More Nines: Darker, Bantorra, Sasameki

I combined these three shows last week and was delighted. This time around there’s a drop, but not a big one.

I praise shows with complexity, but sometimes they baffle me. Such as with Darker than Black and its enormous roster of characters, some of them new, and others we met in the previous series, such as …

Hey! Look who's back! Make sense of the plot for me, Gai? Er, never mind ...

I can’t say I ever cared much for Gai Kurasawa. As comic relief he wasn’t much use. His assistant Kiko was a little better. This time around, however, I was relieved to see them, since I had completely lost track of what each covert organization was planning and why, or even who worked for whom. At least here was something I could recognize. Why did Hei separate from Suou and July and kidnap Kuoko? Argh. What is this future-predicting Contractor and why was Kirihara so interested? I forget, or maybe I was never told. Okay, it all centers around Yin, who’s still locked away somewhere. But at times it’s impossible to figure out what that means to everyone. The only clue we get is the prophecy that if Yin and (presumably) Shion meet, it’s big trouble for the world. Maybe.

At least Gai and Kiko could lead Suou and her buddies into something simpler: finding Suou’s mom. They do it in their usual haphazard way, and its Suou and a meeting with a blonde woman (and who the hell was she?) that clues them in. And when the mother arrives, we get the big shock.

Mothers and the secrets they know was a theme running through this ep. Hazuki is confronted with the news that her mother is dying, and she says she doesn’t care, but of course she does. Suou’s mother tells her a terrible fact. And even Gai interprets one of Kiko’s lines as from his mother, and realizes Kiko knows his true identity. As for the rest of the show, I blame myself for not paying attention, and the show for being both convoluted and fascinating at the same time.

I thought we had left the Zatoh/Enlike story behind last ep, but The Book of Bantorra 9 continues with it. Alas, it feels more like an afterthought than a climax. Enlike, having taken Zatoh’s body, is admitted to Bantorra and given free reign there. This doesn’t sit well with some of the other Librarians, and they have a point, because Enlike (actually Zatoh) killed one of them, is still conflicted, and old man Ganbanzel wants him to return to being a monster.

The power of persuasion.

And, Enlike, like any sane person, has doubts about Meseta. Why is such a woman running the library, anyway?

Insert comment about library directors here.

But when Enlike caves in and agrees, the big scene is sort of an anticlimax. Enlike goes through indecision, thanks to things Noloty has said to him (You can almost see a little angel and devil perched on his shoulders, whispering advice), then blasts Ganbazel. Not terribly exciting in terms of Enlike. But this seemed to be the old man’s plan from the beginning. Apparently he had a death wish, and is killed by fire from above, just as Meseta had nearly killed him the same way years ago. In the end, maybe he leaves and maybe Noloty talks him into staying. That’s left up in the air. All we get in the end is that Meseta is, if not a monster, a monstrous human being.

Sasameki Koto 9 devotes much time to Aoi, who’s fallen for Murasame. She proposes that they write a lesbian fanzine together, with Murasame and Kazama arguing about it behind her back with their own sign language. Funny scene.

Aoi takes it as a yes and starts to write her part of it. This takes up much of the episode, as we see her get happier and happier, and we await the blow that follows.

Murasame had never agreed to it, had completely forgotten about it. It’s a sad moment. The show had gone to great lengths to show how excited Aoi was, even having a scene with her parents discussing it. We’ve all had moments when someone we had put our hopes on lets us down, and the episode does nothing to mask her grief and disappointment. Sadder yet, what Aoi truly needs is not a companion, necessarily, but friends. And if she could tone down her contempt at Tomoe and Miyako’s relationship, she could have a whole handful of them. Happily, when Murasame realizes just how much she has hurt Aoi, she tries to make amends.

I love how this show can go from silly to touching. And the touching moments feel sincere, not forced into the story because the creators felt they had to have one. Sasameki Koto actually works for it.

Three Very Good Episode 8′s: Darker, Bantorra, Sasameki

Darker than Black has its overriding storyline, as convoluted as it is, with more attempts to capture or recruit (usually both) Suou, or Hei, while governments and secret organizations move chess pieces around and Kirihara dithers with no information, and there’s the whole mystery of Yin. Then there’s the more personal level of story arc, with Suou trying to be human and Hei sort of helping her while he sorts himself out.

Good to see Hei has his appetite back.

But each episode has its own set of themes and images. Often they’re based on Suou’s actions and memories, but they bleed over into other characters as well. In ep8 there are a lot of swimming pools, and the memories they bring back. Suou remembers playing with Tanya and friends splashing each other at a pool and enjoying the summer sun. Though it’s interesting that the pools they remember are indoors, where it doesn’t matter what season it is. One of the head bad guys is glad that psychopath Ilya has been killed because Ilya killed his niece. We see her floating in a swimming pool while he talks about never enjoying he summer sun again.

Meanwhile Suou talks to her captor Tanya, who can no longer understand her own memories. The climax comes at another swimming pool, an outdoor one, where Suou almost gets through to Tanya by splashing water on her. Then plot kicks in again, Suou back where she started, wondering when or why she should shoot, i.e., become a Contractor and lose her humanity.

It works well, too. The series is more sophisticated in its storytelling than most, little bits of plot leading this way and that, and usually a fight scene (plus a surprise at the end of this one), and it all flows naturally. An episode is usually over before I realize it. Plus, you can enjoy each episode for the images they decide to use.

NOW I get it! I had been thoroughly confused by the last episode of Bantorra, and thought myself a damn fool for not following what was going on. Episode 8 put it all together and did it splendidly. The current action all takes place on a cliff where an overmatched Noloty is about to take on Zatoh …

More guts than brains.

… But most of the scenes take place in the past, where we learn the true backstory. Looking back on it it all seems rather silly. Enlike and Zatoh aren’t the same person in different times. Zatoh killed Enlike and “ate” his book, condemning him to a life in some body organ of Zatoh’s …

Kidney? Liver? Spleen?

But with the aid of the people he killed, also trapped in there, Enlike finds ways to fight back until he takes over Zatoh’s body again, the way it was when we first met him. Never mind the whole weirdness of the idea, I mean, why is Enlike in human form when the others were all mud creatures, faces in the wall, or in the case of innocent Qumulo, simply her book? And why does the defeated Zatoh appear in human form down there? Why was he so easily subdued by the mud creatures? Well, it doesn’t matter. The whole thing had me going. The mystery’s unraveling moments were timed perfectly with the turns of the battle, constantly leaving me surprised and energized. Well done! And it demonstrates why patience in a good series will be rewarded.

That’s two very good eps tonight already. Sasameki Koto 8 has a lot to live up to. Let’s see how it does …

Aw, Murasame, the episode wasn't THAT bad!

In fact, it wasn’t bad at all. Rather, it was another solid episode of this series, meaning it’s better than most everything else running now. The two shows I talked about above might be better … might be.

Some class members confront (in a friendly, just-curious way) Tomoe and Miyako about their relationship.

Out.

Causing Aoi to freak out over the pervy stuff (Tomoe doesn’t help by suddenly kissing her—Cue the Chaste Women’s Chorus!), but it turns out she likes yuri and views lesbianism as a pure, clandestine thing. But the core of the episode is a terrible event, the worst thing that could happen: Murasame …

It was a fall down the stairs, that old chestnut of high school anime intrigue, with Murasame landing on top of Aoi and Kazama discovering them. Totally innocent, and Kazama isn’t stupid enough to take it the wrong way, yet she still cried, and Murasame isn’t sure why. Kazama later says it’s because it made Murasame look like a boy, but I’m not buying that for a second, especially when there’s yet another heartfelt, silent moment later, as they say goodbye. My guess is Kazama doesn’t know what’s going on in her head, but she’s an adolescent, nothing unusual about that. To spice things up even more, Aoi loves the yuri books that are secretly written by Kazama’s brother, and now has a crush on Murasame and might even be stalking her. Appearances, covers, secrets, genders, all tossed in the air and mixed about, it’s a wonder Akemiya didn’t appear, though we had plenty of him last ep. As usual the humor mixes in slapstick and gentle irony, which enhances all the earnest longing without making them any less poignant.

A VERY good night of anime viewing!

Bantorra 7, Trapeze 6, Railgun 8

Bantorra isn’t an easy series to follow at any time, but ep7 left me completely confused. We got Zatoh, who has the stolen book and wants to atone for his sins by dying, and naïve Noloty who’s keeping an eye on him by being a pest and getting in his way

We also have monster training, where Enlike kills another student and wonders what it’s like to smile. But then the confusion begins. Zatoh, when examining the book, sees Noloty train, or maybe that was just tossed in there, and instead he sees Meseta chase down some guy. What book is this, anyway? But is Enlike actually Zatoh in the past? For some reason I can’t quite get my head around the idea, though they both want the same thing: to be able to smile.

Meanwhile the creepy old guy with the glasses watches Zatoh with amusement, and so does Meseta. And the true monster is revealed at the end, I think. Well, it’s good to have a show around that doesn’t just plunge straightforward into the plot, and maybe I’ll have it figured out next time.

In Trapeze 6 Yuta’s cell phone addiction is nailed by, of all people, Mayumi the nurse.

All right, we can all go home now.

The stuff before and after is simply embellishment, though it’s nicely done. Yuta is good with his cell phone, but not so great in real life encounters. It’s not as though he withdraws and becomes a lump, but rather he tries too hard to be outgoing and obliging. The VA does a fine job of injecting a layer of desperation into the character’s chatter. Yuta loses a girl because of his cell phone, and he discovers that his friends aren’t really that into him. Dr. Irabu takes a less active role in this episode, not even following the boy around, but he manages to shake Yuta up by sending him endless texts (can you imagine what he’d do with a Twitter account?) and invites him to a party. But again it’s Mayumi who perhaps helps Yuta the most. She says she’s a loner, but Yuta sees that she’s comfortable in the role, confident even, proving that you don’t have to be social to be happy. Yep, the nurse does the heavy lifting in this episode.

Give it up for Mayumi!

The more this show goes on the more I enjoy the means to the end, even if I can spot the end a mile away.

Not much to say about Railgun 8 apart from the fact that this is once again a frustrating show. It has a nice set of characters who interact well, but the script is often so wooden that they have to fight it. I am referring especially to the scene at Uiharu’s where they try to get to the bottom of the Level Upper rumors. Saten just can’t come out and say where she’s gotten her information, it has to be prompted out of her, as dead time passes. Compare that to funny scenes where Misaka tries to charm the info out of some strangers, to Kuroko’s frustration …

Whump ... Whump ... Whump ...

… and we have a show that can turn from entertaining to plodding in a single minute.

Which is a shame, because when the show’s on its game it can be a lot of fun. I love how gangs of people try to rough up Misaka only to get beaten badly, because she delights in the situation.

Misaka loves to be underestimated.

Her dynamic with Kuroko and the other girls help, too, that is, if the scene is at least written well. One other quibble: isn’t the Graviton case over? I mean, they caught the guy, right?

Bantorra 5-6, Fairy Tail 5-6

Book of Bantorra 5 starts with Volken flying off with an important book, called Ylucklucu, if I got it right. It’s a shocking thing for this fine upstanding library member to do and will have consequences, as Mirepoc realizes.

But the episode is about Mirepoc trying to figure out why the hell he did it in the first place, and becoming more and more undone as she does so, until she endangers her own life by bumbling into an area of the library she shouldn’t be in, and finally deciding to erase her memories of Volken.

But I’m more interested in the library itself. Since I used to be a librarian I’m always interested, especially when they’re huge and old. This one has labyrinths, separate libraries going deeper and deeper underground, with huge beasts set loose to guard them. Yess! I want to work there!

Note Mirepoc lower right. Now THAT'S a library!

The show also introduces a couple new characters, like Mokkania, who seems to like hanging around the dangerous libraries for kicks. And everyone has their own bizarre dress code. Frankly, I don’t really care why Volken stole that book; I’m sure we’ll learn soon enough. I want more library scenes!

And we move on to ep6, where the singleminded purpose of the previous ep jumps into two, no, three, no, one story with a lot of parts to it. A monster saunters in and attacks the library and wreaks some havoc before three armed librarians force him to retreat.

The customer is always right.

But that’s interspersed with a guy reading a book about a Meat who will be trained into being a monster. Relia from the first story arc has a cameo here, nicely tying things together, or maybe just making a confused loose knot—too early to tell. And then we jump to Noloty and her quest for the stolen book, and a surprise visit from Meseta, up to her usual tricks.

I have no idea what goes on in Meseta's head.

The man Noloty fights, says Meseta, is the book-thief, and Noloty is given orders that don’t make sense except in Meseta’s strange, twisted mind. And once again we learn from a lot of people that they want to kill Meseta, but that’s nothing new. It seems to be actual story. So I’m expecting the monster stuff and the Noloty stuff will get tied together somehow, but how remains a mystery. And that’s a good reason to keep watching. I never know quite how things are going to fit together. Or will we wind up with the aforementioned loose knot?

After all that it’s a relief to have a straightforword story line. Alas, Fairy Tail 5 and 6 are only 2/3 of the story. But it’s all good. Even if we’d figured out what evil Eligor’s actual plot was long before our heroes did. There’s actually two questions in any Fairy Tale story arc: How it’s going to turn out? And how much damage are they going to cause? This time the combo of Natsu, Grey and Erza (with Lucy along for the ride) is potent enough that even guild leader Makarov is worried. But we start slowly, learning a little more about how their world works.

I never expected to see an organization chart in this show ...

Erza comes in with a lot of hype, and lives up to it, as they try to chase down Eligor and his evil mages before they can unleash the death flute’s song on some unsuspecting civilians, but of course that’s not the real plan. The Fairy Tale gang are trapped by a wall of wind while he goes off for revenge. It’s here that the show stumbles. I don’t think any of us hadn’t figured out what they were really after, so watching the heroes run around and get into fruitless fights isn’t terribly interesting. As fun as some of the fights are.

But the humor works again. My favorite bit, as Erza transforms:

Even the bad guys can appreciate a good magical transformation scene.

Bantorra 4, Kampfer 6, Fairy Tail 4

Okay, the Book of Bantorra story arc kind of makes sense to me now. Colio in the future woke up Shiron’s abilities and in return she helps him as he interferes with Cigal and Meseta’s epic fight, which isn’t going too well for Meseta.

Oh, she draws it out, by causing a massive train wreck, which is spectacular to watch (never mind all the innocent people who might have been on the train—that’s never stopped her before), but then with the redeemed Shiron’s past help, the redeemed Colio saves the day, and just about everyone is saved. (You think they bothered to send any antidote to the woman in the cottage?) Whew! Of course, Colio might be redeemed and all, but now he’s also dead (though happy). The good people tend to die if they’re not regular characters. Well, Cigal’s dead too, so I guess it balances out.

All well and good, but there’s still a few minutes left, and they spend it diving into a NEW story arc, and suddenly there are new weird names and backstory that I have to digest. I just got used to the first batch of people!

We get a new Kampfer. Gee, what a surprise! It’s the well-traveled Mikoto. Otherwise, nothing much changes. Shizuku finds ways to mess with everyone’s heads and further humiliate Natsuru, so by the end, even old friend Mikoto disses him.

… Which, really seems to be what this show is all about. I frankly don’t mind. Our hero Natsuru is so out of his element that he can only play defense. Sakura is nice but empty, really no more than an emotional tool for Shizuku to use on Natsuru, and Akane doesn’t spend enough time in Kampfer mode for my tastes, when she’s a lot more fun. Leave it to Shizuku to keep things interesting.

Like Bantorra, Fairy Tail 4 finishes a story arc (does two eps equal a story arc?) and then kills time hinting at what to expect. This includes a fight in the forest with a mysterious character zipping by, and the first appearance of the dreaded Erza. But who cares, really? This is a high-speed show with ridiculous fights and slapstick mixed in, and it does it well. Once again in this ep, the fighting and the jokes integrate seamlessly. Also, I noticed when Lucy gets really defiant we get Aya Hinano’s Haruhi voice, an added bonus!

And really, what more do we want from Fairy Tail?

Winter Sonata 2, Bantorra 3

Winter Sonata 2 continues with the flirting of Yujin and Joonsang, the former doing most of the pushing and the latter doing just enough not to discourage her. Though he can be a bit of a dick about it.

Where're you going? Come back! I'm flirting with you! Hey!

Mostly, the episode shows them discovering little things about each other, Joonsang spying on her as she dances in the broadcast booth. Yujin discovering that Joonsang can play the piano (but after she had set up the situation). Joonsang is furtive and goes around by himself, which is why almost everyone, especially Sanghyuk, considers him antisocial (but Sanghyuk’s motivations are at this moment a mystery). Well, he is antisocial. What’s lovely to watch is Yujin’s steady teasing and prodding, and Joonsang slowly responding to it. He IS interested in her, but is he too shy or too preoccupied to take action?

The contrast between castes rises to the top of Bantorra 3. We have Cigal, lead asshole for the Church of Drowning in God’s Grace, setting loose an ancient plague in order to infect Meseta, the acting director asshole for the Library, an oh, infecting an entire town along the way. Meseta’s only reaction is that it’s in poor taste. Oh, he redirects a typhoon there too, to mess with her special powers. Never mind what other damage it might cause. On the lower end there’s Colio, who’s been collecting pieces of the Laughing Witch’s book and “reading” them. And her story is simplistic though compelling.

You'll be sorry!

The people in the Library who aren’t as bloodthirsty as Meseta try to contain the damage, so there are good people in the upper levels as well. Except when attacked by brainwashed people, whom they just shoot. And Meseta, of all people, makes Colio human again, though he’s not quite sure what that means. With the other characters he’s met behaving the way they do, I certainly can’t blame him.

Plot-wise, there is an antidote, and Colio might be the key to it. He seems to be in contact with the dead witch. But will it be in time, and what’s with the woman in the cottage? Next week, a big fight, and probably much more moral ambiguity.

Winter Sonata 0, Fairy Tail 2, Bantorra 2

In spite of the fact that my player (SMPlayer on Linux Mint) had a hard time with the file I watched the first episode (ep0, actually) of Winter Sonata. Apart from the fact that the live version was a huge hit in Korea and Japan I know nothing about this franchise. Argh, such lovely artwork being jerked around by this devil of an mkv! I guess I’ll watch it streamed next time.

I guess it’s episode 0 because it’s all setting and mood. We have Joonsang, a man with an apparent brain sickness who has moved to Manhattan, and Yujin, the girl he left behind (who’s now in paris), alternating scenes of walking in parks, in the rain, the snow, or among fallen leaves. We see kids playing, a man preparing coffee, little bits of life. They constantly are reminded of the other. The whole thing feels dreamy and romantic and filled with regret; they even manage to fit a love song in. It all might have been a little much except as I said the artwork is lovely, and it’s all prelude, anyway. I’m interested to see where it goes next, if we ever get it. I hear it’s run into production problems.

To completely change the mood I watched Fairy Tail 2 next, meaning I finally found a download that my player could handle. Less than two minutes in everyone in the Fairy Tail guild is fighting each other. Excessive fighting can be as bad as long stretches of nothing (I’m not comparing it to Winter Sonata. It just happened to be the show I watched next), but in this case I found all this over-the-top violence rather amusing. Of course, if I was in that guild I wouldn’t last twenty seconds … The subsequent adventure, rescuing another guild member, was also satisfying. I wish I could figure out why I enjoyed it when other shows of this nature tend to bore me. Maybe it’s the big-hearted nature of the whole thing. Yeah, they fight all the time, but they’re loyal to each other at the same time. Maybe.

Armed Librarians—the Book of Bantorra 2 reins in some of the mysteries of ep1. At the same time it blurs the lines between good and bad. The Church is battling the Library, using “meats” as their pawns. Meats are apparently the lowest caste on this world, “like cattle,” though who put them there is anyone’s guess; mine is that they are simply victims of this society. Then there are Humans and “Real Men,” as the Church leaders call themselves. Naturally you’re on the side of the hapless meats, especially Colio and his friends, who have been turned into bombs to kill the Library Director. In the meantime they question their motives even through the brainwashing, wondering what they actually are. People? Meat? Bombs? One of them, Relia, actually rebels.

Yes, all Library Directors look like this.

All this should put your sympathies with the Library, but the aforementioned director, Meseta, isn’t much of a humanist either. She does not care what meats she kills if it protects the library or harms the church. Hence her killing spree near the end. This put her at odds with Volken, the hero last episode, because he didn’t want to kill anyone if he didn’t have to, meat or not. While the show teases us with moral ambiguity it continues to toss more oddities into its juggling act, but they will sort themselves out later. This is one of the better shows of the season for me. It’s constantly interesting to watch with characters who are showing some depth.

More More Firsts: Bantorra, Kimi ni Todoke

The Book of Bantorra is certainly different from the other shows I’ve seen so far. This show is serious business and takes itself seriously. As for what’s going on, I have no idea. Apparently dead people become books, actually stone tablets, and they’re stored in a big library. But some forces out there want to do … other things. I just don’t know yet. Some “armed librarians” try to seize a church ship and rescue the “meats” from the hold, but these meats have become little more than walking dead, those that weren’t turned into bombs to hinder the librarians. We also got miners looking for a book, apparently, and a few people who have been brainwashed into trying to “Kill Hamyuts Meseta,” whoever that is. Possibly the leader of the armed librarians, known as the Director, she of mighty cleavage. There’s also a woman who appears in the dreams of one of the would-be Hamyuts Meseta killers, mostly likely a witch or something, possibly messing with his brainwashing.

A lot of “I don’t know’s,” “apparently’s” and “whoever’s” in that paragraph. Little is explained to us. That and the fact that it’s not a dumb comedy I find refreshing.

I’ve read the first volume of Kimi ni Todoke so I knew what to expect. Sawako is a shy girl who just wants to get along with everyone, but she resembles The Ring‘s Sadako, so everyone is scared of her. I was looking forward to seeing the misunderstandings and her Sadako face, and indeed they start with that. Then she meets a popular boy named Kazehaya who’s actually nice to her. This leads to endless Sawako thoughts which all boil down to “He’s NICE to me!” or “They LIKE me!” …over and over again. Just like in the manga, her new class gets to understanding her awfully quick, and it’s already obvious that she’s going to get the nice boy in the end. So what are they going to do for the rest of the series? The “scary” gimmick is already played out (though her thrill in playing a ghost and scaring people was pretty funny). Yeah, she’s going to make friends and get accepted, but if it’s played out as slowly, with as many interior monologues as she had in ep1, it’s going to be a slow and dull series. They better come up with something else. Maybe those two girl classmates will liven things up.