Subculture Anime Blog

I didn’t know I was watching Gurren Lagann.

Summary:

After spending some time in the city, Kashawagi Hidemi misses the train home. Not knowing what to do afterwards, she continues to wander the city by doing things like visiting the arcade and avoiding trouble from the typical residents. In other places, Suzuki Kinya is abused by a group of men who hope that he will come up with some money soon. Kinya is helped by a homeless man afterwards, who suggests that Kinya should go home sometime soon. Because of his pride, however, Kinya refuses to do so. With this, the homeless man guesses that Kinya still has things he can do. Kinya eventually meets Hidemi outside, and because of the inspiration he has just gained from his friend, he offers to help her home. Finding that her place would be too far away to send her back by taxi though, he instead invites her to the shop he works at.

While offering her food among other things at the shop, Kinya learns that Hidemi is quite smart. She had come to the city for testing, then becoming distracted by her friends, so she denies Kinya’s joking suggestion that she is something of a delinquent. Becoming attached to Kinya, Hidemi admits that she almost called home at the shop, but stopped after having a strange feeling. Though it was not quite the same as having fun, she felt like she should stay in the area. Kinya only warns her that she may become like him if she does, and when Hidemi shows that some of her speech may have already been influenced, the two continue to laugh. The next day, Kinya helps Hidemi to the station. When Yuzuki passes by her later though, she cannot help but look back in notice of something.

At school, Yuzuki hears from her friends about someone’s posting a picture of Hidemi with Kinya online. Because of this, Yuzuki quickly realizes that Hidemi may be planning on contacting the Jigoku Tsushin. When the Correspondence sees Yuzuki later, they easily realize that she plans on interfering with their activities. Of course, Wanyudo expresses that it isn’t something easy to do. When Yuzuki meets Hidemi, she confirms that she is worried about her reputation because of the rumors going around. Hearing that Hidemi planned on contacting the Jigoku Tsushin after learning who took the picture, Yuzuki tries to stop her by telling her about Akie who was taken away despite her innocence. This brings the girls to seek out Kinya in the city. Kinya currently beats up his previous homeless friend, however, after having heard rumors about him having a large sum of money. This has him caught by the police, and when Hidemi sees this, she contacts the Jigoku Tsushin through her phone in a panic.

Hidemi initially fears being sent to hell after talking with Ai, but when she arrives at the police station, Kinya rushes out after firing shots in its direction. He also holds Yuzuki hostage, and when he is unable to recognize Hidemi, she is put to tears. Kinya does remember Hidemi’s face after a short while, but this being too late, she pulls the string off of her straw doll. As his ambition was to become big, Kinya’s torture is in the form of becoming very small compared to the rest of the Jigoku Tsushin. When Yuzuki next sees Hidemi, she has changed her appearance completely. Of course, Yuzuki also notices the mark Hidemi now has above her chest. Yuzuki refuses to give up despite this, but when she looks around her, she realizes that there are countless people who have grudges.

Preview: Shinohara Usagi

Impression:

Kamina dies. He gets sent to hell for ignoring the girl that likes him. I also got some Satoshi Kon vibes from the torture scene this week. But wow, Yuzuki can still see visions and Ai? I never saw that one coming. I would almost call her a rehash of Tsugumi, but as Ai had actually inhibited Yuzuki’s body previously, I’m sure there are some bigger plans for her down the road. It was also hinted in the last episode that Tsugumi would interact with her in some way. Hidemi didn’t play nearly as big of a role as what the end of the previous episode hinted, but I did kind of like how her story played out. It was pretty interesting how Kinya foreshadowed how she would hide herself by implying that she may become like him if she was influenced by the city too much. The epic homeless guy was win too.

Also, though I did skim through it, I didn’t feel like the recently aired new years special was worth covering. Besides showing that Ai had her body back and going back to the old representations of how she would prepare (all shown in this episode as well), it was just another mediocre episodic grudge.

Notes:

• Ai’s perfectionist nature truly represents her as a Mac user!
• Natsume Yujin-cho cameo?
• Ai brushes her hair with her hands. Cute.
• Jealous Kikuri is jealous.

EDIT: Oops, the new years special was just the first episode of hell girl with added dialog and the preview for this episode.