Subculture Anime Blog

OP: “Hito toshite Jiku ga Bureteiru (人として軸がぶれている)” by Kenji Ohtsuki feat. Ai Nonaka, Marina Inoue, Yu Kobayashi, Miyuki Sawashiro & Ryoko Shintani – As I suspected, the OP has already been changed visually. There is a lot more activity this time around, with lots of sexual references thrown in. It’s extremely stylish as expected, and I love it.

Summary:

Nozomu is sent to meet with Kobuji Abiru’s father, because Abiru is rumored to be a victim of domestic violence. When he finds Abiru’s father purchasing things in the market, Nozomu imagines the abusive things against Abiru he could be using the items for. Nozomu warns the shop keepers of his actions, causing them all to send Abiru’s father away. After imagining some extremely ridiculous situations, Nozomu comes to the conclusion that Abiru’s father is no ordinary person, and quickly apologizes to him in fear of his life. Later, Kafuka somehow ends up in a tiger’s cage, thinking that it is ok to be eaten because she would be reborn as a god in the next life. However, before the tiger can attack her, Abiru calls it over to her. She gets along with it, but is injured in the process. Abiru explains that she has a part time job at the zoo because of her love of animals. To be more precise, she loves their tails. Arriving at her house afterwards, Nozomu finds that she has a large collection of animal tails on her wall. Abiru expresses her dream to go around the world and pulling on animal’s tails, and how she confuses things for tails at times. Abiru suggests that Nozomu try on a tail, causing him to run out in belief that she is a pervert.

The next day in class while Nozomu is having students read parts out loud, he finds that one girl, Otonashi Meru, cannot read her part. After becoming extremely nervous, she runs out of the room. The students explain that she has trouble speaking out loud, so he goes out after her. After finally finding her, he convinces her to come back to class. Nozomu comes up with a way to communicate with her, by sending her a text message by phone. However, when he receives a mail back, he finds that it is extremely offensive. This happens to the rest of the students as well, as they are all taken back by her way of describing them. They believe that it is over when Meru’s phone runs out of batteries, but they find that she has plenty of replacements. When Kafuka finally returns to the class, Nozomu has her switch seats with Meru, causing her signal to go out. However, without the ability to use her phone, Meru goes into a demon like state. Seeing that this is the same thing that happened with her mother, Kafuka uses a cross to stop Meru. After breaking her phone, Kafuka expresses to Meru that there are plenty of other ways to express herself. Kafuka guesses what Meru is thinking, but when she asks for Meru to do the same to her, Meru runs off in fear. Kafuka catches her before she can get away, and she suggests that they find out everyone else’s feelings. This leads to a very strange situation.

Impression:

There were lots of references in this episode as usual, including: Ichigo 100%, Gundam SEED, a small Pokemon reference, several Negima references, SHAFT’s typical rpg game parody with a twist, and a ton of other ones. The introduction of Kobuji Abiru takes a look into the serious problem of domestic violence. Although I could relate with some of the earlier character introductions, this is something that I have no experience with. I don’t think it would be irrational to think that Nozomu’s imagination of events could be held true in a real life situation, though it was of course put off as a joke. It is common knowledge that domestic violence exists here in the states and elsewhere. The next half of Abiru’s introduction, however, was probably just full of gags. Sure there are people that have a love of animals, but I’ve never heard of the weird fetishes that were presented. That is unless I’ve just never seen it, and no, I don’t want to.

Otonashi Meru, on the other hand, is someone that I could relate to, at least in the past. Social anxiety is a pretty serious problem, and it is really hard for the person who suffers from it. Many around these people will not understand why they cannot speak, because it is considered something normal. Putting pressure on them causes a lot of stress, and it leads to some pretty serious problems. The scenario Nozomu came up with is something a lot of teachers do. Finding an alternate way for the student to express their thoughts until they can speak freely seems to be the most common type of action. Of course, this is when the character took a turn, representing a second problem. Although she just seems extremely shy, her voice changes when it comes to sending messages over the net. Sound familiar? I’m talking to all of the internet trolls out there. Nobody is afraid to speak their mind when they are anonymous. Oh, and how I loved the last scene with Kafuka. Here comes the religious bashing, and the subject that causes heated debates between the ignorant and the rational. Well, that’s one thing that I don’t want to touch on any further than that, so we’ll leave it by saying that they put it off as a witch joke. I can’t stop loving this show for enlightening the all too happy majority and reaching out to the troubled minority. More despair please!

To those of you who actually read my blog, sorry this is late. I was at my University orientation for most of the weekend, and I had a lot of stuff to take care of afterwards. I also went to see Sunshine with friends today (good movie….ending was mindfuck though), so I didn’t get a chance to finish writing this until now. I’ll get to working on my regular Sunday posts in just a bit.