Subculture Anime Blog

The secret behind the jiggling….revealed?

Summary:

As Inamochi’s creature confronts her, Shiro attempts to use her powers against it. She soon realizes, however, that she isn’t able to absorb any life force from it. While this happens, Toru is taken hold of by one of Enju’s followers. The demon soon expresses to Enju that Toru must die so that a new parent can be established. This way, the king of demons could be created. Enju is shocked at this, and when her follower sees that she is unwilling to do this, he offers to do so instead. Tenko runs into Shiro on the way to the school, and a large amount of her power is drained when the two pass each other. Despite this, she is able to save Toru from an explosion caused by Shiro’s fight just in time. When Ko sees Bekira preforming actions that would be against Toru’s wishes, she confronts her at the scene. After easily dissolving the beast that was up against Shiro, Ko shows that she is more than a match for Bekira.

When Noboru meets Toru, he is surprised to see Shiro’s older appearance. The two brothers are further surprised to hear Shiro speak. Shiro is unsure why she is finally able to talk, but she expresses that she always wanted to converse with Toru. On the rooftops above, Tenko confronts Tsukuyomi who is currently troubled with his inability to contact Bekira. Finding that Tenko does not wish to let him seal Shiro, Tsukuyomi reveals that the only other option would be for Shiro to die. Tenko still does not believe sealing Shiro would make Toru happy, but when Tsukuyomi reveals that Toru would be chased by demons for the rest of his life if this did not happen, Tenko realizes that things cannot go so perfectly.

Tenko quickly contacts Noboru over phone, instructing him to stop Ko. Finding that Shiro would have to be sealed to avoid death, Noboru believes that Toru would also have to be notified of this. Toru takes this surprisingly well, deciding that saving Shiro was the reason he went to her. As Bekira gets to work on her, Shiro tells Toru that she visited the house before coming to the school. Sensing the Sakasaen, however, she did not stay. Shiro reminds Toru that he promised to become her family, which is why she returned. Shiro starts to fall asleep due to Bekira’s devices, and as she closes her eyes, memories of her stay flash through Toru’s head. Afterwards, Toru is forced to let Bekira take Shiro away. In other places, Tenko confronts Inamochi about where he obtained the earlier creature. Inamochi does not give a solid answer, and disappears by revealing that the body before her is a fake.

Later, Tenko is confronted by Gyokuyou near the riverbank. Bringing up her actions, Gyokuyou wonders if Tenko really remembers the suffering she should have spent while sealed. This makes Tenko remember a conversation she had with Miyako in the past, where Miyako wondered if Tenko hated humans for sealing her. Tenko was rather indifferent about this, denying any of Miyako’s suggestions about revenge. Tenko expresses to Gyokuyou that she has forgotten the ill feelings she had ever had about humans, believing that she only remembered the good memories since she needed them. Expressing that she is happy and already satisfied, Tenko allows Gyokuyou to go without having to do anything for her. While Toru walks with Tenko afterwards, he believes to himself that he would be quite frustrated if Noboru was sealed for several hundred years. Seeing that Tenko only remembered her good memories, he hopes that Shiro would do the same.

Preview: Random antics through throw away preview filler!

Impression:

The shocking truth unveiled! So yea, it’s not that I disliked this arc, but I am actually pretty glad it is over. It just seems like too much time was spent being campy about what Shiro really was, and an episode or two could have easily been spent doing better things. With that said, this episode was probably the best out of what has been showing in recent weeks. It had quite a bit of action towards the beginning, and hearing Shiro finally speak was a real joy to hear. Ko was especially awesome with her frisbee fighting (or whatever you’d like to call throwing the Sakasaen around). It was nice to see Tenko and Gyokuyou’s sibling(?) relationship towards the end too, and the way Toru mirrored their relationship with his own with Noboru made it all so easy to understand. I do feel like the the end of the battles were really anticlimactic (just make a phone call and accept the sealing?), but I’ve come to expect the “everyone is friends” endings by now.

In other news, one of the art books I bought today actually contained art from Houden Eizou - the original illustrator for the Wagaya novels. The pictures were pretty stunning, and I really started to feel amazed at how the characters ended up making it to animation with the same general designs. It’s just the fact that illustrations are much less collaborated with novels’ content, unlike manga. From the interview contained with the art, it was pretty clear that Eizou had a lot of freedom to create what he wanted after looking through the novel’s material for the first time too. Eh, this is probably a really common thing in adaption, but it was the first time I really put some thought into it. It was pretty inspiring.

I don’t think I will even bother with guessing what will be showing next week, since it seems like they’ve given up on giving us real previews at this point.