Kurogane’s Anime Blog

From last week, where Negi was easily defeated by Chao, Setsuna and Kaede came to his help…

(spoilers ahead….)

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In between finding aliens, visiting host clubs and getting freaked out by killer lolis, I’ve been trying out more and more anime and there’s no shortage of new ones to try this season. And so, after downloading the mass OP/ED release by Nipponsei, I got attracted to a particular song, Yume Meikyuu ~Hikari to Yami no Dance~, because of the gothicness and mysteriousness of the song and the vocals.

Therefore, I decided to get the anime to try, thinking that if it’s shit, at least I can enjoy the 1:23 mins of the OP. Thankfully, I had a pleasant surprise on watching Yumetsukai, and found it to be actually pretty good.

First off… definitely would be the *seiyuu* <3. Ayako Kawasumi and Aya Hisakawa in one series?!! That’s already worth the entrance fee a hundred times. A quick check on ANN after that reveals even more <3<3<3 for me, as, lo and behold, I saw Noto-sama’s name on it.

Next off… the setting is done pretty nicely, with a dreamy feel to it, fitting the theme of the show nicely. The characters themselves are quite appealing, and I laughed at the end when Touko mentioned eating ochazuke(which has been quite a joke subject among my friends thanks to Shizuru) and Rinko saying she wants to drink Darjeeling First Flush. Not to mention that the character designs are pretty cool, and I think I’m in love with Touko :).

Notable mentions include their *Tensou* sequence, which I was scared of involving nudity, but then it turns out to be one of the best henshin sequence, having no nudity involved and them changing in to miko outfits. I seem to have developed a sort of miko obsession recently. Others include the sad hints that Touko gives us about her dad and numerous occultish mentions.

Hopefully, Yumetsukai would continue on being this good… now… on to the next episodes :).

After the shocking conclusion of the Onikakushi-hen, culminating in a death toll consisting of Rena, Mion and Keiichi, we move on to the Watanagashi-hen, focusing on Mion and her twin sister, Shion. Based on the foreshadow clip at the start, it seems that Rika is also a part of this arc as well. The clip, I have to say, is even more gory and horrifying than the first one.

Time is back to the beginning of the story, before the start of the Watanagashi Festival, and the mood is back to the earlier, lighter mood, with tons of SD and funny parts. On a fine Sunday, Keiichi and the gang head to the town to a shop, holding a special competition, and the Mion starts off with the announcement that the club activity is to win the competition. Initially, Keiichi holds back as the rest of the crowd consists of children, but after being provoked by Mion, he ropes in some help and starts to pwn the rest. At the final moment, he and Mion are equal, but Mion gives up on seeing the time, citing that she needs to rush to her *arubaito*.

Keiichi heads to a nearby restaurant to eat alone, as the others are busy with their own stuff, and meets a waitress that looks like Mion. Thinking that it’s her, Keiichi teases her, until the waitress punches him and says that she’s not Mion, but Mion’s twin sister, Shion. Keiichi is suprised but thinks that it’s just a story Mion made up to cover herself, and leaves thinking so, playing along with the story.

The next day, as they’re walking home, Mion excuses herself to leave for her *arubaito* and Keiichi casually remarks about her waitress job. Mion says that it’s her sister, surprising Rena who has never met her, to which Mion replies that she lives in a different place. She also states that she’s the kind one and Shion’s the evil one. As Keiichi tries to prod further more, Mion escapes, leaving Keiichi and Rena alone to walk home. Reaching home, Keiichi is visited by Shion who brings him a *bento* as Keiichi’s parents are away for the day.

The club activity the following day is cancelled as Rika-chan has to practice for her role in the Watanagashi festival, so Keiichi decides to visit the restaurant again to return the *bento* box to Mion. He accidentally stumbles and crashes some bikes belonging to a bunch of thugs and almost gets hit by them, when he gets saved in time by Mion, in a creepy manner, with her call attracting a crowd that surrounds the thugs. Keiichi then walks around town with Mion/Shion thanking her for the *bento*, to which she replies that she didn’t before stopping herself halfway. Keiichi calls her to drop off the twin sister story, when they stop in front of a shop only to see the real Mion appearing in front of them, thereby confirming that Shion does exist, giving Keiichi a big shock.

Next day at school, Mion constantly avoids Keiichi, and while Mion is away, the rest discuss about what has been happening, while Mion overhears the conversation with a sad look on her face…

So it seems that every new arc would focus on a new girl becoming the killer. Rena’s arc is already freaking scary… I really don’t want to imagine how they would make Rika’s or Satoko’s arcs. So far, Higurashi is still one of the best thriller/horror anime I have watched in recent times. I still go “OH SHI…”, even when rewatching the Onikakushi-hen(which I am now doing with subs :P). Rena’s facial contortions are unmatched, totally unmatched.

I’m also glad that it seems that Higurashi’s popularity is increasing, with a number of people picking it up, making me glad that my effort in promoting this series come to fruit(cue: shameless self-praise and noting that there is one episode blog post missing). Make no mistake, if Higurashi continues to keep this quality on for it’s entire run, it will be one of the best horror/thriller animes ever. What a fine season this has been…… :).

This episode starts off literally with a bang (of information) by Yuki as she fills Kyon (and the rest of the non-novel/unspoiled viewers) about the Intergrated Data Entities, herself & Haruhi and about the reason why she was sent to observe her. The trend continues on throughout the episode as Koizumi is introduced and the SOS-dan set out on their first club activity, with Mikuru-chan revealing her true identity as a time traveller from the future and Itsuki revealing himself as a ESPer sent by his Organization(Kikan), with all three of them saying that Haruhi has the power to change the world and Kyon himself is an important part of it.

Kyon is naturally overwhelmed by the triple whammy given to him by Yuki, Mikuru and Itsuki (and I’m pretty sure the fansubbers for this episode will be too :), but still manages to retain his sanity, even managing to hit on Mikuru in the process ;).Considerably less moé overloads this time. *Meido* Mikuru-chan still wins though.

The weakness of having only 14 episodes for the Haruhi series is fully shown here in this episode, with the unmistakable “rushed” feeling of trying to finish off the revelation chapters of the novel in this episode. Still, they seem to have managed to retain most of the original material in the novels, even Kyon’s little question to Mikuru ;). I still feel that they could’ve went slower a bit and put Itsuki’s revelation the next episode. I’d wanted to see more of Kyon and Mikuru’s “little date” :P.

So it seems that they’re playing skip again with the episodes again, with the SOS-dan heading to a beach outing. I was expecting to see Yuki’s SQL chants, but then…. Haruhi and Mikuru in *mizugi* is a must-see too :).