly nogoodnik association, and the youngest member didn't pull in enough money. So, he gets the shit knocked out of him and kicked out of the UNA. He lies in the rubble, unconscious, with visions of a girl who appears to be in the video for Take On Me by Ah-Ha. He wakes up to find himself elsewhere, near the girl from his vision who's standing over what looks like a severed arm holding a pipe. A friendship is born.

As a car holding two new characters drive down an empty road (Future Hong Kong has zero traffic, apparently), the news reporter comes back to tell us that the Council president wants to base the Troops in orbit. 'Cause that's where you want your army personnel incase they need to be sent out right away on some relief mission: in space. Her colleague and/or guest, exposits that not all armies have been drafted into the Troops. He starts to tell us about certain 'corporations' that hold weaponry, when we're taken to a crime scene where a man lies face down on the ground, missing one arm. I'm sure completely unrelated to the last scene.

The dead guy worked at the Kyuryu Science Institute, which angers our new, yet-to-be-named policeman character. So, he's on his way to the KSI to try and get some answers from an 'old friend' he has working there. On his way, the reporter's colleague/guest continues his talk from the day before, right where he left off. The corporation he was about to name just so happens to be the Kyuryu Group, a company that specializes in weapon development. Not really an army, just well stocked incase of zombie uprisings. But, hey, the plot needs thickening.

Inside KSI, a boy reads characters off a note being covered by a research assistant. The guy in charge, Kenneth Reed, tells a worker bee to move the boy to 'level-three' (Water World) just as he gets a call from the lobby. Davey, our policeman friend, is waiting to see him. As he goes to meet him, we're thrown to a scene in a hallway. A man screams before bursting out of a room and falling to his knees. A girl follows, produces a tennis ball she was holding behind her back, levitates it, then starts to go into the air herself. KSI studies that fun kind of science that doesn't need to be bogged down by facts or reality. A woman wearing a red cape walks in from nowhere and stares the kid down, who's looking quite smug for whatever she just did to that guy. With just a rise of the eyelids, Red makes the girl coil in disgust. The tennis ball bursts open revealing red tendrils, then we share the girl's nightmarish vision that's being pumped into her head:
And the video is all wavy and dreamy like that. Sort of like too many frames of animation were squeezed in and ran slightly out of sequence. We come out of the vision to see the tennis ball is just fine, the tendrils being part of the vision, but the girl has gone into some sort of catatonic state and collapses to the floor. Red calmly walks by her and out of the shot. I use to be on hand for parent teacher conferences like that when I was little.

In Reed's office, we learn that it was 14 years ago that Dr. Morgan, presumably the man in the intro video, was lost during an 'accident,' presumably the whole Vajura thing. Davey insists that if Reed has started up Morgan's "insane" research, he'll find a way to shut it down. Reed claims ignorance, and as Davey starts to gear up the threats, Red (real name, Diana) throws open the door and gives Davey a waking nightmare of his own. Reed slaps her to the ground to make her stop, then orders the cops to leave and never come back.

Once alone, Diana explains to the audience and Reed, her father, that, "Elaine removed her Vajura restraint necklace," resulting in her escape. And without Elaine, Reed cannot complete his research which he knows nothing about. As they talk on, we dissolve to a new location. The ex-UNA boy is in an abandoned building with Elaine, the girl who found him earlier. As he eats unidentifiable foodstuffs from a bag, Elaine pounces the ground next to him like an animal and takes some food for herself. Diana and Reed's conversation continues in some lab, where Diana is getting some sort of treatment. Her stomach is cut open to reveal icky things that look more mechanical than biological. Reed says that no one can see the true power of Vajura and Diana hesitates before speaking - yes, stomach open, she's still awake. "Are you turning against me after I saved your life?!" Reed shouts, then grabs hold of something inside Diana's stomach. Squirm. She screams then says she's very grateful for everything the doctor's done for her. As they talk, you can hear metal or plastic parts being moved around inside her.

At a restaurant, three new people are going over their 'next target.' One of them looks at pictures of Elaine looking pretty pissed off. "The file they sent over says her power's pretty dangerous stuff," The One Guy says. The Busty Redhead counters, "Like we've never had to take down an esper before?" After The Fat One agrees that there shouldn't be any problems, Redhead adds, "She can be minus an arm or a leg, just as long as she's alive." I have a good feeling about these guys. I think they'll go far.

Elaine wakes up from a dream I'm not sure how to describe as Boy returns home with some food. They seem happy to see each other. On the roof, Elaine levitates and peels an orange with her mind, before flying the whole damned thing into Boy's mouth. Instead of choking and dying, Boy eats it and smiles big. At no point does he take the supernatural citrus peeling as a sign of weirdness. If you're ever going about your day and you meet an anime character who can flay fruit with her mind, freak out right away. No good will come of that.

We pull back slowly from the rooftop and hear Diana say, "Elaine's currently in a peaceful mindset. She hasn't been this stable since she escaped." She is now suited in a full mechanical outfit and is reporting to her father who's at a control panel in another room. Reed says that now is the best chance to go after her, prompting Diana to ask, "Do I exist just to control Elaine when she goes wild?" "That machine was built because only you can control Elaine's Vajura," he replies. Um... okay. Diana goes on to say that Elaine doesn't know how to control her power, making her dangerous, and it's pretty clear that she wants Elaine dead. Not so much because she'll kill everything and everyone, but because Diana wants to be Daddy's little girl. But just as she's getting to that, a tube connected to her neck injects her with something. "Start dealing with this!" Reed yells, not really wanting to deal with things himself. We're then treated to mecha legs being screwed onto a mecha hip, mecha arms being fastened to a mecha torso, and a mecha head being shiny. It's all very 80's Japanimationy. Even has the crosspatched, fake computer background.

Back to the thoroughly interesting detective storyline. Davey, somehow, managed to find some footage of Elaine in an outtake reel from a TV show that was being filmed the other day. I'll buy the girl who prepare food with her mind, I'll buy the woman who can put horrible visions into your head, I'll even buy Genocyber as a title... but a detective that dedicated to his job? I hereby suspend my belief. How did he even start looking for her in the first place? He was the case of the dead guy with no arm a second ago. Then there's an earthquake. I don't know why.

We join the underworldly nogoodnik association getting paid by their boss down on the street. No one's worried or talking about that whole 'ground shaking thing,' so I guess the earthquake was localized to police headquarters. The boss asks where 'the other kid' is, and the UNA leader admits that he had to downsize. To get the plot back on track, the boss says that he saw Boy the other day with 'an older woman.' Hard cut to the UNA confronting Boy and Elaine in the abandoned building, which they somehow immediately knew to go. The UNA leader pushes Boy to the ground, and tells Elaine she should go with them for some wholesome fun. Just as she's about to do some cool anime thing, there's a flash, and we do a CSI-zoom to her eye. A red outline of the city is reflected in her retina, looking a lot like a Virtual Boy game. She blanks out, focusing on her game of Vertical Force, and the UNA leader pokes her in the forehead with his finger. Boy gets thrown to the ground again as the UNA leader talks about how he wants to have some fun. Skee Ball? Probably Skee Ball. One of the others ask if he should do it in front of the little boy, and the third says, "Let's see how small he really is." And yes, they see. It's pretty disturbing. Leader starts feeling up Elaine, still watching the red lines, which we see in a second is the view-point of the mecha chick flying towards the building. Elaine lets off a primal scream, just as mecha chick crashes through the roof. Immediate pay-off as she puts a fist through Leader's head and throws him against a wall.

Diana's face shows through the mecha's helmet, and she tells Elaine to come home. She tells Elaine to constrain her Vajura, and instead the room explodes. That's Elaine's way of saying, 'No.' Elaine escapes with Boy in tow. Somewhere, Redhead looks on with a stupid looking eyepiece. "Okay, remember: it's the future. Look shiny and glue a bunch of crap to your head."

Elaine and Boy materialize in a subway station. And, for once, I mean it literally and not as a sarcastic way to point out bad editing. Elaine's in pain and Boy is scared. Neither of them have said a word so far, I should point out. In a subway car, Elaine lays down on a seat, and Boy stands in front of her, arms outstretched, protecting her from whoever. It's kind of sweet. That One Guy, who isn't The Fat One or the Busty Redhead, uses his future, robot ear to listen in on a police broadcast about Elaine. They plan to get officers on the subway at the next stop, but One Guy wants to get to her first. So, he starts stomping on the ground really fast, breaking a hole to the subway tunnel. You heard me. Further down the tunnel, the subway runs into One Guy, who has Dr. Octopus-like robot arms extending from his back, which stop the subway cold. Using various, unnecessary, Inspector Gadget-like tools, the three gore-fodder hunters board the train and take Elaine. Redhead and One guy walk off, leaving Fat One to carry Elaine away. Except he doesn't get very far. He starts having one of those waking nightmares, and drops Elaine to the ground. Thinking there are bugs in his head, he rips his skull open and drops brain on the floor. Elaine gets away, but That One Guy still has Boy.

Now, we're only half-way through this first episode, but I've burned through four pages already. To keep save this from being a huge entry, and a touch of my sanity, I'm going to break this recap into two parts. Will Elaine get away? Will Diana get the love she feels she deserves? Will Boy ever get a name? Tune in... later.

Bleach 138

2007-09-11T21:02:00.000-05:00

Now that my summer hiatus has ended, I will return to reviewing the various and sundry anime shows that our dear readers enjoy. Naturally, this starts with Bleach, and over the summer we were treated a long series of fantastically dull filler episodes. “Filler?” you ask. “Yes,” I reply. You shout something like, “Sacre bleu!”—which is pretty surprising, given that you don’t know French.

Needless to say, I won’t be reviewing the many filler episodes. They were pretty dull. And bad. First we had a four part story with Matsumoto and some dead kids and a weird arrancar. The best parts were when bosomy Matsumoto tried on some new outfits and posed in them for a good long while, and also at the end when one of the dead kids realized, you know, that he and everyone he loved were dead and he started blubbering about the pain. Emotional money shot; I almost felt something.

Then they ruined it with a bunch of stupidity. Karin (Ichigo’s kid sister) had trouble with some soccer team filled with bullies, so she got Captain Hitsugaya to come play with her team. Then some kendo team was having trouble with another kendo team filled with bullies, so they got Ikkaku to come help them. Then some little shinigami were having trouble baking a cake, so they got Yumichiki to help them. Then there was this Hollow that was actually a dog, and some arrancar got stupid and tried to betray Aizen, and then something else I’m pretty sure I forgot. Finally, we’ve returned to the real story, and I stopped cursing this show for wasting my summer. I could have been at the beach, but I was at home watching crap instead.

Episode 138 opens with Ulquiorra and Yammy walking down a long hallway to join Aizen and a few other creepy arrancar. We don’t know who the new guys are yet, but I’m sure they’re all bad people. Aizen has someone wrapped up in bandages in a glass box, and he drops the Hougyoku inside. Aizen explains that the Hougy-thingie is still asleep, but that someone with twice the reiatsu of a shinigami captain—namely, him—can awaken it for brief moments to utilize its power. The bandages fall off the guy, Aizen asks him his name, and he answers, slowly, “Wonderwice Margera.” Looks like a nice kid. I think he’ll do well.

Aizen turns to Ulquiorra and tells him to carry out the secret order that he gave him earlier. Ulquiorra can take whomever he wants, but as Aizen walks away he looks at one-armed Grimmjaw and tells him to go, too. Grimmjaw glowers a bit, but the effect is kind of lessened because of the bright green mascara around his eyes.

Cut to Hiyori (the l’il vizard) beating up Ichigo. This is what passes for “training” in the world of Bleach. Some other vizard are talking about a manga book. Someone rings the dinner bell, and we assume they have a huge meal because the next thing we see is Ichigo washing a big pile of dishes. Lisa, the super sexy vizard who wears the schoolgirl uniform and glasses, teases Ichigo. Then follows a long discussion about Lisa’s porno books, which various vizard borrow at regular intervals. Lisa herself reads two porno books a day. She’s not a pervert, she merely has a “healthy interest.” Shinji, off by himself, probably because he hates porn, ruminates on how they need to train faster, more efficiently, and with a larger budget, if they hope to be ready by December (when the big battle is supposed to take place).

Cut to Soul Society, where Captain Ukitake and Hisagi (the guy with “69” tattooed on his face) are watching Rukia and Orihime training. This involves shooting little fireballs at each other, and also jumping around a bit. There’s a flashback involved, and some anime stupidity, and the entire scene is kind of boring, so there isn’t much to say.

Back in the real world, Yumichika is trying to break his sword (Fujikujaku) on a piece of rock. Turns out the sword is arrogant and vain and won’t materialize for Yumichika. Matsumoto doesn’t care, and notes that her own sword is lazy and selfish. They start arguing, and Captain Hitsugaya tells them to shut their pie-holes, because they need to be calm to talk to their swords. I suppose Yumichiki and Matsumoto are trying to release their bankai, but they won’t have time for that, for Ikkaku looks up into the air. Violent string music starts (always an ominous sign), and the sky unzips to reveal, not one, not two, but four arrancar! Yammy, Grimmjaw, Wonderwice, and some new kid all smile, look away petulantly, or just sort of stand there.

Yammy notices the shinigami looking up at them. The new guy taunts Grimmjaw a little big, and Grimmjaw flies away because it’s obvious he wants to fight Ichigo. As he’s leaving we can see that he has a big scar where his “6” tattoo used to be, and the new guy says that Grimmjaw is pretty useless now. Turns out Wonderwice is useless too. He just stares into space and moans a bit.

Things start to happen pretty quickly now. Hitsugaya attacks Yammy, Ikkaku and Yumichika gang up on the new guy (Luppi, who shows off the “6” tattoo on his hip, which makes me kind of uncomfortable), and Matsumoto holds up her sword toward Wonderwice, but he’s staring at some birds. I like him already.

Ichigo runs out of the vizard house, and Rukia heads off from Soul Society to join her friends in the real world. Orihime will have to follow after her. Orihime looks kind of down because she can’t go get killed right away (because, you know, her two hours of training have made her suddenly qualified to fight an Espada).

Ichigo runs into Grimmjaw floating in the air. He pulls out his bankai, and Grimmjaw yawns. He says that he could beat Ichigo with one arm cut off. We hear a rimshot. Ichigo gets ready to put on his Hollow mask, and I’m sure something very special will happen in the next episode.

Finally, in Kisuke’s vast underground training ground, Renji and Sado are both trying to go join the fight, Kisuke tells them that they’re both pretty tired. He’ll go instead.

Eureka 7: Episode 2

2007-08-08T01:49:00.001-05:00

At the end of last episode, Renton fell to his death. Without the main character, the show quickly changes direction and now centers around a talking rhino named, Turtle Dream, who travels the countryside solving crimes with a team of spunky and determined minors who'll all make wonderful toys and identify well with the 8-14 demographic. What? He's alive? Fuck. I was looking forward to Turtle Dream: Rhines and Misdemeanors.

Before we get to Renton's not dying, we're presented with a flashback. Li'l Renton, his sister, and their grandfather stand in the rain over their father's grave or memorial eyesore. Grandpa is going on about how he didn't mean to raise his son to die a hero and people forget what's true and important. "This is what awaits at the end of a dream," he tells the orphans. Grandpa believes that his son was 'used by others for their own happiness...' He's the embodiment of that oval from the Zoloft ads. Renton's sister pipes up only after Grandpa has walked off, telling Li'l Renton that, before their father left, he told her, "Don't ask for it; go win it on your own. Do that and you'll succeed." Don't ask to join a bowling league, buy a trophy and display it proudly.

Renton's pulled out of his flashback as missiles explode somewhere above. He repeats the lines his sister told him as he falls really, really far. As he goes further down, his board starts to glow green and Renton's eyes get really big. The glowing increases and leaves a trail as Renton's fall is obstructed by rocks, so that we can think he failed for just a moment. More prespense. With his eyes tightly closed, Renton hovers above the jagged rocks I believe are below, surrounded by these flying, green, sting-ray creatures, the show calls, Sky Fish. Fish. In the sky. What'd you call 'em? His eyes open, he sees the fighting above, and flies up on his board.

The Gekko State guys aren't fairing too well. The Trappa (the bullshit thing that allows the airboarding to happen) there is too thin for them to get good enough lift to maneuver. Holland plans to break through using 'Compact Feed Back' which I guess is bad, but damned if he's going to loose 'her' (Eureka) in a place like where ever the hell they are. Just as he's about to initiate the stupid thing, Renton flies up next to him. Renton monologues to his sister some more, which he does A LOT, about how he's going to 'win it for [himself].' One of the military LFOs drops down in front of him, and Renton pulls off that cut-back drop-turn thing, much to Holland's surprise. Renton gets past the military - because in TV and movies, any kid can get past any military - and makes it to the Nirvash. But the wind displaced by a giant robot is much greater than the wind displaced by a little kid, so, Renton is knocked off his board to not fall to his death, again. Why actual physics kicked in there for a moment, I'm not sure. Eureka tells the Nirvash to hurry, and the two fly down to save Renton. Eureka opens her cockpit (giggle) and Renton falls into her lap. Renton immediately admits an undying love for Eureka, saying he was able to defy all those physics because of her. After an uncomfortable hug, he pulls out the Amita Drive and says he'll protect Eureka with it. He then plugs it into the compact drive, without even asking, and after a sparkly light show, the word 'Eureka' appears on the drive, and she and the Nirvash pass right the fuck out. Good job, wonder boy. Holland whips down to try and save them as Renton grabs the controls, which have frozen. Renton, rightly so, freaks out right before we zoom into his eyeball. Not in a CSI way, but in a scene transitiony way.

Some time later, the two pilots of the other Gekko State LFO, Stoner and Mathew, stand inside a huge crater made of pillars of salt. Holland is knelt beside Eureka, who is just waking up in her cockpit. Holland tells her, "I didn't think that the awakening program inside the Amita Drive would release that much of your Nirvash's power." Eureka corrects him, though, saying that the one who released all that power was Renton. Who is sleeping in her lap. I get tired after I wake up, too.

A man swerves his truck/golf cart thing into Renton's grandfather's place, which is now mostly rubble. He freaks out when he sees this and screams out like he just lost the love of his life. Grandpa is seated nearby, however, and simply asks the man for a light. As they awkwardly pad out the scene, the Nirvash lands a few feet away. Grandpa runs up and, in a panic, asks Eureka where Renton is.

On a military... giant, plane thing, Dominique, an information officer, is demanding they return to headquarters at once. The guy in charge says that there's no way they can go back empty-handed, but Dominique is sure that it'll be okay as long as they report the 'Seven Swell Phenomenon.' The guy in charge verbally bitch slaps him, and Dominique attempts to take command of the vessel. Fake *gasp*

Renton's sleeping on a couch out in the rubble with a goofy smile on his face. Being not a dick for a moment, Grandpa tells Eureka that he's actually kind of happy. "... other than me, who's going to praise this boy for what he's done?" You mean, assisting in the death of military personal, escape of wanted fugitives, and causing a huge-ass crater big enough that I have to assume a few hundred people were killed in the blast? I don't know. Holland airboards in and tells Grandpa that he never thought they'd have to meet again, in a somber, polite tone. Grandpa's none to pleased with Holland. "Every time you do something like this, you screw up my life," Grandpa tells Holland. There's some foreshadowing talk that, frankly, I don't get and feel bogs down the scene. As they talk, we're shown that Renton is within earshot, but still asleep, even though Eureka is poking his face with her finger. The grownups talk about responsibility and decisions that were made in the past. Holland asks why Grandpa hid the Amita Drive and why he made Renton deliver it. Grandpa grabs Holland by his fruity neckerchief and yells, "Because it was my son who invented it! In reality, you have no right to hold it! The only one who can hold besides me is..." We see Renton is now awake. Drum roll. "... Renton." But because Grandpa only said nice things about Renton while he was asleep, he has to say this: "But now, there's no one else I can entrust that thing to other than you." Grandpa starts to cry, and bids Holland good day. Renton bitches out loud to Eureka about his life, finally asking her what he should do. Before she can say anything, Holland bellows, "That's something you have to decide." He recites something I'm sure he read in a book somewhere about making your own fate, and we cut away.

Back on the military thing, Dominique has been thrown into coach seating, as the dude in charge finds out that Gekko State is nearby. He orders an attack right away.

At the rubble, Holland finds Renton hiding behind a sign. He wants to know if Renton will be joining Gekko State when they leave. He seems to think Renton won't be completely useless because of the cut-back drop-turn thing. It means he trusted himself and the planet and not at all in reality. He says that quitting would be okay, but his teacher used to tell him, "Don't ask for it; go win it on your own. Do that and you'll succeed." Hey! That's just what Renton's sister said their father said! Holland asks what Renton believed in back when the Nirvash passed out. Wavy lines, wavy lines...

Back in the cockpit right after everything went to Hell, Renton's freaking out again, but instead of zooming into his eye, the screen goes black and 'Eureka' runs across it. She wakes up, and tells Renton to believe in her. He flashesback some more, and does so. In return, the Nirvash falls to the ground. Everyone is wondering what just happened except for Holland. He orders the other LFO back, and as his hand starts to shake, says that the "Seven Swell" is coming. Back where the Nirvash crashed, there's a neat little light show, that's turning the surrounding area to salt. A military guy tells us, "The Trappa flow is expanding rapidly." Which would mean something if anyone took the time to properly explain what the fuck any of this is. Grandpa watches the light show from the rubble, telling no one, "You disrespect your parents, leaving behind something that could cause this... This light will ruin us all and guide us to our deaths... how beautiful it is." The Nirvash wakes up, glows, flies into the air, and destroys a few military LFOs. I don't see anyone bail out. Renton's first kill. Holland asks a picture of Renton's family, the sister scribbled out, if it's really okay for this to be happening. It doesn't respond.

Renton tells Holland that his only thought at the time was of saving Eureka, and the Nirvash told him to believe in that. He thought that the belief would be proof of something. Holland scoffs and says that if he really wants to prove something, he should come with them. And, because Eureka wants Renton to come. Just as Renton is about to wet himself, the military arrives. Eureka grabs Renton's hand and says they should go. Renton monologues to his sister about crap and we fade out.

All in all, I must say the series isn't all that awful up front. The poorly-to-not-at-all explained science frustrates me and I always hate the emo boi main character, but it's actually decent storytelling, so far. I admit bias because I know it all starts to suck badly real soon. So, be ready.

Elfen Lied: Episode 7

2007-08-06T00:39:00.000-05:00

Bando and Nana stand-off at the beach. Bando demands to know what's up with Nana's horns. Nana shrugs that off and says, "Even if you had a hundred people, you couldn't beat me," adding, "You're lucky, Papa told me to be a good girl, so you don't have to die." Bando, forgetting that the last be-horned chick he ran into tore off his arm with an invisible hand, laughs. Nana starts walking away, but Bando fires off a .50 caliber tungsten bullet, knocking Nana to the sand. He's certain that it's too heavy a round for Nana to deflect, and that at a close enough range it will kill her. Nana gasps so hard we cut to the next scene.

Kouta comes out of the Inn to feed Wanta to find Nyuu coming back from taking said dog for a walk. Mayu and Yuka are busy preparing dinner, and as Yuka hears Nyuu and Kouta laughing, she starts to shake with rage. She stops when she notices Mayu blankly staring at the wall. She offers to take over for Mayu and let her relax, but Mayu wants to be helpful to her new family... of runaways, kidnappers, and killers. After a few seconds of silence, Yuka decides it's enough off-screen fun for Nyuu and Kouta, and demand they at least come in and set the table. As she's off doing that, Mayu flashbacks to Bando and wonders if she should tell everyone else about almost being murdered.

Back to real-time Bando, as he demands to where Lucy is. While Nana doesn't know and can't feel Lucy's presence, Bando doesn't believe her. He shoots Nana in the arm, which is plastic or something so doesn't really hurt, but knocks Nana down nonetheless. Nana starts to cry and mentions that she was really going to be good like Papa Glasses wanted. Really she was! Bando closes in to kick Nana, then quickly jumps back two meters. He berates her a little saying the only reason she's still alive is that she was a test subject, which Nana refuses to believe until she remembers Papa saying he was ordered to kill her. She decides that if people like her aren't meant to exist in this world, it'd be better for her to 'erase' it.

Back at Runaway Inn, the family sits down to dinner. Mayu watches Nyuu attempt to navigate her chopsticks in awe. Have to break up your action sometimes, I guess. Even if you do that by inserting scenes that have nothing to do with anything.

At the beach, suddenly at night, Nana walks slowly towards Bando as he fires shots into her plastic limbs. He notices that even though he's hitting, there's no blood, and runs back. He lures Nana into a spot of beach with nothing around for Nana to pick up and throw through his person. He threatens her, saying that at five meters he can hit her heart, but being the slow bad guy he is, lets Nana to take a few more steps before attempting to fire off the killing blow. Nana raises her right arm, and fires it off like a missile. Bando is knocked back a few feet, dropping his gun. Nana is now on top of him, like Lucy was in episode two. This time, however, Bando has a second gun prepared. He fires off a single shot, grazing Nana's head, and destroying his new robo-arm. Piece of crap arm. Nana freaks out a little at the sight of blood and cries for Papa some more. Bando lies back, apparently enjoying the moment. Nana asks why his arm is all Terminatory, and Bando says how Nana's 'companion' tore it off. Nana goes 'nuh-uh' and tells Bando how her body was 'cut up' by Lucy, too. The two bond over their missing limbs, and Nana insists that it'd be easier to kill Lucy if they team up, but Bando is a lone wolf. With a busted robot arm, a lot of guns, and sunglasses. Bando does offer Nana the note with his phone number he got back from Mayu, though. Saying if she sees Lucy, she should call him. However, Nana's new to the outside world, and doesn't know what a cell phone is. So, instead Nana picks up her arm and clicks it back in place. She offers to help Bando up, but pulls the old 'fake limb' trick, and lets it slip off just as he's getting up. Oh, hilarity. For whatever reason, Bando doesn't pick up a gun and shoot the crap out of her.

Back in Kak's office. Diclonius bad. "Remember what happened last episode? That was great." Pointless scene? Nope, just had one.

Nana sits by the street in town, and wonders aloud what she's supposed to do. She's holding a bag full of money. A lot of money. But, again, Nana doesn't know what anything is, so she just stares at the paper. She gets up and walks past a little pastry shop. She asks the man working the shop for some cake, and he tells her it'll be 500 yen. She gets flustered and rifles through her pockets looking for 500 of these Earth moneys. As she's doing so, two girls come up and get some cake, paying for it in yen coins, just to make Nana feel more confused and hurt and lonely... poor Nana. All she wants to do is kill somebody. Nana walks away, noting that without 500 yen, she can't eat, ever.

Mayu is out walking Wanta as an excuse to call someone for help on Lucy maybe being crazy, when she sees light coming from the cemetery Lucy and Nana previously fought. She finds Nana huddled next to a small fire contained in a tin of some sort. Mayu starts to freak out, but notices Nana has all her legs and calms down, just as one of Nana's legs falls right off. Mayu passes right out. Comedy is all about timing. I'm not sure what that was. Let's just call it an act break and get on to the rest of the show.

Nyuu is playing with a clock, which she sometimes does, when Kouta walks in. He mentions that since the clock was already broken, it doesn't really matter that she's playing with it. Well, okay then. He tries to ask her how she escaped from Dr. Kak, as if she'd answer, but has another 'Nam flashback and kind of forgets what he was talking about. Pointless scenes are like water at a restaurant; you say you don't need more, but they just keep refilling the glass.

Back at the cemetery, Mayu is waking up. Nana and Wanta stayed over her to make sure she was okay. Mayu asks about Nana's leg, and she says that if she loses concentration for a second, they fall off. Not to scare off her could-be killer, Mayu changes the subject to Nana's horns. She thinks they're cute. Nana is so flattered, she starts to do a little dance as Mayu tries to mention that she knows another girl with horns. But, Nana interrupts her, asking if they could be friends. She says that she used to be in a 'temple sort of place' and doesn't really know the outside world, which is find and dandy, but being alone sucks. Mayu, feeling a sort of shared connection with Nana perhaps, quickly agrees. At the fire, Mayu sees that Nana is keeping the fire going with the money from her bag. She stops her, then there's another 'comedic' moment I won't bore anyone with. While collecting the money, which is strewn all over the cemetery for no real reason, Mayu blurts out that someone's after her buddy Nyuu, too. I guess during an edit, they two talked about how Bando tried to kill Nana. That or I blacked out in some comedy induced coma, but that seems unlikely.

At Runaway Inn, Kouta is about to go out and look for Mayu, since she's been gone for some time. As he starts out the door, Nyuu grabs Yuka's breasts with great glee. Again, I don't really know why. "Anime: They just do." Right outside is Mayu and Nana. Nana came to see if Lucy was really there, but doesn't sense her and starts to walk off. Kouta stops her and starts asking lots of questions in that freaked out way he does. Mayu stops her, and suggests that they take Nana in for a meal, at least. Kouta agrees, as he's always happy to oblige young girls... would be creepy if he weren't almost asexual. For some reason, Kouta struggles with the door, just long enough for Nyuu to get on the other side. When he finally gets it open, he falls back so Nana has a clear line of sight to Nyuu, who she thinks must still be Lucy. Glass breaks, doors go down, everything's a slow pull out from a still frame. End episode nana.

Romeo X Juliet 5

2007-08-05T19:50:00.000-05:00

Alright, so, Juliet knows that Romeo is a Montague, and Romeo knows that 'Odin' is really Juliet, but doesn't know that Juliet is a Capulet or that she's the Crimson Whirlwind. The cold-open doesn't go much further than last episode's final scene before jumping into the intro. When we come back, Romeo's outside with his Ryouma, asking himself why Juliet was dressed as a dude. As he ponders, Juliet comes out dressed as Odin, and presents Romeo with her cloak to wear since his shirt is somewhat ashed. He tries to press Juliet for an answer to her cross-dressing, but she just tells him, "Don't ask..." Pfft, women... dressed as men. I understand that Juliet can't really get into it, especially with the Archduke's son, but the guy just gave her a flying horseback ride over Neo Verona and saved her from serious burns. He should get some sort of answer.

At the playhouse, Conrad's pissed, yet again. Nobody knows where Juliet is, and martial law has been ordered in the city in a further attempt to catch the Crimson Whirlwind. And that's it. I get that these little stops the playhouse are supposed to be important so we can get information Juliet isn't privy to, and it helps to break everything up, but... they're not only boring, they're too short to matter. Conrad is always pissed, so we don't need to see it; it adds no tension or comedy. We're about to learn about the martial law in a scene coming up, so dropping it in a throw away scene is pointless unless we didn't know where Juliet was either, and were worried she'd been captured. But she's off being awkward with Romeo, so we know she's okay. I accept padding out an episode to a certain degree, but this is an anime with flying horses and swords. A pointless action scene is still better than a pointless talking-about-shit-we-already-know scene. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, I'm looking at you.

Back at the iris garden, Romeo asks if he shouldn't take Juliet home. She shakes her head and apologizes for burning Romeo's shirt before trying to run off. Romeo shouts out and asks if they'll ever meet again. Juliet just goes, 'hmm,' before running out of the scene.

Back in the Slums of Beverly Verona, a woman pleads with who I assume is a baker for more bread. She has way too many kids, and the little loaf she's been given isn't going to feed them all. The baker is sorry, but with the martial law, food is being rationed until the Whirlwind is captured. Lord Dipshit, one of the creepy dudes the priest was talking to last episode, walks the streets with two underlings. As he bangs a mace into his hand, he taunts the people of the city saying, "[The Crimson Whirlwind] dared involve all the virtuous citizens in his scheme! ... Anyone who provides us with information about the Crimson Whirlwind, or turns in the real Crimson Whirlwind, will receive extra rations. If you don not wish to starve to death, you will cooperate with us." Of course, Cordelia just so happens to be on hand for this.

Back at the playhouse, she fills in the rest of the Capulet Cast on what she saw. Adding, "Those accused of being the Crimson Whirlwind are randomly arrested and taken away somewhere." Conrad asks that neither Cordelia nor Antonio tell Juliet about what's happening in the city. 'Cause, it's not like she sneaks out into the city all the time and might notice the public beatings and starving citizens strewn about. Shh...

Juliet/Odin runs to the secret door in the playhouse that leads to Capulet HQ, when Willy pokes his head through a curtain. He inquires as to the date. 'Odin' denies such tawdry activities ever take place anywhere, ever, but Willy interrupts, "I can hear the heartbeat of someone who was basking in bliss." When 'Odin' blushes like a little girl, Willy sort of apologizes, then continues, "No one can stop the gears of love once they begin to turn." If such monkey wrenches didn't exist, the divorce rate would probably be lower.

Up inside, Juliet announces she's home, and everyone pretends like they weren't worried or nothin'. As Cordelia brushes Juliet's hair, as is her primary responsibility it seems, Juliet says she'd like to sew a shirt. Cordelia wonders if it's for 'that noble boy' up the street, and Juliet sort of nods. Cordelia agrees to give Juliet some pointers, but suggests that a shirt isn't the best first project for a trainee seamstress, and proposes a handkerchief would be better. Adding that she's sure he'd really like it if Juliet embroidered his name into it. Yeah. Us guys like anything with our name on it.

Romeo sits in his room, or someplace with a couch, thinking about irises and flashingback to images of Crimson, Odin, and Juliet, and thinking about how all three of them smell like irises and, oh yeah, look EXACTLY THE FUCKING SAME! It almost hits him, but '[he] can't image such a cute girl doing that.' "That" being "stabbin' guys and takin' names."

Slums. Random Guy is thrown to the ground a struck with the butt of a spear. A few feet back, Lord Dipshit rewards a man with bread and cheese for turning the random guy in as the Whirlwind. Dr. Glasses Man (I still don't know his real name, hmm...) stands by with his wife and watch the be-breaded one run off. Mrs. Dr. Glasses Man thinks it's horrible to turn someone into the police like that, but Mr. Dr. Glasses Man doesn't blame Bread Man. He blames the Archduke. It makes him stare at flags, he's so angry.

In her room, Juliet embroideries what's supposed to be an iris, but, being her first try, she smiles at the random yellowness and admits, "I guess it won't look exactly like the real thing." As this is going on, Cordelia tells Curio about the embroideriness which he immediately seems to distrust. Some sort of thimble accident in his past, I presume.

In a courtyard down in the slums, again, 'somewhere,' a Wickerman-like structure has been erected to hold all the men accused of being the Crimson Whirlwind. As they scream down to their loved ones, the loved ones scream back. Dr. Glasses appears again to distain all over the place, but this time, finds the priest who we were introduced to in episode three talking to Lord Dipshit. Turns out, Lord Dipshit's real name is, Sir Cerimon, and the priest is there to tell him that, "... it seems tonight will be a memorable spectacle." The doctor aghasts against the wall, and takes us to commercial.

Romeo and Benvolio fly above Neo Verona. Romeo senses a disturbance in the force, and Benny fills him in on declaration of martial law. Romeo attempts to fly into the city, but Benny stops him. He knows that Romeo wants to go protect Whirlwind and tells him, "The Crimson Whirlwind is a rebel who has defied your father!" Benny doesn't agree with martial law either, but knows if Romeo tries to stand up against his father, bad things would happen to Romeo. He asks that Romeo "bear with it" so that one day, "... [he'll] be able to create a new era."

The smarmy priest arrives at a dimly lit church to find Dr. Glasses standing in the shadows. The doctor tackles the priest into a pew and growls, "You're a clergyman, and yet you're plotting with the nobles to betray us all!" The priest starts to laugh that arrogant bad guy laugh they do right before they say, "You just don't get it, do you?" He explains, "... we are but part of the lowly masses... We must yield to the mighty... After all, the duty of the populace is to serve the rulers." After a good clench, the doctor releases the priest and walks out.

Back at the Wickerman effigy, the good doctor spots Antonio, Curio, and Francisco standing around not helping, either. Curio and the doctor see each other, and the doctor approaches the group. "I wish to meet with the person who has protected and raised the iris," he says to them. "Iris," being the ever so clever code for, "Juliet." We immediately cut to the doctor standing under a bridge at dusk. Conrad stands on the bridge above and, facing the opposite direction, says, "How can you be certain that the iris did not wither?" The doctor replies, "I have lived with the belief and hope that the iris would be reborn once more." So, born a third time? Wouldn't the reemergence of the princess only be the second 'birth'? Anyway, with the 'spotted eagle flies at midnight' crap out of the way, the doctor gets straight to the point: "Is the Crimson Whirlwind the surviving iris?" Conrad confirms this, and says that he knew he'd have to tell the doctor at some point. Why would he have to tell the doctor at some point? Who the hell knows? He then thanks the doctor as 'the representative of the Capulet family.' Curio, who must've been standing nearby the whole time just off screen, bows slightly to the doctor, who then smiles. As he starts to walk off, the doctor asks Curio to tell the Whirlwind to take care of herself. The doctor is about to do something brave and stupid, methinks.

In her room, Juliet has finished her handkerchief with something that doesn't really look like an iris on it, and she's really pleased. Just to make us feel worse about what's about to happen. Antonio knocks on the door to let her know Conrad went to speak with the doctor. They know something's about to happen. Conrad is tightlipped about what's going on, so Antonio and Juliet as Odin run out of the playhouse, with Cordelia in tow.

At home, the doctor sits on the foot of his daughters' bed and watches them sleep. He tells his wife that if they could move to a more peaceful city, their children could group up carefree. Taking his wife's hand, he insists that she get some sleep as well. "The world won't always be like this," he says reassuringly.

As Team Odin runs through town Juliet notices a strange glow from the courtyard. Cordelia tries to stop her, but Juliet changes course to investigate.

At the Wickerman statue, guards have already started to pour oil at its base. The three appear at a staircase nearby, and Antonio admits that everyone inside the statue have been captured as Whirlwind candidates. Realizing that innocent people are about to be burned alive for things she's done, Juliet starts to run off to find a phone booth, but is stopped by Curio and Francisco. Francisco asks that Juliet please, 'endure it.' "Even if you went, as we are greatly outnumbered, we would not stand a chance," says Francisco, mirroring the conversation between Benvolio and Romeo earlier. She still tries to go change into her red suit of courage, but Curio backhands Juliet to the ground. And just to make it sting a little more, says, "While you were focusing on that noble's son, you fled from reality and ignored the city. Will you only help these people when it strikes your fancy? I don't remember us protecting such a princess!" Curio can be bitchy. As Juliet ponders, a man from the effigy screams for help, bringing with him the screams from the crowd and men with him. Juliet gets the shaky anime eye, and attempts to go help them once more, but this time is stopped by the doctor. Seeing how much this all affects her, the doctor tells Juliet, "You are exactly the person I believed you would be. This is not the place for you to risk your life." Juliet gasps knowingly, and makes a grab for the doctor's shoulder as he runs off, but misses.

Running through a hallway, the doctor transforms into the Crimson Whirlwind, more and more of the costume appearing as he passes behind pillars as dramatic music swells. In his inner-monologue, we hear him say, "Father... you are mistaken!" Just before he jumps on to the top of the effigy and stares down Lord Dipshit who says, "You fell for it, Crimson Whirlwind." Dr. Whirlwind stands tall as we fade out to credits.

So... he just had a Crimson Whirlwind costume laying around? Was there a costume shop in Neo Verona that sold outfits of outlawed vigilantes? Did he start sewing it after his meeting with Conrad while his wife was out of the room? I guess it doesn't matter. I should be asking: Who the hell is this guy? We never learned his name, which points to it being important. And this battle cry of, "Fuck you, Dad!" seems telling. For the moment, I'll assume he's the priest's son. We never learned his name, either, and judging by how familiar they were when they were introduced to us, and how pissed off the doctor got in this episode, it looks like they have some sort of history. Not that it's a reviewer's job to predict this stuff...

Romeo X Juliet 4

2007-08-05T00:50:00.001-05:00

As Juliet/Crimson regains their composure after learning Romeo is a Montague, footsteps are heard approaching. Her and the doctor turn to see Francisco and Curio appear from a tunnel. Above them all, a horse flies majestically through the air. Short and sweet cold-open. Intro incoming.

We come back to Romeo being cleared of all charges for the episode three rescue by two nameless guys. Where I assume is nearby, the priest from last episode is talking to creepy dudes who are conspiring to capture the Crimson Whirlwind 'at all costs.' The priest seems to know that Romeo helped Crimson out, but I'm not sure how he'd know that unless he was eavesdropping on the prior conversation. Nothing I saw during said conversation hinted at that, but I tend to phase out during boring conversations I don't care about.

At the playhouse, Juliet is getting yelled at by Conrad again for being the Red Knight. This time, he gets to play the Capulet card, though. Juliet questions the whole vengeance thing, saying it's not what she wants, and that reclaiming Neo Verona is nothing more than vengeance, and there'd be no point. Her feelings for Romeo are making her forget his dad's an asshat who's killed a bunch of people for maybe being one guy. Up in her room, Cordelia helps Juliet change. As she brushes her hair, Juliet says, "I wasn't supposed to become fond of irises." As soon as it's said, a petal falls off the iris on her desk. Cordelia seems to think that means something.

Romeo and Benvolio talk in the Ryouma stables about whether or not Crimson is a bad person. Benny figures out that Romeo saved Crimson on purpose, then checks around for spies or listening devices or something. Romeo believes that the Whirlwind is a source of justice for the people, but Benny counters saying, "You can't rule a kingdom with only a sense of justice." After adding a bit about how Romeo is all powerless and a little stupid, Romeo shuts up and looks pretty damned defeated.

Back at the playhouse, Juliet has been sleeping 'all day' which is pretty relative in this series. She could've been out for thirty minutes. Although, looking at her, she might've been in a heroin coma for quite some time. Vigilante dethroned princesses shouldn't hang out with Courtney Love. Or Brittney Spears, to be a little more current. She remarks to no one that the Moon looks like it's crying. Back in the stables, Romeo stares at the Moon and declares that the 'sad hours seem so long.' And somewhere in New York, Feivel Mousekewitz sings that, 'it helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky.'

Back in the slums, another guy is being accused of being the Whirlwind. Dr. Glasses is about to step in to help, but his wife stops him from getting captured, again. Afterwards, in a corridor somewhere, Dr. Glasses tears down a flier and expresses more anger that they're offering money to anyone with information as to who the Whirlwind may be. The implication being that anyone can step forward and accuse anyone else of being the Whirlwind for a little money.

Juliet attempts to run outside in a cloak and wig, but is stopped by Willy, who doesn't know about the whole "Juliet thing," calling her Odin. He rightly assumes that 'Odin' has a love interest that 'he' just has to see. Being the romantic guy he is, Willy lets Juliet by him with little fanfare. She walks the streets alone, finding herself at the cemetery, which just so happens is full of those irises. She takes a moment to smell the irises and flashback about Romeo, wondering why it should matter that Romeo is a Montague. Then gives the slightly altered famed line, "An iris by any other name would smell as sweet." As she apologizes to her parents' grave for falling in love with a forbidden one, Romeo flies overhead. Commercial break.

She hides behind a grave as Romeo asks his Ryouma why it brought him to the cemetery. Suddenly, Juliet figures out that she can see Romeo now, because she's wearing a wig. It honestly took me a few minutes to figure that out, since Odin and Juliet look exactly the same. Cielo, the flying horse, walks up to Juliet and gives her a whiff before bowing down and offering her a ride. Romeo decides to extend the offer as well, being the way-too-trusting-prince-people-are-plotting-against he is. Juliet accepts, of course, and the two jump on the saddle and the two are soon in the air. Cielo flies up a little to fast for Romeo's taste, and apologizes, saying, "He usually does what I say." Juliet giggles and says, "I know." Romeo admits that he's never flown 'this high' before, and Juliet says, "I see," in a tone as if to say, "Do you even know how to fly this horse?" They talk and Juliet introduces herself as Odin. When Romeo offers his name, Juliet asks what his last name is. Juliet's inner-monologue calls her an idiot, "it's not like his name will change if I ask him again." To her surprise, Romeo says that he doesn't like the rest of his name. He must smell awesome right now. And the two fly off into the cloud-set.

After a quick stop to the playhouse to see Cordelia and Antonio worry about where Juliet has gotten off to, we go back to our pair flying through the rain, as a storm has suddenly broken out. Romeo offers to take 'Odin' home, but Juliet can't let Romeo take her to where she lives, and wants to spend more time with him. Instead, they stop by a little house somewhere so they can get dry. There are a lot of 'somewheres' in this show. No one place seems to be in direct relation to anywhere else. As Romeo takes his clothes off to dry by the fire, he asks 'Odin' do the same. Romeo figures 'Odin' is embarrassed to undress in front of other people 'even though [he's] a guy' and tries to leave it at that, but Cielo whinnies from outside that he needs to be dried off, too. As Romeo leaves, he says 'Odin' can undress now. It'd take a brain-dead monkey to not see what's about to happen. Just as Juliet is mostly undressed and taking off her wig, Romeo comes back in. Juliet steps back and knocks over Romeo's shirt, landing it in the fire. Romeo dashes in to pull Juliet out of a similar fate, landing himself right on top of her. And scene.

I'm starting to think this may be the beginning of a beautiful yet horribly unhealthy relationship resulting in the double suicide of two teenagers. Of course, I felt that way watching Good Burger, too.

Romeo X Juliet 3

2007-08-04T17:59:00.000-05:00

We open in the cemetery with Juliet's eyes about three times too big. She was either taught a lesson about Christmas that went horribly awry, or we're starting where we left off last time. Juliet has just found out she's the rightful heir to Neo Verona; the daughter of the Capulet family. Conrad continues freaking the hell out of Juliet. Just about everyone who worked for the Capulets had been slaughtered, along with their families. Those who went slaughter-free, vowed to protect 'the last Capulet.' (Coming soon from Disney, "The Very Last Capulet") This is still all news to Antonio, who appears to have gone into some sort of fugue state. The mob's plan, as we're told, is to overthrow Montague. Specifics? Nah. But Juliet gets a cool sword. Then faints. She's had a busy day.

After the intro, Juliet's taking a bath and ruminatin'. Cordelia enters and Juliet barely notices, but does start to ruminate out-loud: "I remember that night when Mother and Father were killed. Why had I forgotten it until now?" Well, traumatic experiences can often cause the brain to block out the memories of the event to protect itself from emotional damage, and the rather sudden reveal of your past in a storm surrounded by people you'd never met can force those memories to the surface, resulting in your post-faint bath. Also, you're in a drama. Be glad you didn't wake up with amnesia and a baby and three boyfriends who don't know about each other. Cordelia puts a towel on Juliet's head and tells her to get some sleep. Fade out.

Fade in. A puddle. Wonderful. If you took all the dreary imagery from what we've seen so far in this series, put it up front, and followed it by all the happy, flower and horse imagery, it'd make the best anti-depressant/feminine hygiene product ad ever. A carriage runs through the puddle and stops so Old Hag can get out. I'm sure she'll get a real name in a moment. We're outside Willy's playhouse, where inside, Willy snores loudly. We quickly learn that Old Hag is Willy's mother. After berating Willy for a few seconds, she asks to see Conrad. Apparently, it's Mrs. Shakespeare's doing that Juliet and her adoptive family has been safe all these years. She put them up in the theater, using her son's love of the theater as cover. After that quick introduction, we whisk our new character away. On the street, Mrs. Shakespeare has a few lines about the Crimson Whirlwind. It's unclear if she's warning Conrad to keep Juliet from playing hero, or if it's idle chatter and she doesn't even know about Juliet's alter-ego. Well, other alter-ego. Or other-other alter-ego. I've lost track.

Of course, the next thing we're quick-cutted to is the Whirlwind's hat on a desk. Juliet sits up in her bed as Cordelia brings her some morning tea. Cordelia remarks that Juliet's fever has gone down. Yeah, I don't remember her having a fever, either. But she's better, anyway. Spotting the iris in Juliet's room, she asks if Juliet plans on meeting "him" again today. Well, she did promise. Cordelia offers to go tell "him" that the date is off, asking lots of questions. Juliet finally offers up that her crush is on the boy that saved them back in episode one. Cordelia raises her voice a little and tells Juliet that she can't see a noble. What with the plot that's been so heavily established and all. She tries to make Juliet promise to never see our Romeo again, but we cut away before she can sob and storm out of the room yelling, "Your not my real mother!"

At what I assume is dusk in this two hours of daylight world, Romeo sits by his Ryouma, Cielo, in the field of irises. "What's wrong, Cielo? You miss her, too?" That's one of the things this series has going for it, so far. The boy is much more the emotional, love-struck puppy than the girl; and the girl is much more the badass, stabby person than the boy. Not only is there the role reversal, but having been through most of high school English and knowing the story, it'll force the boy to rise to action, rather than being the one forced into action for no other reason than he's the main character. But as I blather on about story structure and reach for my copy of Joseph Campbell, I'm interrupted by nobles. Don Montague sits in his throne as his brother and Mercutio laugh about how they're better than everyone else. Montague picks up a grape and says, "The commoners are no different than grapes. To enrich them, or destroy them, is our freedom." Squish goes the grape, leaking grape juice through his fingers like blood. "We, the Montague family, are the ones who rule the vineyard. We will wring those who are useful to their utmost limits." Montague then purposes a toast. Everyone on screen raises their glass, but no one drinks. I guess the image of commoners being squeezed into wine put them off their drink.

Romeo enters and apologizes for being late. Daddy walks over and slaps him. The crowd is strangely shocked by this. The guy was just giving a Darth Vader speech. Is a single smack from His Evilness really so surprising? He quietly belittles Romeo, saying that if he's old enough to succeed the Archduke, he should think a little more before he acts. Then, to the crowd, he makes a joke about how his son must have been a little 'too involved' with his fiancée. Swell guy. Romeo gets the shaky, sad, anime eye. *sniff*

After the Funnest Party Ever, the Archduke asks Mercutio to keep an eye on Romeo and report any oddities immediately. Mercutio, evilly agrees. Montague then leaves to walk through what looks like a mix of Victorian England and Hell, finding himself in front of some big magic-looking tree with Christmas lights on it. Romeo and Juliet, sure, but this is still an anime, damn it. Calling it, Escalus, the Archduke exposits that, "As long as we possess the blessings of this tree, it is impossible to defy us!" Dun, dun, commercial breaaaaaak....

Back in the slums of Neo Verona, a man in glasses is passing out fruit with girls I assume are his daughters, and his wife. A priest comes in to praise the family for their hard work, ask where the food came from, and set himself up for goings-on later. Apparently, the food comes from the Crimson Whirlwind as way of 'thank you' for glasses man treating his/her wounds. I guess he's a doctor. The priest smiles and the editor gets bored, so we cut to a new scene.

Romeo flies over the iris garden on his horse and gets sad about Juliet. At the playhouse, Juliet holds her flower and gets sad about Romeo. Just to remind us they're in love, I guess. 'Cause right after, Romeo drops in on his mother who lives in a tower somewhere. I guess as one does in Neo Verona. Mrs. Romeo's Mother fled the castle a while back, and ever since people have been hatin' on Romeo. Why'd she leave and stick Romeo with some huge burden? Beats me. The two clearly have a much better relationship going than Romeo has with his father, though. Romeo hands his mother flowers and starts to blush. His mom takes the flowers and intuits that her son was thinking about some girl. Weekend Mom giggles, than walks away from us, the audience.

But on with the show. Dr. Glasses Man is on his knees in the slums, with a spear to his neck. A guard is accusing him of being affiliated with the Whirlwind. Where did he hear that, I wonder. He denies it as his kids cry nearby. The guard orders Dr. Glasses taken away, as the priest looks on from... elsewhere.

Cordelia and Conrad talk about crap we already know as Antonio runs in looking for Odin/Juliet/Crimson. He's learned that the doctor has been taken. Odin, Juliet, and Crimson are all very worried. With good reason, too. The good doctor is being questioned further, and looks pretty beaten up. But he doesn't give up a thing. Crimson runs out of the playhouse and is immediately at where ever the hell the doctor is. Crashing through the skylight, Crimson fights off three guards and absconds with the doctor. On their way out, the doctor pleads with Crimson to go on with out him, as is cliché protocol, adding, "You are this city's hope." Of course, Crimson blocks it all out and continues with the heroics. The two are cornered on the roof/guard tower of unnamed building by a number of guards, as Romeo flies on down to see what's going on, squelching the action for the moment. Juliet shines through just a little, as Crimson freezes. Romeo gets a whiff of irises, takes a guard's sword, and says that he'll capture the Whirlwind for the Archduke. During the quick fight, Romeo tells Crimson that there's an aqueduct below and they're going to jump in. With no explanation given to Crimson or us as to why this is a good idea, Romeo grabs him/her, she/he grabs the doctor, and they fall several stories to the aqueduct, leaving the cheese to stand alone.

The doctor blurts out that he never thought the Montague's son would save the Crimson Whirlwind. This time, Juliet gets the shaky, sad, anime eyes as she learns that her love isn't just any ol' royal, but a Montague. Romeo asks that they don't tell anyone he saved them, and as he walks away, Juliet falls to her knees.

Next time on Romeo X Juliet! Will Cordelia confess her love to Conrad? Will Romeo ever come out of his coma? Will Juliet win the spelling bee? ... okay, I don't watch the Next Time Ons. But I feel some woe finally coming on.

Death Note 9

2007-07-12T21:50:00.000-05:00

It's odd how Light never gives anyone a wasting disease, and aside from episode 4, there's not much in the way of elaborate puppeteering. It's explained early on that he wants to send a message, that he wants people to know there's someone out there passing judgement on them, but that doesn't preclude more creative deaths. Of course, the show's not about how gruesome Light's next murder will be. The more he openly shows malice or takes delight in a victim's death, the less question there is as to whether he's evil or even sane, which would undermine what the show is about: can L catch Light, and do you want him to?

Light doesn't want to be caught, so he works to make up for last episode's impressive but ultimately ineffective death by potato chip scene. Since he killed minor criminals who he "didn't" see on the news, he'll kill minor criminals he did see right away, then criminals of various degrees of nastiness later on when he's away from his camera-filled home. If you don't see how this plan will put him beyond suspicion, you're not alone. Last episode, he tried to make it look like Kira had to be someone else, but killed such small-time crooks that it sent the message that Kira was being hampered by the surveillance and was therefore one of the handful of people L had his eye on. Now Light thinks he'll invite suspicion, at the same time putting forth the possibility that Kira has decided of his own accord to start punishing lesser offenses. The other part of his plan more or less picks up where the original, failed plan left off, with the exception that he kills the usual serious criminals and no longer pretends he hasn't heard of them. Honestly, I'm confused. I could be misinterpreting the whole thing. If not, then it's a pretty weak argument for the "Kira isn't Light" theory. Light's only killing criminals L knows he's seen. What good does killing them at random times do?

Well, it works. Sort of. L grows neither more nor less suspicious, and opts to remove the cameras since they appear not to be hindering Kira after all. Makes sense, I guess. If you know he knows you're watching him, and the odds are against you seeing anything incriminating, you might as well try a different tact. Maybe with his guard down, or less heightened, he'll be more likely to slip up. I'm not sure why he didn't notice that only criminals Light's seen have died, though... Unless Light's catching all the crime-related news reports. If he knows 100% of the criminals, then there's no way another possible Kira could know more, so said Kira could theoretically exist.

Apparently, Death Note is the #1 show among the Death God demographic. I can see why; Ryuk in apple withdrawal is comedy gold. Midway through the episode we get our first time jump - it won't be the last. Light aces his college entrance exams and we skip to the start of his stay at Touou University, where he reads some flowery prepared speech as the Freshman Class Co-Representative, and the sharp contrast between Light and L is flagged up in the most obvious way possible, by making L (under the alias Ryuga Hideki) the other representative. Light wears a suit and is impeccably groomed. L put shoes on. Didn't tie them, didn't comb his hair, and aren't those the same clothes he always wears? For extreme irony, one girl chides another for saying she likes L better. They beat you over the head with the whole complete opposites thing, but it's a nice enough scene. L speedreading the same introductory speech that Light gave is cute.

Besides, it's all setup for another of the series super cool dramatic moments, as L reveals his identity to Light. L is becoming more and more aggressive as the series goes on, though he remains cautious. His reasoning for telling what may be his mortal enemy who he is, all but painting a target on his heart? Light is the only one, outside of KIT, who knows. If L were to suddenly die, it could only be because Light killed him. It's a huge risk, but it actually forces a stalemate. No, it gives L the upper hand. He's practically invincible until Light can figure a way out of his trap. All he has to do is prove Light is Kira before then. Or, since he isn't certain Light's his man, he could be taking no risk at all.

Light gets home and freaks the hell out. He's in check, and he can't see a way out. He could clomp around the board forever without losing... or winning. Then it hits him. *cue insane laughter* It's a challenge! Yes, it's a game, and he will win. Next episode: a game, as in tennis. Literally. They play tennis.

Death Note 8 - Now With Pictures!

2007-06-21T20:13:00.002-05:00

Ice cream is a valuable crimesolving tool. Also, it's delicious. L does his "uncanny hypotheses" routine again, surmising that Kira targeted Ray Penbar specifically, and that he "may" have been on the train when Penbar died. Then, upon learning that Misora Naomi is missing, L guesses virtually everything that happened last episode and focuses the entire investigation on the people Ray Penbar was investigating. Namely the Yagami and Kitamura families. So, Light is one of maybe a dozen remaining suspects, everyone else all but exonerated. Oh, and they're bugging his house. Cameras everywhere.

Secure in the brilliance of his needless killing spree, Light works around the clock to ensure that criminals will keep dying for months to come even if something happens to him. Carpel tunnel for instance. There's a fun conversation about magic fingers and Ryuk's luck with the ladies, then it's back to KIT for the ethical, legal, and "eww, even in the toilets?" debate about sticking cameras in private residences. Chief Yagami flips out like a ninja, minus the killing, and insists they bug the hell out of his house. For justice!

Light explains to Ryuk his clever, if neurotic, intruder detection system after it does its job and reveals that someone's been snooping in his room. Showing that he can play at uncanny hypothesizing, too, he assumes bugs have been planted and avoids talking to the scary flying man that only he can see. Using scary fly- Ryuk's love of apples (turns out he's addicted), Light manipulates him into finding all the cameras and what, if any, blindspots there are. Since he can't help look, Light peruses naughty magazines that he bought for the express purpose of appearing to be someone who peruses naughty magazines, i.e. a normal teenage boy. L sees through it, but Light gets him back by figuring out that KIT has narrowed the list of suspects to, at best, the people Ray Penbar was investigating, and at worst, that he's the only suspect.

A bit of trivia. In this episode, Light's sister Sayu is seen watching actor Ryuga Hideki on TV. L later uses Ryuga Hideki as a pseudonym, presumably inspired by watching Sayu watch him. In the same scene, L finally gets around to announcing the fake mass cop invasion that was brought up two episodes ago. Light sees through it and boldly announces that "he thinks" Kira sees right through it, too. Then we're treated to one of the best moments in the entire series: Light eating potato chips. More accurately, Light hiding a tiny television set in a bag of potato chips, somehow managing to get news from it unseen by the sixty-four cameras in his room, and killing a person for each chip he eats. As with the ecchi babes, though, Light tries too hard to appear above suspicion, setting off L's "hey, wait..." sense. The episode ends with Light calmly throwing away the expensive mini-TV after one day of use. Now what does he do to appear to have no access to the news while using said access to kill people he wouldn't know about if he didn't have access, which he does, but L doesn't know that, though he does suspect, and where was I going with this?

Mmm, murdery!

Bleach 127

2007-06-12T21:22:00.000-05:00

So another week, and another episode of Bleach, and, for sure, this is the best episode ever! Why? Because nothing happens!

When we left off last week, sexy, sexy Yoruichi appeared before Orihime and told her that Kisuke wanted to talk to her. We don’t follow them, because that would be pretty dull, but instead visit Ikkaku, Yumichiki, and Rangiku at Keigo’s house. Ikkaku is wearing some cute pink shirt, and the other shinigami are rightfully mocking him. Keigo and his sister appear and we have some human-shinigami wackiness.

When Orihime finally reaches Kisuke’s vast underground training room, she watches Chad training with Renji. Renji slams Chad into a mountain with his bankai, and Orihime, uncaring, just turns away and asks Kisuke what he wants with her. He makes some prefatory remarks, about how the upcoming battle will be bloody and dangerous, and everyone needs to train to become stronger. Orihime predictably blubbers that she wants to become stronger, too, but Kisuki tells her that he wants her to sit out this one.

He points out that Tsubaki, Orihime’s little battle fairy, was destroyed in her last fight with the arrancar. She admits that he was totally vaporized, and she can’t even find a bit of him to heal. Kisuke logically states that, without Tsubaki, she really is pretty useless in battle. Just useless, in any sense. Sado suddenly becomes indignant and sputters something about how Orihime fought alongside them in Soul Society. She has, he says, powerful defensive and healing abilities.

Kisuke sighs (along with me). Orihime’s shield will probably be useless, and Soul Society has pretty handy healers of its own. No, she’s indeed completely and truly useless, which I stated above. Might as well kill herself. Orihime agrees and runs off. Sado starts to run after her, but Renji stops him and says that Kisuke is right. Orihime isn’t cut out for fighting.

She runs and runs, right up the stairs to the shop and through it and then out the door, where she runs directly into Rukia. Rukia feels uncomfortable, just like the viewers, as Orihime starts sobbing uncontrollably. They go sit on the roof of the school to talk—how did they get up there, I’m wondering—and Rukia is indignant because she respects the fact that Orihime came to Soul Society to help try to save her. She grabs Orihime’s shirt and demands to know if Orihime is frustrated about being told to go away and die. Orihime denies it twice, but admits that she’s sad that she can’t fight with everyone else. Fighting and risking death is what all the cool kids are doing. Tender music starts playing and Orihime finally shows some sense as she says that she’d rather be alone and sad than get in the way of everyone else fighting. Really, all she does is get in the way. Doesn’t she realize this yet?

Rukia, anyway, tries to cheer her up. She says that she owes her life to all of them. She’ll help Orihime find some way to help in the upcoming battle.

The tender music ends, and, suddenly, and quite out of nowhere, Hiyori (l’il Vizard) appears. She crash lands on the roof and her shirt flies dangerously into the air and this almost becomes hentai, but things settle down. She grabs Orihime and tells her that Hacchi wants to talk to her. They fly away, and Rukia doesn’t even try to stop her.

At the Vizard’s hideout, Hacchi looks Orihime over and points out that her little hairpins are like a zanpaktou, and that they’re broken. He tells Orihime that he can fix them and bring Tsubaki back. Things suddenly get strange when one of the Vizard, Mashiro (the girl with green hair and the goggles), starts rolling around on the ground and shouting that she hates Orihime. I’m really stunned by all this, and perturbed, as it makes no sense whatsoever. Hacchi finally heals Tsubaki, and then even he says that Orihime shouldn’t bother fighting. She keeps insisting that she wants to fight, so I guess that he sort of just lets her go. No use trying to argue with her at this point.

Orihime leaves the hideout, and Rukia is waiting for her. She tracked Ichigo’s reiatsu, but says that she doesn’t need to know what’s going on inside there. Orihime vows that, the next time she sees Ichigo, she’ll be able to fight alongside him. Whatever.

I almost think that the show is over, but we suddenly find ourselves in Hueco Mundo. Ulquiorra walks in on Yammy, who’s having his arm reattached by a cute little doctor arrancar. We see a big “10” tattooed on Yammy’s shoulder, which means that he’s merely the weakest of the Espada. The doctor finishes and asks if the arm is ok, and Yammy answers by smashing her against the wall and killing her. He’s pissed because he wanted to send her right through, which means that his arm still isn’t at full strength. Ulquiorra looks at him like he’s a moron.

Finally, we cut to Aizen. He’s watching images of Orihime putting up her shield and then healing Sado in her first fight with the arrancar. I sense something ominous.

Next week: Filler!

Death Note 7

2007-06-05T20:08:00.000-05:00

"Justice will prevail!" So says KIT (Kira Investigation Team). Meanwhile, Justice is off falling in love with Sidney Poitier, who she firmly believes will rescue her from a dreary life of selling handmade bead necklaces. How convenient! Now there's no one to stop Light but Light himself. And that would just be silly. L, oblivious to the Light/Penbar subplot, conducts his little test, clearing all members of KIT from suspicion of being Kira. Sorry, no "Is Afro Dude Kira?" subplot. That's one of the drawbacks of revealing things like "Light is Kira" and "this guy is L" to the audience. Even if your characters would logically jump to wrong conclusions - not that L would in this case - taking them down that path would bore anyone who knows it's a dead end. So we get no innocent suspects, and the investigation moves that much closer to Light.

Thirty Death Gods agree: watching Light try to kill someone who's given him a fake name is high-larious. Light is confused when Miss Penbar resists his Awesome Death Powahs, but quickly puts two and two together to suss out why. Problem is, how the hell does he get her to give up her real name now? As if asking for it the first time wasn't suspicious enough. If he didn't have the Death Note, he'd have no reason to suspect she hadn't been honest with him, so he has to think up a convincing cover story. At this point, if L had made public the fact that Kira needs a name and face to kill, Light would be sunk. Of course, that was indirectly covered last episode under "if news outlets stopped reporting actual names/faces of criminals, Kira would kill innocent people." Still, he might've told the FBI, saving all those agents and preventing us from ever meeting Miss Penbar, precluding our caring what happens to her. Ow, paradox.

Watari revealed! L's mysterious liason shows up unmasked (what does he wear that so shields his face? It just looks like he's in shadow all the time, but that's not it), and presents KIT with shiny new police badges. Complete with shiny new names. Somewhat belatedly, L decides his operatives need some sort of protection from a guy who can kill you, as far as they know, with a look and a name. L's chosen few are so moral that they take a moment to debate whether it's ok to use fake names. It's a short debate, but damn, these guys are by the book. "Gee, do we really have to deceive people just to avoid having our hearts asploded by Kira?" Yes! Yes, you do! Oh, they also get high-tech belt buckles. Matsuda approves!

Miss Penbar decides they'd better head back to police headquarters in case someone has shown up. So, wait, they were just going for a walk? Um... ok. Light's panicking, and when Light panics he gets really, really dumb. Mesomorph dumb. He has to think before concluding that turning his cellphone off would prevent having to let her talk to his dad should the elder Yagami suddenly decide to call. His next thought is to use physical violence to acquire his would be victim's legal name. Because that wouldn't have any consequences. With Light cycling through his options, desperately searching for one that doesn't suck, Ryuk brings up the eye swap again, apparently because it amuses him. Light isn't so desperate that he'll consider it, a point in his favor. And then the person who's about to unwittingly expose Light as Kira tells him she can make it the rest of the way on her own. D'oh! Now, not only does he need to explain how he knows her name is fake and why he needs her real one, he has to make up a reason to keep following her. After panicking a bit more, Light's confidence returns. And with it, a plan.

Knowing that he can't allow her to reach headquarters, he endeavors to change her mind about going, using lies that are closer to the truth than he knows. He tells her KIT's membership is secret, that they can't be found at HQ, and that he knows because... dun dun dun! He's part of the team. She seems to buy it, but continues on to HQ nonetheless. As if psychic, L chooses now to suggest that someone from KIT be present at HQ at all times. Then we cut back to Miss Penbar, who reveals she worked with (and is a huge fan of) L before. Light flatters her, invites her to join KIT, flatters her some more, and through a surprisingly simple ruse, gets her real name, Misora Naomi. It's disappointing that he panicked so much when the solution was 90% smooth talk, but the ending makes up for it. Right up there with the Ray Penbar scene. In seven episodes, Light has cemented himself as a legendary villain. And there's plenty more to come. Next episode: Voyeurism and the potato chip as an accessory to murder.

Bleach 126

2007-06-03T17:15:00.000-05:00

Last we left, Captain Hitsugaya turned to see Momo, his childhood friend and Aizen’s betrayed lieutenant, on the big Soul Society computer screen. After a little banter, we get straight to the point, which is that Momo is still crazy about Aizen. In fact, she’s just plain crazy. She insists that the other renegade captains must have put him up to whatever it is that he’s doing and begs Hitsugaya not to kill him. The Captain-Commander puts Momo to sleep and abruptly ends the transmission. Hitsugaya makes a fist and curses Aizen’s name, which is about all he can do since last time Aizen stabbed him but good.

Our next scene suddenly shows Sado fighting Renji and his bankai. A flashback takes us into Urahara Kisuke’s modest little shop. Renji sits, wearing a “RED PINEAPPLE” shirt (can I have one?), and Kisuke approaches and asks him to train Sado, who is waiting outside. Renji refuses, but Kisuke says that, if Renji becomes his handyman for three months, then he’ll answer any question that Renji wants to ask him. Renji can’t resist this, so agrees to help train Sado as part of his handyman duties. One interesting tidbit we pick up through this painfully hilarious exchange is that Kisuke’s bankai isn’t useful at training people or lending them strength. So what good is it then? Killing, probably.

Back to the training. Sado runs around, trying to avoid Renji’s big snake-thing bankai. He’s really sort of overmatched, but Kisuke, watching, thinks that Sado surely has plenty of room to grow. He also ruminates that Sado’s power is unlike that of a shinigami or a Quincy. Kisuki thinks, “Your power is just like…” and doesn’t bother to finish the thought, that bastard. I want to know, although I have a good guess.

Next we see Ichigo training with Hiyori. She keeps kicking him the face, and the other Vizard comment that they seem to get along really well. I suppose if she were kicking him in the groin things would be different. Outside, Orihime has located the secret Vizard hideout. She notes the powerful shield, so effective at just eliminating the presence of the hideout that cats, birds, and ants all walk or fly around it like a big hole in the ground. Orihime goes up the shield and touches it and thinks that it reminds her of her own shield. She just pushes through.

In the underground hideout, Ichigo keeps training, and Hiyori keeps kicking him in the face. The other Vizard helpfully talk amongst themselves and say that Ichigo needs to train in order to keep his Hollow mask on for long periods of time. The big guy, Hachi, suddenly tenses up and says that someone has just slipped through his barrier. The other Vizard all gather around and watch as Orihime comes down the stairs. She says something cute about have to use the restroom, but then Ichigo crashes into the scene and all is well.

She tells Ichigo what’s going on with the Soul Society and the King’s Key and whatever. He’s nonplussed about it all, vowing simply to defeat Aizen because he can still get stronger. Orihime leaves, we see some Vizard wackiness, and then Orihime running away from the building. She doesn’t get very far, as that sexy master assassin Yoruichi appears. Kisuki wants to talk to Orihime. Maybe they’ll kiss on the way.

Our last scene finds Uryuu training in another underground room with his father. He’s pretty beat up, panting. His shirt is loose, which seems to be an important point to note. He still has some little silver tubes filled with spells, but he’s definitely on his last legs. His father refuses to let up, the bastard, and keeps firing arrows at his son. Dad, apparently, can fire multiple arrows at once, and can fire them at will, without the motion of drawing back the string from the bow and firing. This would be a pretty useful skill for Uryuu to pick up.

Uryuu tries one last attack, using his final silver tube to seal his father in a binding spell. The spell fails, and dad shoots Uryuu right through the chest with an arrow. Uryuu falls to the ground, and I’m sort of worried (“Is this the end for Zombie Uryuu?”) when his dad walks over. Force a former Quincy to his physical and mental limits, and hit him with an arrow in just the right place, and his powers will come back. Dad insults Uryuu some more, and I smile, satisfied that everything is going to be all right.

Death Note 6

2007-06-01T21:42:00.000-05:00

Have I mentioned that L is one of my all-time favorite anime characters? All barefoot and google-eyed, all sitting legs-up on his chair constantly eating sweets. He's quirktastic! The Kira Investigation Team meets him this episode, and they're duly impressed. Well, more weirded out than impressed, but give it time, they'll come around. L gives KIT a fake name, Ryuzaki, and starts in with the psychoanalyzing. "Kira is childish and hates to lose," he says. "I'm childish and hate to lose, too. That's how I know." More deducing follows, then a plan. They'll fool Kira into thinking his murder of FBI agents prompted a massive intelligence invasion. Fifteen hundred officers enter Japan to track down Kira! Holy claustrophobia, Batman!

But first, L carefully exposits Kira's side of the past few episodes for the benefit of KIT and new viewers. It's like a recap without the recycled animation. And not entirely superfluous for regular viewers. L's breakdown invigorates the team and gains him the respect he'd more commanded than earned in anonymous voice mode. Dramatic reveal! What? Where? Ahh! Just as L and Light are thinking that one more clue would catch Kira, we jump to this episode's special guest star, Ray Penbar's fiancee. She knows a se-cret. And she's gonna tell! Or is she? Light offers to take his dad a change of clothes, claiming to have no ulterior motive. Uh huh, riiight. And conveniently retcons in the fact that he's started carrying around a page of the Death Note when he goes out, "just in case." It's all a bit pat, if not entirely unbelievable.

Light and Almost-Mrs. Penbar arrive at the police station around the same time, naturally, and we learn Light's something of an amateur detective, or was before he fell into mass murder and megalomania, one of your more demanding career paths. He plays it up in front of the quasi-widow, bragging that he's helping track Kira, too, and L better watch out or Light'll nab him first! Wouldn't that be something? Light gets so frustrated that he decides the only way to beat L is to catch himself first, so he does. Handcuffs himself, throws himself roughly into the back of a police car ("Watch your head! Hahaha!"), and beats a confession out of himself. Then at the trial... Er, right. Anyways, whatshername is so impressed by Light's braggadocio and really creepy (from the viewer's pov) cheerful act that she... gives him a fake name. Woot! Arguably the best female character in a series that's severely lacking in that area. Light leads her on, and she reveals what she plans to tell KIT. Busjacking: huge mistake. Light is... somehow... stunned that his brilliant plan to violently kill someone in front of the FBI agent who was tailing him has come back to bite him in the ass. He should've killed everyone on the bus, and everyone they know. That would've covered it up but good! Light doesn't agree, but figures one more death can't hurt, so it's time for the unformed Penbar family to be reunited. Maybe they can get married in Heaven. By a real Elvis, not one of those fakes.

Fittingly, Light plays devil's advocate, casting doubt on Miss Penbar's all-too-correct theories. Once he's smashed them, he builds them back up, all but claims them as his own, and gives widdle Miss Penbar a figurative pat on the head for making such an important contribution to the Kira case. Next episode: Light gives Miss Penbar a treat! Or kills her. One of those.

Lovely Idol 3

2007-05-23T20:16:00.000-05:00

This episode dives right into the action: a pajama party! The girls are dancing around on the bed, falling off, thinking about how they’ll soon be Lovedols and famous and singing their little animated hearts out. Ruri, Tomohiro’s sister, has just joined, and pretty much admits that she’s completely talentless, and her only goal is to help her bother be a good manager. The other girls don’t seem at all bothered by this. They just want Mizuki to come hurry up and join them, so they can have their damn debut.

Mizuki, meanwhile, goes home. I originally thought that maybe she was homeless, but she actually lives in a tiny one-room apartment, sans decoration or personality, where I bet she plans all her revenge. She keeps thinking about what Tomohiro offered her: to help her achieve that same revenge. She should definitely take him up on that offer.

The next day the five girls go to a pastry shop to meet Chocorat, two members of the first generation of the Lovedols. Chocorat, to tell the truth, is actually two girls, and they seem to dance around as Twin Maid Unit or something, and Hina, one of the new girls, is their little sister. Chocorat give the new girls general advice on being famous, like “don’t shave your hair off to avoid drug tests,” and “don’t swing umbrellas at cars.” Then they invite them to a special “secret concert.” Simultaneously, Mizuki is at home practicing her songs, but she’s still thinking about what Tomohiro said to her. Or maybe she’s constipated. Anyway, as I mentioned last time, everyone can tell that there’s someone (or something?) that she wants to receive her music, and Tomohiro can help her achieve that. She walks to her desk, where his card is resting, but she throws it away. I’m sure it’s only because her own plans for revenge are so far along that any interference would be ruinous.

The next scene shows a line of people holding tickets to get into a little concert hall. Inside, the girls are watching Chocorat practice and clap politely when they finish. Chocorat and their manager (Aneki) go backstage to get ready, and the new girls look wistfully at the stage. Tomohiro promises them that one day they will get a stage of their own, but everyone knows that he’s lying.

Back to Mizuki, who’s just recling on her bed. I don’t imagine that she has much of a life. She sleeps, wakes up, practices, plots her revenge, and then sings about it. She finally notices the bag that Tomohiro gave her and dumps everything out on her bed. Inside there’s a ticket to the Chocorat concert. Dumbfouned, Mizuki stares at it. Will this help her achieve revenge?

Backstage at the theater, Chocorat are getting dressed, but Aneki is freaking out because she forgot their maid costumes! Some old guy offers to go collect them from the warehouse (because who wants to see girls sing and dance in their normal clothes?) but that will delay the show, which everyone knows in Japan is completely unacceptable. It’s true.

And Mizuki lays on her bed and stares at the ticket.

Aneki runs at Tomohiro and demands that he think of something to stall the crowd whilst Chocorat get their costumes and get dressed. They toss about various ideas until someone suggests: hey, let the new girls sing to warm up the crowd! The girls suddenly get shy and start to hesitate, but Hina says that she just wants to help her sisters and asks the other girls to lend her their strength. This part makes me feel strange and uncomfortable and I don’t want to write about it any more, so let’s just say that the girls are going to sing some songs from the first batch of Lovedols, but another problem comes up. The songs were written for six girls, but they are only five. Tomohiro looks worried, but he suddenly slaps his forehead and runs down the hall. Naturally, he runs into Mizuki, who’s descending the stairs to the theater. She angrily says that she only came to return the ticket, but Tomohiro isn’t standing for that, and he grabs her hand and yanks her after him.

In the theater, the lights go dark, and everyone starts clapping. We see some of the girls standing nervously, but they turn around and see two more dragging Mizuki after them. Watching this, I’m flabbergasted. Why did Tomohiro and the rest waste so much time trying to convince her to join, since all it apparently would have taken was force?

The girls stand on stage, the lights go up, and everyone starts to boo, as one can expect. I mean, if you pay money to see two girls singing dressed up as maids, you better fucking well see two girls singing dressed up as maids. Nevertheless, they start singing, and the boos begin to turn into cheers. The girls start to smile, and even Mizuki, who looks pretty reluctant, begins to surrender to the sweet siren call of pop stardom.

Afterward, they’re sitting in a dressing room, still feeling pretty good about their performance. Mizuki is sitting off by herself, but the girls all stand up and start to ruminate on how wonderful it would be to have her join them. Aneki comes in and says that Chocorat want the girls to come back to the stage. Mizuki, being hateful or something, hangs back, but the other girls just grab her and they all run out. Tomohiro is left all by himself, but Ruri comes back and says something cute.

Bleach 125

2007-05-21T19:51:00.000-05:00

So, last we left Ichigo, Reverse Ichigo had just stabbed him a little bit. I’m really not too worried, since people get stabbed every other episode on this show and nothing bad ever happens to them, but I suppose I’ll play along just this once and pretend that I’m dreadfully worried.

Ichigo, the stabbed one, zones out into another vision, and immediately Zaraki Kenpachi attacks him. I have to admit that Zaraki is one of my favorite characters, what with the unmitigated love for battle. The problem is that Ichigo already defeated him a while back, and that without having a bankai. This naturally means that Zaraki can’t take on any of the new powerful arrancar because he’s just too weak, which pretty much guarantees that he will gain a bankai later in the show, and that’s going to be pretty freakin’ sweet. I can imagine it now: he’ll try fighting the arrancar but get well trounced, and the arrancar will laugh at him or turn its back and say something like, “We know you don’t have a bankai. Just die now, okay?” And then Zaraki will say, “Ha!” and then kill him with his amazing new bankai.

Anyway, the illusory Zaraki attacks Ichigo, and Ichigo jumps away. Ichigo yells that they’ve finished their fight, and Zaraki replies that the fight continues for as long as you live. Ichigo then counters that they have no reason to fight, but Zaraki, in true Lincoln-Douglas debate style, ripostes that they don’t need a reason to fight. I can live with that, but Zaraki isn’t done yet: one who desires power (like Ichigo) desires fights! Ichigo will only gain the power he needs in the hot crucible of battle. Now the Japanese symbol (kanji? someone?) for “battle” flashes across the screen and Ichigo thinks back to past battle. I feel something dramatic coming on.

Ichigo’s vision ends and he returns to battle with Richigo. He takes the sword poking out of his stomach and poses a bit and taiko drum music starts playing. He glowers at Richigo and flies straight at him. Seems that he’s accepted his destiny, which is to fight, and fight, and then fight some more.

We cut to the real world, where the Vizard have been busy distracting Ichigo’s body. By now it’s fully transformed into a very powerful and impressive Hollow, complete with mask and Ichigo’s sword. Hollow Ichigo starts to fire a cero, and Love, the Vizard fighting him, begins to put on his own mask to counter it. That’s when Hollow Ichigo pauses, and his skin starts to crack open, complete with spurting red blood. Hiyori has Love pulled out of the little protective square where they’ve been fighting Hollow Ichigo. We return to Ichigo’s inner world. He’s stabbed Richigo, who starts dissolving away into the air. Richigo admits defeat but leaves behind a vague threat, which is basically all he has left at this point, but somehow, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him!

We go back to the real world. The Hollow skin falls off of Ichigo and all that’s left is his new, nifty mask, complete with Hollow™ powers. Everyone smiles a lot.

Change of scene. Inoue Orihime is walking down the street moping about Ichigo. She can still sense his reiatsu, but knows to leave well enough alone. She suddenly realizes how pathetic she’s being and tries to think happy thoughts, but fails miserably at that, too. Before Orihime can commit suicide her neighbor accosts her and demands to know what’s up with her new roommates.

Orihime runs up to her room to find that Captain Hitsugaya and Matsumoto have installed a big widescreen TV. I’d be pleased, and not just because Matsumoto was living with me, but Orihime flips out. That’s when the TV thing turns on to show the Captain-Commander of the Thirteen Protection Squads, and we enter Exposition Mode, and we finally find out the evil Aizen’s True Goal.

It turns out that Soul Society, like any decent and just society, has a King. He’s a mere figurehead, he leaves the rest of Soul Society to run itself, and he lives in his own separate dimension and everything seems to run pretty well. The only way to reach the King’s dimension is by using the King’s Key, and before he left Aizen was busy researching how to make such a key. This process involves the sacrifice of one hundred thousand souls, and in this case those souls will come from Karakura Town, where Ichigo and Orihime live! Gasp!

Now I had to stop to wonder: how did the Soul Society people make their first key? Did they sacrifice an earlier bunch of people? Maybe not, but they do seem like the kind of society that justifies means with ends and all that. In any case, they can’t let Aizen make his own King’s Key, because then he could presumably kill the King, which I further presume would be catastrophic.

Orihime starts blubbering something about not letting all this happen, and the Captain-Commander assures that it won’t, because the Thirteen Protection Squads are hard core and dedicated. Matsumoto looks over her shoulder at Orihime and smirks. I think it’s supposed to be reassuring, but I’m not unconvinced that she’s hoping that Orihime will be the first to die horribly. The Captain-Commander sends Orihime off to tell Ichigo everything. Matsumoto jiggles off as well, and Captain Hitsugaya is left alone with the Captain Commander. The old guy steps aside and reveals Hinamori Momo, Toshiro’s best buddy and Aizen’s former lieutenant, who he stabbed, because he’s evil.

We leave their dramatic conversation until the next episode, for we suddenly cut to Yasutora Sado fighting Renji’s bankai. They’re training, naturally, and we cut to Ishida dodging his father’s arrows. They’re training too. Orihime is the only one not training, but she’s running desperately down an alley to find Ichigo.

Death Note 5

2007-05-20T20:52:00.000-05:00

No snippets from last episode, as we dive right into the action in episode five. Or rather, the aftermath of the action. Ray Penbar conveniently asks Light not to tell anyone that a super secret FBI agent was present during the bus hijacking. Light's beard, who was also privy to this info, is conveniently forgotten, or perhaps dealt with offscreen. Penbar goes home to his wife, who raises questions about his presence coinciding with what I'm fairly sure is a rare crime (who robs a bus?). Turns out she's ex-FBI herself, and the bureau got the short end of the Penbar exchange. In an astounding display of chauvinism, Ray puts her in her place, assuring her that he's the supercool FBI agent in this family, that he would know if he'd just shared a bus with Kira, and all but tells her "soon you'll be so busy making babies and sammiches, you'll forget you'd ever done anything else." I have now forgotten why I felt any sympathy for this guy before. I want to shower him with hatorade™.

And now, dramatic reveal! Light, cleverly disguised as "Light in a hoodie," ambushes Penbar and makes the dangerous gamble of revealing that he is Kira. It works, and believably so. If you were in this anime, and someone came up behind you claiming that they were Kira and would kill you if you turned around, would you? Hell no. At this point in the anime, no one knows how Light kills. He could have a death gaze, or think you dead, or telekinetically crush your heart. Even if you apprehended him, how could you be sure to prevent him from killing you? The only defense is to keep your face and/or name secret, and Penbar was hardly walking around with a mask on. Heh, the best part of this scene is that it all happens in a public train station. Light talks out loud to Ryuk about his experiments in murder, then accosts and threatens Penbar. And, of course, he has to prove his power, so he kills someone on the platform. Light kinda sucks at bluffing, really, but then how good do you have to be when you're holding a royal flush? We're seeing a pattern, though. Light easily becomes complacent, thinking power is all he needs, and doesn't utilize his intellect to its full potential.

So, what happens to Penbar? He dies, of course. It was him or Light, and it's pretty rare that the main character dies at all, let alone this early. I'd spill the details, but it's such an amazing scene that you really have to see it for yourself. It's worth buying the DVD, whenever that comes out, for this scene alone. I mean, assuming you pay less than $20 for it. No anime is worth $30 for 3-4 episodes. Feh. Anyways, I'll probably mention it again in a future review, as the specifics of his death tie into a couple running themes. So if you're deadset on "watching" this series solely in recaps, you won't miss too much.

The L/Police conflict comes to a head after the director of the FBI rats out L for investigating his so-called allies. This revelation doesn't appear to be delivered with malicious intent, but you have to wonder why he does it. Professional courtesy? I suppose they would've found out eventually, what with all the snappily-dressed bodies lying around. L's being thwarted at every turn, and Light's hardly trying. The FBI investigation is over, the cops are pissed at L and quitting in droves to avoid death by Kira, everything's going swimmingly. Light's dad makes like a paladin, vowing to hunt down and punish naughty ol' Kira regardless of the very real threat to his own life. Light echoes Dad's sentiments, though they don't sound as impressive on the rebound. "If anything happens to you, I'll catch me and send me to my execution personally!" Uh huh, sure. Sir Yagami challenges the rest of the police to stand up to Kira in classic paladin style. The penalty for backing down? Nothing. The reward for continuing to pursue Kira and probably dying as a result? Um, honor! Yeah, for honor. Do the right thing. Throw a trash can through a window. Huzzah! The Yagami Challenge, which at some point was probably a Japanese gameshow involving octopi and genital shocks, reduces the Kira Investigation Team (Go, KIT!) to six, just enough for a Baldur's Gate party. Aw, yeah! Light: Lawful Evil, likes to solo. L: Chaotic Good, hates godmoders.

Penbar's widow gets her investigate on, figuring out in, like, two seconds that Kira was on that bus and has to be along the bus route somewhere. More from her next episode. Another cop quits, and L meets with the diminished KIT, revealing his identity in a gentler and arguably less risky way. Now is time for pseudo-psychological profiling! L is predisposed toward pleasure without shame, a subservient personality who pushes people away with blunt honesty lest they get too close. He'd be an awesome friend (or more, if he's your type), but it's an uphill battle getting past his defenses. Light is a control freak, corruptible in the extreme. Give him power and he goes mad. He's all about pain and dominating, and isn't interested in a relationship that doesn't involve the other person serving him. It's possible he's asexual, believing himself above such concerns. If anything's scarier than a guy who can kill you with a notebook, it's a guy who isn't interested in sex. Talk about twisted. Next episode: ZOMG, it's L!

Eureka 7: Episode 1

2007-05-12T01:29:00.000-05:00

You know how some people cut themselves? Well, I watch Eureka 7. Basically the same principle.

The series starts in the sky. LFOs (mechs) fly through it for no apparent reason, and after a little babble from a character named, Stoner, missiles follow them. The team's leader, Holland, makes short work of the shooter, cutting him in half with a sword. That's right, the giant, flying machines use swords instead of lasers or missiles. If you have to know why, stop watching now. The show makes stabs at explaining it's mythos throughout the series, but none of it makes sense. "The adjective nouns employ almost-science-word to verb some other noun, in order to verb the bad things." I foresee myself skipping entire scenes just so I don't get bogged down in the logistics of pure bullshit.

Next, we meet our pubescenty hero, Renton. And I really wish we didn't have to. By episode 13, we'll all want him dead. His room is full of posters. Not of hot women-folk, but of people snowboarding in the sky. His radio talks of more verbs and nouns, which excites the young boy of 14. He's jump-cutted outside onto a little motor-bike, and takes off. Some dude fixes up his airboard and tells Renton that a 'cut-back-drop-turn,' a super-cool move one does on an airboard, is impossible for someone of Renton's age and basic intelligence. Here, we learn that Renton has a boy-crush on Holland, a famous airboard guy and a character from the first scene. One day, Renton hopes to be just like Holland. Which means in a few episodes, Holland will be revealed to be a total dick. I've seen anime before.

At school, a teacher attempts to explain something. The important thing is, Renton's dad was someone famous. A big guy in the field of bullshit science. A while back, bad things happened. Today, they call the badness period, "The Summer of Love." 'Cause it's ironical. The one who ended the Summer of Love? Renton's dad. Then something explodes next to the classroom. What? Why? Got me. Renton hits a kid for making fun of his father, and we cut to a new scene.

On the roof, Renton flashbacks to a few years ago when his sister left him to look for their father. She tells him, "If you can really believe, then the power of your belief will become reality. That means you can fly, save the people you love, and meet me whenever you want." She then gives Renton a compact drive; a vibrator looking device that glows green. It makes Renton smile.

Later, back in class, Renton's teacher tells Renton's grandfather, that Renton is kinda dumb. Despite his father being a great war hero, they'll probably have to kick him out for being too stupid. Over dinner, Grandpa weeps for having to take care of his orphaned, idiot grandson.

Renton bikes to a spot to airboard, or "Lift" as the show calls it. "As long as I can lift, there's no problem." So, of course, the only place in town to lift explodes just as he arrives. Litterally, it blows up. It's been fenced in and put aside for military training. Renton should really just kill himself.

As Renton and his grandfather fight over how useless Renton is, a little pilot in her LFO begins to crash over their home. The fight continues outside as the LFO does that cut-back-drop-turn thing, just before slamming into the house, next to the garage the family runs. We learn that this LFO is the 'ultimate' version, "Nirvash Type Zero." The pilot slowly gets out of her cockpit (giggle) and asks that someone fixes her LFO. Apparently, they aren't supposed to crash into houses.

Renton pokes around the Nirvash, spouting techno-nonsense, as Eureka, the little pilot, walks up and asks for a flamethrower. Renton shakes the blushing out of his cheeks, and asks her what's wrong. She explains that since she wrecked the place, she thought she should help out. [more bullshit goes here] Eureka walks away to get the flamethrower, and Renton finally figures out that that's an odd thing to ask for. He runs outside to find Eureka has gathered his belongings from his crushed room in a pile to burn them. Wackiness does in fact ensue.

Near by, the pilots we saw in the opening scene watch the wackiness as it ensues. We learn that Holland knows Renton's grandpa, but they don't really want to talk. So, they spy, as is normal when you don't want to talk to someone. Apparently, they sent Eureka in to avoid unpleasantness. I'm not really paying attention at this point. Probably shouldn't have admitted that... anyway.

Grandpa is all hip to the game, though. He produces a device, saying that it must be why Eureka's here. Afterwards, he orders her to leave and never come back. As soon as he's done, missiles fly for the shop. Eureka grabs the controls and drives off. Yeah, they drive, too. So, the military is attacking Eureka, because her and Holland are a part of this group called, "Gekko State." They're a little Robin-Hood-and-his-Merry-Men, but with more killing and flying through the sky.

As the Nirvash defends itself in the sky, Grandpa hands the device to Renton. It's something called an "Amita Drive," and Renton is to somehow get it to Eureka. The amita drive will "awaken the LFO to its true abilities." That's the most straight-forward explanation of things we may ever get in this show.

Renton bikes as fast as he can towards a cliff, monologuing to his sister about belief and stuff and how he's going to fly. Once over the cliff, Renton realizes he's an idiot and falls to a jaggedy death. Well, I wish. It's like those old film serials where death is eminent at the end of each one, only to have everyone smiling and joking at the start of the next. Sadly, he'll be fine.

Bleach 124

2007-05-10T20:31:00.000-05:00

Ichigo is inside his soul, or spirit, or just somewhere dark and dank, and Reverse Ichigo attacks him and says that he's now Zangetsu, the personification of Ichigo's sword. Ichigo isn't having that, see, and he releases his bankai. Reverse Ichigo (Richigo?) surprises everyone by releasing his own bankai, and he seems to use it pretty well. Ichigo is incredulous. Where did Richigo learn to use bankai? Ichigo must assume that Richigo sits around in his soul all day reading manga and eating Hot Pockets. Richigo answers that he learned to use bankai at the same time Ichigo did.

Now things get weird, and that's to be somewhat expected because we're inside Ichigo's soul, after all. But there's good weird and there's just okay weird, and this unfortunately is just okay weird, and then later on becomes bad weird. I'll explain in a bit.

Ichigo deflects a big attack from Richigo. He closes his eyes (in fear!) and reopens them to see that he's back in Soul Society. Beautiful pink blossoms float gently by his face, and he whirls about to see Kuchiki Byakuya, one of Soul Society's most powerful captains. I like to call him the Captain of Nonchalance, which makes him the Captain of My Heart. I'd put a little heart symbol there, but I can't. Anyway, Byakuya makes a few cryptic remarks about how confused Ichigo seems and releases his own bankai. This all looks like a much earlier episode: same characters, same location, same fight, but the animation isn't recycled. It's new and shiny. Byakuya cuts the mountain in half on top of Ichigo and tells him that he isn't really using bankai. Ichigo naturally can't make any sense of this. He's just that dense, even though I'm yelling something at the screen that I can't quite remember now. Why can't TV characters ever hear me?

So Ichigo is falling toward some jagged rocks (with their jags) when Byakuya appears under him. He prepares for his final attack, cracks the earth under him with the force of his insouciance, and flies up to stick Ichigo with his sword!

We never see the attack. Ichigo deflects Richigo's blade instead. Richigo seems to be enjoying himself, but Ichigo wants to end the fight quickly and fires off getsuga tenshou. To everyone's (no one's?) surprise, Richigo blocks it with one hand. He then comes up real close to Ichigo and releases his own getsuga tenshou, and everything blows up. Rocks fly up into the air and the screen turns red, and I think that's what happened when the dinosaurs died.

New scene, back in the real world. Lisa, the best Vizard, leaps into a spinning handstand and delivers a series of wicked kicks to Hollow Ichigo's head. Follow all the Ichigos? There's real Ichigo. There's Reverse Ichigo, who I assume is his id, and then there's Hollow Ichigo, who just appears to be a mindless shell whilst Ichigo and Richigo battle for control. Hollow Ichigo also howls and screeches a lot. It's spooky. So Lisa kicks him a few times until he blocks her and then goes on the attack, but she's cool, so she easily evades and counter-attacks.

Another Vizard, Kensei, replaces her. He has short gray hair, cargo pants, and his zanpaktou looks like a little knife. Maybe he has some matches and a fishing line in there.

Back inside Ichigo, Richigo explains that he was the one who first used getsuga tenshou, and Ichigo has just been copying him, and badly at that. He grabs Ichigo's sword and it changes color, falls apart. Ichigo gasps, and then he spaces out again. He turns around to see, of all people, Kariya Jin. I don't really want to talk about this part. Jin, if you simply must know, was the leader of the Bounto, during the terrible filler arc a while back. I'll just say that Jin tells Ichigo that all battles are futile because they only leads to more battles. Ichigo also realizes that his sword, Zangetsu, has been inside of him this whole time.

Meanwhile, Kensei is fighting Hollow Ichigo. Hollow Ichigo really is turning into a Hollow, what with the mask and the weird arm and even weirder attacking mouth-thing that flies out to bite Kensei. Kensei blows it away, and outside the shield Lisa extemporizes that Ichigo must surpress his inner Hollow within an hour. If he doesn't, then it will be her turn to fight him again. She looks pretty good, determined, in her glasses, with the wind blowing her hair about.

Moving quickly past the Jin scene, Richigo tells the stunned Ichigo about an adorable king and his horse. See, all things being equal, the only factor that determines whether one is the king, or whether one is the horse, is instinct. The stronger person seeks more battle to gain more power (sort of like leveling up, right?). The stronger person lives to destroy their enemies (now it's like my workplace). Richigo has that instinct. Ichigo does not. He tries to think his way through battles, and then he feels bad afterwards and sends the loser a "get well" card, I bet.

To prove the point Richigo throws his sword right through Ichigo. He simply isn't going to stand being the horse anymore. He starts to pull out his sword, but Ichigo suddenly has an epiphany and grabs the sword. It changes color and Richigo jumps away. Ichigo's eyes start to glow and he mutters, "Instinct." What could this mean?

Elfen Lied: Episode 6

2007-05-09T00:58:00.000-05:00

Bando opens his new eyes, to a yellow hue on everything. He twitches the fingers on his new robotic hand, and hasn't attempted to murder anyone yet. A personal best. A doctor hands him some pain pills in a blister pack, explaining, "After this, you'll be undergoing the sterilization procedure." So, they went with my microwave idea. Bando asks the doctor how much his new hand can withstand, learning it can hold about 110 lbs. and is otherwise pretty sturdy, too. So, of course, Bando knocks the living fuck out of him. Not that I've dealt with many murdering psychopaths before, but I'd have stuck him the microwave first. Bando then jumps out a window to make his escape. Stairs may have taken longer, but would've been way less conspicuous. Guys jumping from windows a few stories up are never up to any good.

Kouta heads out, looking to find Nyuu at the school. He's worried. I think. We can't see his face for some reason. Yuka calls him an idiot after the door closes.

At school, Lab Assistant walks in looking for Kak. She mentions she hasn't bathed in a while to no one. I don't know why. Kouta opens the door, scaring poor character-whose-name-I-don't-bother-to-find-out. She recovers quickly when she learns that Kouta is looking for Kak, and leads him to lab 103b. On the stairs, Kouta tells assistant about Nyuu, only to learn that Kak has no niece or even a brother to have sprungforth such a niece.

Under Transition Underpass, some girl walks out complaining that her job blows. Her boss is always staring at her ass. She gets embarrassed when she notices Lucy walking towards her. After they pass each other, and then walk off screen, Lucy's vectors fly back towards the girl, as if to say, "Oh, yeah! I forget to tell you something." That's probably not what they're really saying, though.

Assistant exposits that Kak is working on a vaccine to help fight the disease that causes horns to grow, and that normally, people with hornitis are quarantined immediately... "and after that..." assistant stops talking.

Lucy pulls a vector out of the girl's head, leaving her with that gradient, anime stare that characters get when they're brain dead. Lucy simply says, "Still not good..." What's no good? I'unno. But I'll believe anything Lucy wants as long as I survive.

Assistant and Kouta find that 103b is a bloody mess. Nyuu is, of course, no where to be seen, but Kak's head is laying a few feet from his body. They freak out a little, and assistant says that that 'this style' of killing is just like "..." and that people with horns who aren't quarantined right away, end up like Kak. Upon hearing some of this, Kouta has a little 'Nam flashback of a girl standing in blood, then spaces out completely. When assistant tells him to leave and not tell anyone, he agrees and stumbles away without complaint.

Back home, Yuka has been waiting for Kouta to come back. Aw. At the dinner table, Kouta has another flashback when he tries to tell Yuka that Kak is dead. He forgets what he was about to say, then zombie-walks to bed.

At Diclonius Central, Kak Senior berates Glasses a little, what with his prey having killed his son and all. Nana's name comes up, and I think I should've felt something, but I didn't. It was a lot like every other scene that's taken place in Daddy Kak's big room.

Outside the big room, Glasses admits to his assistant that he killed his own baby with his bare hands, and when his wife saw, she killed herself. He asks if she has any questions, but she's too shaken to make a 'this is your brain on Diclonius' joke.

As Mayu walks to school, she sees Bando standing on the beach, and recognizes him as that mostly-armless guy she tried to save a few episodes back. She goes down to talk, and Bando gets offended that someone so small saved him. Still, he gives her his cell number in case she's ever in trouble, and he'll come running in like a knight who beats up women and children. He asks about a woman with horns, and when Mayu asks if he means Nyuu, he jump cut to a new scene.

In the rain, Yuka and Kouta take cover in a shrine. Yuka is shivering from the cold, so Kouta sits her on his lap. I'll take a moment here to remind everyone that they're cousins. They hold each other tight and blush and Yuka's nether-region gets a tingle. She asks Kouta if she likes him, and Kouta talks about how he doesn't remember much of his childhood with her. As he rambles on, Yuka pulls him in for a passionate kiss.

Beach: Bando lifts Mayu up by her school uniform and demands answers about Nyuu. She refuses, and even offers up a lie about a brother saying he saw a girl with horns at school. Not wasting any time on paying off a plot device, Mayu immediately pulls out the piece of paper Bando used to write his number on. "Right now, I'm in big trouble..." Reluctantly, he lets her go, saying that he doesn't want to ever see her face again. He's a bad guy, you know?

At the shrine, the kiss finally breaks. Yuka tells Kouta that she doesn't care how he treats her, as long as he never leaves her. She'd make a good enabling wife. This time, it's Kouta who leans in for the kiss. The rain stops, and the two continue their half-assed search. Half-way down a flight of steps, Kouta turns around to see Lucy, who he calls, 'Nyuu.' Lucy pushes Kouta away, prompting Yuka to come up and try to pull Kouta back, as she senses danger. Instead, Lucy pushes Yuka down a few steps. Lucy starts to walk away, but Kouta stops her. When she says she's going to her own place, Kouta calls the bluff, knowing that she has no where to go. She starts to go off about how she'll find a place, any place, and make it home. Kouta spins her around and tells her that the Maple Inn is her home. Lucy's eyes fill with anime-tears, and she shouts that she doesn't deserve to live with Kouta, because eight years ago... 'Nam flash backs happen to the both of them. After the flashbacks subside, Nyuu pops up and asks Kouta for a hug with the tears still flowing. Only, Nyuu seems to have a bit of the flashback this time. Begging the question; is Lucy pretending to be Nyuu, does Nyuu remember what Lucy does, or am I just reading too much into things? I decide to not care.

Back on the beach, a giant capsule spits out white smoke, revealing Nana, limbs and all, inside. After she sits up, a message from Glasses starts. It tells her that she should be able to move her new limbs. That he left her a bag of cash. And that she should be happy. She falls down pretty hard, not really knowing how to use her new limbs just yet as the recording said. She gets down the shoreline a bit before Bando pulls a gun on her...

Continued on side 2.

Death Note 4

2007-05-08T15:36:00.000-05:00

Blah blah blah. "Last time on Death Note" runs longer than before. We get sizeable chunks of conversation this time. Then it's off to the Death God realm for... nothing of import, really. Not a complete waste of time, but all in all a slow start to the episode. But we ended on a cliffhanger last time, so let's see how that turns out... Light summarily declines. No Death God eyes, on account of he wants to live a good, long time. Okie doke. Things only start to get interesting when Light lectures Ryuk on the promptness with which he provides information, which further flags up the fact that Ryuk may have ulterior motives. That or his cluelessness isn't an act.

Light's still claiming to have humanity's best interests in mind, and encourages Ryuk to better his own world as Light is doing with Earth. I'm sure Light remembers that Death Gods can't kill each other using their Notes, so apparently he believes that what he's doing is akin to non-violent change. He's like Gandhi, only with killing instead of fasting. Same difference. After pontificating, Light goes back to his familiar, calculatingly evil ways. A test of his powers, and then, a trap. L sees what he's planning, generally, and moves to block him, but his suspicion of the police has not led him to take any measures to prevent an information leak, so Light's test succeeds and his trap, unforseen, proceeds as planned.

A curious thing happens this episode, and although there are followups in future episodes it is never definitively explained. Light makes one of his victims leave a note before he dies. Light claims the note is meaningless, yet it contains a secret message, which L finds. It begins "L, do you know," and in later episodes we get "Death Gods only eat apples." Not important information, or true (Death Gods eat more than just apples), but not exactly meaningless. So, is it, as Light claims, only there to mislead L? All signs point to yes, except... why reveal the existence of Death Gods at all? The notes themselves already mislead without the added message, and he could have chosen any number of less incriminating ways to lead him further astray. Of course, L takes much greater risks himself. I suppose Light considers this the sacrificing of a pawn to move closer to checkmate.

Light the ladies' man makes his first appearance, waking girls at the crack of dawn for a booty- er, innocuous date. Seriously, Light has no sex drive. He can get dates with ease, and if he couldn't, he could use the Note to manipulate women into liking him, loving him, or simply performing sexual favors for him. He wouldn't even have to kill them shortly after. There's no rule saying he can't write the time of death as "forty years from now" or further. In fact, I'm not sure he can't extend lifespans beyond their predestined endpoint. Smart as he is, he isn't very creative. His is a mathematical mind, as we see on Light's "date."

Special Agent Ray Penbar notes that Light isn't the least bit suspicious, thinks to himself "this'll be the last day I tail him," and then boards the same bus as Light, stepping into what is now a needless trap. Oops. I guess we shouldn't schedule Light vs. Deep Blue just yet. For a scant few seconds, I wish I were watching a romance show instead of this. In the former, the bus would actually make it to its destination, an amusement park called Spaceland, Light would actually want to be there, and there'd be lots of happy fun frolicking and cheery music. Instead we have a hijacking, a dangerous maniac, and lots of fear and cringing. Light's still happy to be there, but in a sick, twisted way.

I'm a little disappointed in how Light manipulates the hijacker to his death. He pushes the nutjob a little, but only so far as he has to in order for his directions to be fulfilled. The Death Note does all the work. Sure, it's perfectly believable this way, and safer for all but the hijacker, but it would've been nice to see Light win out using only his wits, rather than relying on godly power. Now Light has his shadow's name, but for the first time his shadow suspects something. One wonders how differently the series would've gone had Light not outguessed his opponent. Maybe the investigation would be resumed, since all other suspects would inevitably be cleared. But then couldn't Light act as unsuspicious as he usually does? And what if L went down a different avenue, finding this one bare, and the relief in pressure allowed Light to discover his opponent's name and face? Ah well, that's what you get with actions: consequences.

Eureka Seven Finale on Adult Swim

2007-05-06T16:45:00.001-05:00

All longtime readers of this blog will know that we hate Eureka Seven. Adult Swim on Cartoon Network recently concluded the show's fifty episode run, but, that apparently being insufficient, this past Saturday night we were were fortunate enough to be subjected to the conclusion a second time. It turns out that Adult Swim's habit of truncating the show's opening and ending credits had the dual effect of omitting some of the show's vital plot points, those plot points being explicated during the time normally allotted to those selfsame credits. I'm frankly quite surprised that the [AS] folks didn't realize this, but it also confirms my suspicion that they stopped watching a long time ago. Because they hate the show too, you see. I can only imagine that there was some outcry over the cut material, which forced them to show the episode again, in its entirety.

As conclusions go, the show was quite unsatisfactory. Random monsters attack for no reason, Eureka hangs upside down in a big red ball, and a giant heart attacks the moon. A more Neon Genesis Evangelion-esque ending would have been appropriate, possibly with Renton sitting by himself in a dark room and everyone yelling at him for half an hour. Then, at the very end, Eureka would have appeared to slap the shit out of him for a while. That would have had more of an impact on me, for this entire series generally had none.

Except for episode 26, where Eureka needs Renton so much that she flies off alone on her little surfboard thing and as she's hurtling to her death Renton plucks her out of the sky. That part wasn't so bad.

Romeo X Juliet 2

2007-05-03T01:37:00.001-05:00

So, Romeo and Juliet attempt to fill their awkward pause with some gasps, but it doesn't work so well. Juliet holds a flower in her hands and Romeo's all, 'hey, cool flower,' and Juliet gasps some more. When Romeo asks what for Juliet's name, she... keeps gasping. Someone should be calling for help and giving her some Bayer. Before Juliet can come up with an alias, Benvolio calls for Romeo, giving her a chance to run away. In her escape, she yells out to no one, "Romeo! His name is Romeo!" Knowing what happens, her excitement is actually kind of sad.

Juliet runs into some guards at the exit, who close in like they want to stab her with spears, but Francisco, a character we don't really know yet, shows up to save her. He claims that Juliet is a distant relative of the Montagues from the Farnese family, and brandishes a crest which scares the guards away. She runs to the carriage and glances back, sending us back to the palace. Romeo asks if Benvolio knows which house Juliet came from, and, of course, he doesn't. Above the audience at the ball, the archduke announces that Romeo is to be wed to Hermione. Hermione beams and Romeo's eyes get really big.

Back in the carriage, Conrad yells at Juliet for going out, but Juliet just blushes with memories of Romeo before complaining about her entire life in just a few seconds. Conrad repeats that when Juliet turns sixteen everything will make sense. Then, just to remind everyone that this is an anime, Juliet's pupils get really small and she calls Conrad a stubborn fool under her breath, and he shouts back in a 'comical' way just before cutting to the next scene.

Romeo and Hermione dance, her blushing and happy, him possibly dead, until Romeo excuses himself, saying that the roses are overpowering him. I agree. I hope Juliet is our hero, because a guy who claims roses make him ill, even when lying, ain't my kind of hero. And so far, I'd rather watch a rose than him. While Juliet has been thought-out and recreated with a little care, Romeo seems to only be in the show because his name is in the title.

The next day, Juliet's birthday, Cordelia mentions that the ball must have been pretty cool, but with her "weathered hands," they'd never have let her in. Neo Verona is pretty strict about who they let dance unemotionally around flowers. She goes on to talk about how other people's lives suck much more than hers, then just walks off somewhere. At breakfast, Juliet-Odin asks Antonio where Conrad is. He's out, and that apparently means the Crimson Whirlwind and Tiny Friend are going to make an appearance.

In the Slums of Neo Verona, some douche bag takes a man's daughter as a payment unnamed man didn't make. She's loaded into a covered cart with five or six other girls, and they take off. Crimson jumps onto the top of the cart, and the douche bag's cronies join her up top for a fight. She kicks two of the thugs off the cart, but a third takes Crimson's sword and knocks her to the ground. As Tiny Friend frees the girls, Curio, another character we don't really know yet, falls from the Heavens to take out the man about to stab Crimson. Once the cart stops, Crimson makes douche bag pull out the contract, and she slices it up, Zorro-style. Clearly, that man will never kidnap anyone ever again. His papers may get ripped.

On their way home, Curio protests that the whole 'Whirlwind' thing is pretty pointless. Badguys will still be badguys. Besides, "there is something much more important," which only Juliet can do. He won't say what, leading her to yell about the whole 'when you're sixteen' thing. With her birthday being today, she gets a little upset. Curio and Antonio just walk off, though. People lose interest pretty easily in this show.

After the break, Conrad is yelling again. I'd go into detail, but you could just search this review and the last for 'Conrad,' and it'll pretty much be the same two sentences. When Cordelia walks by, Juliet gives her same hand cream in what should be a touching scene revolving around how the rightful heir to Neo Verona cares about the common man and/or woman, but feels a lot like... nothing. No emotion or an air of importance at all. I'm usually all for subtlety, but it's possible to be so subtle that nothing actually happens. Juliet and Antonio jump up and announce they're off to Willy's. Once alone, the three men glibly talk secrets. When Conrad muses that it's amazing they've lasted for so long, Francisco says it's because Juliet is being protected by Neo Verona itself. Ignoring the cryptic comment, Curio wonders aloud if Juliet is going to be the same after she learns 'The Truth' later on tonight. Ignoring that, too, Conrad asks if everyone's been told about tonight, and wonders how many will turn up.

With Willy, Odin asks what he's working on. It's "As You Like It," a play about a woman who's been living as a man, but after falling in love, turns back into a woman. It's a comedy. When Juliet asks if love could be possible between a noble and a commoner, he gives her the famous line, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and woman merely players." Adding, "Within a story, status has nothing to do with love." Which is kind of a nice touch. And I agree; love is blind, status is a plot-point.

Back in Noble Land, Hermione and Romeo walk together surrounded by rose bushes. She asks if Romeo's doing alright, what with the roses and all, and he says he's fine. Hermione is glad. She's a little slow. When Romeo sees an Iris flower, the one Juliet was holding, he pauses, then wanders off, leaving Hermione standing alone. I was staring at the rose bushes in the fuzzy background the entire time.

Juliet asks Cordelia to tell her where irises bloom after jumping into the doorway, scaring her for no reason. Cordelia demands to know why, and after a little while, she admits that it's because, "He said I smelled like irises." I don't remember that happening, which isn't to say it didn't, but shouldn't she want something that reminds her of Romeo, and not something that would remind Romeo of her? Wuv is confusing.

We cut to Romeo flying around on his horse as he finds a field of irises. He lands, takes a whiff, and spots Juliet holding an iris. Romeo asks for Juliet's name so he can call it out, but then just says it normally after he does. Dude can't follow through on anything. Juliet says she came to the field as a birthday present to herself, and blushing like mad, Romeo picks a flower, and hands it to her wishing her a happy birthday. Aw, I guess. They promise to meet at the field again tomorrow at the same time, but because a bell is ringing in the background, Juliet has to run off. At least, that's how I interpreted it. There was no other reason for her to run off.

At dinner, Juliet comes to the table in a dress, and Antonio has a nervous breakdown. Apparently, he had no idea he was a she. Juliet blows out the candles on her cake, and we're quickly rushed off to the next scene.

Storm clouds blow in as they enter a cemetery so we know serious things are about to happen and we should pay attention. Conrad gives a quick history lesson to Juliet about how the Capulet's once ruled Neo Verona and they were pretty cool. But fourteen years ago, Lord Montague killed the Capulet family, and this is where they're buried. He then reveals to her that she is Lord Capulet's daughter. She gasps, as she is want to do, then notices a few dozen townspeople closing in. She takes a few steps back, frightened, but since we all remember Conrad asking if 'they' were coming tonight, we just sit here watching. They kneel and, in unison, they say, "Your Highness Juliet Fimatte Arst Capulet." Then lightning bolts across the sky. Somewhere, Romeo lays on a couch. Seriously. We go out on Romeo about to take a nap. He'd better do something soon, or I quit.

Bleach 123

2007-05-01T19:28:00.001-05:00

Last we looked, we deeply suspected that Ichigo was about to get beaten up by Hiyori, which is exactly what happens. He refuses to bring out his Hollow, and Hiyori handles him quite easily until he passes out. Naturally, this awakens that selfsame Hollow, which proceeds to grab the l'il Vizard by the neck so that it can choke the life out of her. Hiyori's fellow Vizards come to the rescue. She's left crying and shaking like a little girl, and Shinji says that they'll train Ichigo. Gosh, he should have just asked.

Back at Ichigo's house, his family is worried sick, even though some of them are trying to act all blasé about it. Rukia stands on the roof a bit, and even Kon, their stuffed animal mascot, starts to think that Ichigo is being a dick.

It turns out that Ichigo's training involves standing in a Nordic track kind of exercise machine for hours and hours, extending even unto days. The rest of the Vizard just stand around watching him and making small talk amongst themselves. We learn a few of their names. Frankly, I don't care who they are, except for Lisa, the dark-haired girl in the glasses, who I marked out last time as my favorite new character. Naturally, my choice was correct, as we see her staring intently at a magazine filled with swimsuit models (which by definition makes her the best Vizard ever) and counting out time for Ichigo. So, she's absent-mindedly saying "one, two, one, two" and reading her girly magazine, and I pretty much instantly fall in love. And if you're one of those people who prudishly say "You can't in love (wuv) with a cartoon character," then I really feel sorry for you.

Ichigo, taunted by the counting, frustrated beyond belief, decides that he's had enough and throws the exercise machine at Shinji. Hence begins one of Bleach's trademark goofy scenes, where characters just yell at each other for no reason. There's even circus music, and you expect clowns to start jumping out of little cars. Sometimes it's funny, usually not. This goofiness rates a "blah," and only because it features Hiyori repeatedly slapping Ichigo with her sandal.

Ichigo finally says that he isn't going to work on the machine anymore because it's useless. Apparently, it's designed to sap spiritual energy. Ichigo can tell that the Vizard want him completely drained and tired when they begin training him, but, see, he's so freakin' strong that he could ride the machine for days, and he doesn't have time to waste on crap like that. Then Shinji starts to yell. He reveals that he and the Vizard know all about Aizen and the arrancar, so Ichigo doesn't need to pout about "not having any time." Nevertheles, Shinji decides to accelerate the training anyway, since Ichigo seems able to speed up the normal training process anyway.

Clearly, Shinji and the others know a lot more than they're letting on. So we have to ask how? And why? And what are they going to do about it? Ichigo is rendered unconscious and everyone goes into a huge underground chamber. The pink-haired guy, Hachi, wraps Ichigo in some powerful binding spells. Then they all sit down to have some sandwiches.

Though unconscious and magically restrained in the real world, the spiritual Ichigo returns to his inner realm, where buildings stand on the side and sometimes it rains a little. But a little fall of rain can hardly hurt me now, right, Eponine? Ichigo looks around for the old man who lives in his sword, Zangetsu, but all he finds is Reverse Ichigo, his own inner Hollow. Ichigo asks where the old man--Zangetsu--is, but Reverse Ichigo explains that he is Zangetsu! And they start fighting. Zounds!

Back in the real world, Ichigo's body wakes up, easily breaking through the binding spells. He's wearing his Hollow mask and hissing a lot, so this must be pretty bad. Luckily, he's still in this little containment field. And that's when Lisa stands up. She volunteers to go inside. Shinji tells her not to kill him, but she's hoping that Ichigo don't kill her first. She enters the field, draws her sword and introduces herself, and Hollow Ichigo attacks! I hope Lisa is okay!

Real Ichigo is meanwhile fighting Reverse Ichigo and wants to end the fight quickly. He begins to summon his bankai, and that's when Reverse Ichigo begins to do the same.

Lovely Idol 2

2007-04-27T20:01:00.000-05:00

Like all good pop music, this is one little nugget that gets stuck in your head. You doubt this? The last episode ended with the purple-haired girl singing some song, and that song made its way into my mental playlist. Yes, mixed with the Beethoven and Britney Spears, suddenly appeared some little ditty composed by a faraway anime recording artist. No one is more shocked than me. I may just have to kill myself now.

The episode opens with our humble manager, Tomohiro, sitting with his sister, Ruri. They're looking at a laptop computer and flipping through internet pictures of the purple-haired girl. Her name: Mizuki. Her misson: To sing terribly sad songs on the street. Tomohiro is obsessed with her, staring at her pictures, daydreaming about her, following her after every performance, only to be rebuffed again and again. Mizuki sees right through him. All he wants is to use her to make money. At least he's not trying to assault her. She has high expectations of her men.

Meanwhile, the four girls who didn't get their debut in the previous episode continue to practice, dancing and singing. Eventually, they start to notice that Tomohiro, their manager, is spacing out a lot more than usual, and they follow him. They see him listening to Mizuki, being quite rudely turned back, and the girls retreat to the safey of a shower. Unfortunately, it's not a big group shower. They're each in their little stalls, but this doesn't impede their conversations. They decide to try to recruit Mizuki themselves! With gusto like this, I don't see how this batch won't make it to the big stage. Do you think this will happen in episode four or five?

The next evening Tomohiro is shocked to find that his girls aren't in the studio practicing. So what does he do? He goes on a date, with one of the group's older members, Toko. We learn that she and Tomohiro dated for a while previously, and we're kind of jealous, as she looks pretty fetching in her sunglasses and white cap (her incognito outfit). They stroll into the crowd, she notes how they almost look like a couple, and I mutter something about how this almost feels like a plot.

The younger girls are naturally harassing Mizuki, to try to convince her to join them. They attempt various hare-brained schemes, all of which involve talking to her, but Mizuki is less responsive than a brick wall. Now, I've had some dates go pretty badly, but at least each time the girl would sort of talk to me (or stab me with a broken drinking glass), but this Mizuki seems to be pathologically silent. Must have something to do with how much she hates to sing.

The last of the four girls is about to try talking to Mizuki when Tomohiro finds them. He shames the girls a bit and they say that they're just trying to help, but they ask (and quite reasonably I think) why he wants the add Mizuki. What does it say about them as they are? Tomohiro simply says that someday they'll understand, and I hope that day comes soon because I'm with the girls here. And I also hate when people say "someday you'll understand," because it just as likely means that they don't have an answer themselves yet. They're just trying to sound smart.

The girls notice Toko. She tells them not to give up hope, and then they sit down to listen to Mizuki sing. In the background, Tomohiro asks Toko what she thinks of Mizuki. Toko gets upset and asks Tomohiro if this is the only reason he asked her out. He says of course, which means that he's a tremendous fool, because every guy knows that the right answer is, "No, this is entirely a coincidence. I wanted to be with you."

Toko eventually says that, yes, Mizuki is filled with pain, and she may hate singing, but she's nonetheless singing. She has a purpose of some sort in perpetuating her agony. "But what about ours?" I'm asking myself, but right then Toko's present manager shows up, and she kicks Tomohiro's ass. Toko seems to be strictly off-limits to him.

Everyone leaves and Tomohiro goes to talk to Mizuki one more time. He sneaks up behind her and basically tells her what Toko told him. He doesn't care why she's singing, or on whom she wants revenge, but he'll help her achieve whatever goal she wants. This finally prompts a reaction from the brick wall that is Mizuki. She calls Tomohiro "interesting," which in Japan is a great honor, I think. He leaves her alone then, but not after giving her a bag of food. So I guess she's poor or homeless.

The show's still not over, unfortunately. Tomohiro and the girls are back at the studio when he suddenly gets a call. There's a new member coming. Who could it be? The door opens. We see Ruri, his sister! Maybe she'll bring some life to this show, and maybe I won't hum the theme song as I walk to work.

Death Note 3

2007-04-27T11:07:00.000-05:00

Again with the recap, and this time it's counterproductive in a way. If this is your first time watching Death Note, or you missed the second episode for any reason, you would be led to an erroneous conclusion. Namely, that fake L is the real L. But that's what you get with quick recaps. Besides, it's one more reason to go watch those first two eps, as if you needed it.

Some recurring themes first rear their head this episode. L begins jumping to borderline psychic conclusions about Kira's identity and motivations, straining believability somewhat. Precocious young police officer Matsuda Tota's good intentions lead to embarrassing himself; he grows into one of the series better characters, but this is the most minor of his missteps. We also see the groundwork for L and the Japanese police butting heads. Yes, there was some of that last episode, but in general from the whole world's police. Here we have L giving cops busy work and a distrustful glare or two directed at the laptop monitor that represents their so-called equal partner, the great L who can't be bothered showing up in person. L seems to have done all the research he asks the cops to do in advance, and merely has them duplicate it so they'll be more easily convinced of his conclusions. It's a clearly delineated teacher-student role, with L testing his students as a means of teaching them what he already knows. That's all well and good, except they aren't students and are reluctant to see an outsider as their superior. Which is perfectly reasonable since they have a well-respected superior already, their chief of police. L comes in, treats them like kids, and assumes they'll respect him above all others.

This episode's big reveal, which I kind of gave away last review, is that the chief of police is Light's father, Yagami Soichiro. Through his father, who as good a cop as he is doesn't suspect his son in the least, Light has access to all the files on the Kira investigation, or anyways all the ones L has deigned to share with the police. With L having twigged to the fact that Kira could be a student - the latter being too busy to kill people during school hours or sleepytime - Light decides to lead him in another direction by playing with times of death, among other things. It's simple, really. Like a ventriloquist drinking water, Light uses preconceptions to lead his audience toward a conclusion they want to make, but that logic would otherwise preclude. L immediately sees through it, and Light naturally claims it was all part of his plan. He wants L to learn of his police connection, which he does, in order that he might cross the line from murderous vigilante to plain old killer... by offing L. Light grows eviler all the time.

Now instead of cops vs. killer we have L vs. Kira and the police vs. L. Oh, and the police vs. getting killed. Some cops are quitting because, "boo hoo! Kira can kill me from a distance with only my name and face! I'm ascared!" Pfft. Meanwhile, L goes in a slightly different direction than Light wanted. He's not just investigating the police, he's investigating anyone close to the police, and is certain one of them is Kira. So Light goes from being one of thousands, maybe millions in his region, and perhaps a student, to one of hundreds and definitely someone with a police connection. It's amazing that he isn't caught within six episodes, and it's only through an interesting, if convoluted, series of twists and turns that this series has any chance of holding up over 37 episodes.

"Extra life?!" Ah, the endless Japanese obsession with videogames. In this case, though, it's not an extra life, it's an extended lifespan. And, as Ryuk helpfully points out, it's what Death Gods, and only Death Gods, get for writing names in a Note. Humans get squat. Why is Ryuk being helpful? According to him, it's only because of the next thing he points out, that Death Gods don't need news reports to see someone's name, and that the eyes of a Death God can be yours for the low, low price of... half your remaining lifespan. That Ryuk makes this proposition brings up several questions. How long does Light have? Ryuk knows, and could be making the deal to get a big chunk of life added onto his. But he could just kill Light whenever, or kill other humans, using his spare Death Note (remember he had two before dropping Light's). So is he trying to help Light in a roundabout way, get Light's permission before screwing him, or simply see how Light reacts? The last would gel with his stated motivation for dropping the Note in the first place - for fun - but I still suspect he's more on Light's side than he lets on.

Elfen Lied: Episode 5

2007-04-26T22:22:00.000-05:00

Mr. Glasses is found ruminating on the roof of Diclonius Central. Assistant comes up to inform him that she's reported to the superiors about "Number 7's" repairs. Now, that could mean to Nana or the room where they held her. She asks, "Do you have any regrets?" Without missing a beat, Glasses-san goes, "Regrets and so forth... are for those who look back and judge right or wrong which is unforgivable." Nge. That's the sound my brain makes when it hits itself on the skull.

Back at Runaway House, Mayu has left a letter saying how she's not good enough to stay there and eat and stuff. So, she re-ran away. Kouta, Yuka, and Nyuu go off into town to find the little gal.

The shopkeeper from earlier episodes mention that she hasn't been in today, but she has a gift for her. The group takes the box, but before the scene can progress, the next scene backs into this one. Now, if the whole 'Nana getting dismembered then later being put down' stuff was too much for you, take the Prozac now. We're about to find why a 13 year old girl is wondering Japan pantless and sad. I almost preemptively committed suicide out of sheer grief for this poor kid.

See, 'some time ago,' Mayu's mother brought home Mayu's "new Papa."

Nge. The very next scene, is Mayu in her pajamas, and new Papa sitting on a bed. Her hair is down over her eyes to show her embarrassment and shame. He tells her to 'do it like always...' and I vomit a little. The studio audience isn't quite sure what to do; most avert their eyes. She turns around, then gets on all fours. Later, Li'l Mayu tells her mom about what new Papa does, and Bad Motha' slaps Mayu down. "The one we don't need here is you! As long as you're here... as long as you're here, that person..." Mommy's jealous of the attention her daughter is getting from her new husband. And that's reason enough not to call the cops on the abuse, apparently. They should call Dr. Phil.

Next time, Mayu's skirt comes down, but when bad Daddy wants more, she screams, "NO!" and starts running. Hence, her pantlessness up until now in the series. She runs until she falls down, and cries. Excuse me, I'm gonna go kill myself for a while.

I'm back. Mayu keeps walking and walking, until eventually she reaches the ocean. With a smile, she takes off her shoes, and walks in. Where's she going? Down. Before she gets too far, a puppy barks. She goes back to investigate, and finds Wanta the dog. They're both alone, but more importantly, abandoned. Nobody wants either of them, except each other. And JUST as Mayu is coming out of her flashback, standing at the beach during a setting sun, you hear someone off screen call for, "James." It's the supposed real owner of Mayu's dog. She bitchily walks away with her dog, and when Mayu asks if she could maybe see him again, Bitch insists that a girl with clothes that dirty could never come to her house and see her puppy. Aw. I'm gonna kill myself again.

In her shanty town box, Mayu is crying and being a little crazy. As she shakes from the cold, two officers find her and ask her to get out. When she runs, the cops chase after her, 'cause Mayu really don't want to go back to Bad Dad and Bitch Mom. Luckily, Kouta and friends are waiting up the hill. Kouta identifies Mayu as a member of the family, and it's actually kinda touching.

Inside Runaway, the gift the shopkeeper had given Yuka and Kouta turns out to be a stale birthday cake. *sniff* Nyuu comes in with a big-ass bowl of rice, since Mayu was so happy with the food earlier, I guess. Mayu's happy and crying and confused and... WANTA's outside! Oh, all is well in the world again. And it will be forever! Right? ... please?

Some time later... Mayu leaves Runaway HQ in a school uniform, apparently off to school. Or a photo shoot. I'm not sure how much time has past. Yuka and Kouta have a little conversation about how odd it is that they're suddenly Mayu's adopted parents. Which it is, only because they asked. The mom doesn't want any of that backstory truth to get out. Plus, she's probably on the crack, now. Dr. Phil could've saved her so good.

Kouta and Yuka are starting school today, and have to bring Nyuu along. Her new, and only word she's learned is, "Yes!" There's some talk about how 'this teacher' is a little weird, and they comic-relief each other to pass the time. The teacher comes in, and incidentally, he is none other than Doctor Kakuzawa, the Chief's son! It's like that one plot and this one have somehow joined together! I hear blood makes a great solvent. He of course notices Lucy, and asks that she and the other two join him later.

We go downstairs to Doctor Kakuzawa's... room? Lab? Area of Plot Advanceman (APA). He informs Yuka and Kouta that 'this young woman' is his brother's daughter, and they've been all so worried about poor wittle Lucy. When Kouta starts to ask questions, Doc Kak implies that our two young heroes could be arrested for kidnapping and such. Kouta hangs his head, and tells Yuka that they should go. Without a word, Kouta starts to leave. Kak holds Nyuu by the shoulders, and she reaches out for him, and even manages to say his name. *sniff* As she screams for him to be with her, he walks away. He doesn't look back, but has on a Batman shirt. I felt it needed said.

Back on the stairway in town, Kouta and Yuka try to happily defend what they've done, but instead, burst into tears.

In a lower lab of the school, Lab 103b Exposition and Foreshadowing, Doc Kak has Nyuu naked and tied up. Kak talks about a gland in the brain that allows Diclonius to use their vectors, and I think he sort of implies that there's a way to fix her broken vectors. But none of that seems to be of any importance. Really, he wants to bone Lucy so she can carry their Lurv Child of the Apocalypse, and take out the rest of us lowly humans. He gives her a shot to put her to sleep.

At dinner, Mayu is the one who goes, "Hey... that was kinda a big coincidence. Bah, I'm sure it's fine. Mm... tea. *slurp*" The other two pick their noses and watch King of the Hill, throwing beer cans at Mayu. No, not really. But they might as well. They're very slow.

Back in the creepy dungeon of X-Rays, Doc Kak is talking off his tie, and Lucy/Nyuu is on the floor, unconscious.

Mayu goes to bed, and Kouta and Yuka have another weird "Well, 'love' can mean many different things," conversations. Yuka wants to know whether or not Kouta would cry like he did for Nyuu a few scenes ago, if Yuka had gone missing. Kouta says, "It's not like I'd want to or not want to cry." He doesn't go out much. They both shrug off the conversation, leave, then start crying for being self-absorbed and stupid.

Dungeon. Kak talks to himself, then turns around to notice Nyuu/Lucy is gone. And on the other side of the room... Lucy wakes up. Sort of. "I am asleep... my other self that is." Kak tells us that he's the one who opened the doors that allowed Lucy to escape in episode one, and that Lucy needs to 'be faithful to [her] DNA's orders,' by killing everyone and having lots o' babies. She breaks some glass to be scary and show her vectors are working. Then, Kak pulls off a wig to show that he, too, has horns on his head. Why not? He says all he has is the horns, meaning he doesn't have the cool killing arms. Then he goes on, again, to say, "You're wrong... the long anticipated..." then his neck blows up.

But Lucy don't need no half-breed, prick like Kak. That's not how Lucy rolls.