This. episode. was.
fantastic. Well, fantastic for
Mekakucity Actors, anyway. ^^; But who am I kidding: I was pretty giddy during this episode at a number of points. Episode 06 didn't just break the Even Episode Curse: it
smashed it. Flashback episodes are risky business, rife with potential to mess things up, but
man if this flashback episode didn't do everything right. The right level of information ... the right level of intrigue ... the right level of "OMG! >D< *squee*" moments ... just really, really fantastic stuff.
It didn't start off that way though. Not one and a half minutes into the episode, I had it on pause as I furiously and flurriously fired off a PM to Yuki complaining about Shaft once again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87
So, this is the problem with Shaft's artistic masturbation. :\ When I can't tell whether what I'm watching should be taken literally or not; and when it very much matters to the story, in an enormous way, whether what I am watching is literally happening or not; and when worrying about this distracts me constantly during the episode, ensuring I miss the self-satisfying smugart they've placed in here; and when I feel compelled to pause the episode to ask you to tell me whether what I am watching is really happening or not: that, my friend, is the sign of superficial artistic pursuits sabotaging the greater artistic endeavors of the team's.
Unpausing. Already in an unpleasant mood now because of this. Blegh. Hopefully the plot will rescue this episode and fast.
|
I am not someone who hates art. I
love art. I spend so much of my waking day collecting pictures, reading printed stories, watching animated or filmed stories, and so on. But
man if I do not loathe "art for art's sake."
Man if it doesn't piss me off something royal when somebody
forces art, when they try their
hardest to be artistic and so they end up forcing a bunch of bullshit on the audience instead of just letting things happen naturally.
And, specifically with animation,
man if I don't hate it when artistic endeavors get in the way of storytelling. I'm here for
your Blue Eyes the story, old man, and I won't take
no artsy fartsy
bullshit for an answer!
A good soundtrack isn't simply good music: it's good music that complements what it's set against, it's music that doesn't distract the audience (for worse
or for better!), it's music used as a
tool rather than as
a centerpiece. The same thing goes for animation and cinematography.
Yes, you can try to be all fucking poetic with your animation, showing buildings crumbling to the ground "to represent the turmoil in her heart. ¯_¯" You can show fires and explosions "representing the volatile nature of her feelings. ¯_¯" You can show "a yellow sky meant to represent the fear and uncertainty in her heart, for yellow is the color of fear and uncertainty. ¯_¯"
But when you place the "SHAFT" in "PHALLIC SHAFT" with your goddamn obnoxious "I can be an artist too :3" forced attempts at art and you
distract and confuse, that's not cool, man!
That's not cool. I shouldn't have to ask whether what I am watching is metaphorical or literal. I shouldn't be distracted from the plot to have to wonder, "Is she really running for her life through a ghost town that is falling to pieces? Or is this all symbolism?
" If you can't make it clearer that it's symbolism, then don't piss about doing it.
Yikes. ^_^; So for someone who was so turned off by the presentation of that initial scene, how was this episode to have any hope for salvation?
Heeh? :o
Heeeeeh? :o
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!? :O
Yeah. This is how you do it:
good story, good characters, exciting appearances, satisfying information, romance, and a dash of moe. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's handle these one piece at a time.
Enomoto Takane is much more likeable than Ene the artificial intelligence is. I'm not going to claim that Takane is my favorite Kagerou -- she isn't -- or that she's my favorite female Kagerou either, but I definitely like Takane much more than I do the unbearable Ene. And I think a lot of why I like Takane has to do with the biggest complaint I levied against Ene:
Takane feels like an actual person and not like a caricature of one. I mean, give credit where credit is due! If that was Jin's / Shaft's plan all along -- if they deliberately set about trying to make Ene feel "more like a living cartoon character than like a true blue human being" -- then mission fucking accomplished, guys. In Takane, I feel like we find "the real Ene," a person who bears a bit in common with the artificial intelligence yet who is in many more ways different and more real. Takane has little tolerance for other people's bullshit. She isn't the brightest, even if she is
incredibly talented in certain fields. She has a guy she likes but is too afraid to tell him; while she's loud-mouthed just like the A.I. Ene, Takane is
remarkably shy at times, something hard to imagine of her outlandish counterpart. I could go on and on about the differences between Takane and A.I. Ene, but let's move on for now to our next character: Haruka.
This guy was such a surprise. Just like Hiyori (who felt like a tenth Kagerou who had just appeared from out of nowhere), Haruka is someone whose very existence I never imagined. I was certain that the person in the flashback we saw last week was either Shintarou or else Konoha. This week's episode reveals that it
is Konoha ... sort of. ^^; If Konoha turns out to be a robot, then Haruka is clearly the real-live boy upon whom Konoha was based. If instead Konoha turns out to be real, then it's very probable that Haruka lost his memories and was "reborn" (be it temporarily or permanently) as Konoha. Either way, the boys are similar yet different. Konoha speaks much more softly, slowly, and simply. Haruka speaks more like a normal person. He's still quieter than, say, an Ene or a Momo, but he's plenty louder and more energetic than a Kido or a Marry. Konoha exhibits superhuman strength when his eyes turn red. Haruka, as if a foil for Konoha, has the opposite problem: crises of physical weakness. Konoha has memory problems and as a result seems to behave stupidly (e.g. going to use the toilet in a bathroom without any toilet in it); Haruka, by contrast, is established to be academically gifted. The boys aren't night and day opposites, but they're clearly not the same exact person either. It's interesting. It's very, very interesting.
Whether Haruka turns out to be the base upon which Robot Konoha was based or whether Haruka turns out to be the original identity that belonged to the meatbag now known as Konoha, it's still interesting to discover that once upon a time there was this entity named "Haruka" whose existence I didn't know about until now and who,
somehow, is going to lead me to this other existence named "Konoha" whom I've known about for weeks.
I hadn't noticed it until now with Konoha, but Haruka at least is
clearly voiced by Miyano Mamoru, a.k.a. the voice of Dent from
Pokémon: Best Wishes and of Suou Tamaki from
Ouran High School Host Club. At a number of times in the episode, Haruka would perform certain "Mamoru-isms" that evoked a warm little sense of nostalgia in me. Miyano Mamoru's voice was a part of my weekly experience for three years, from Fall 2010 when Best Wishes started airing to Fall 2013 when it wrapped up. The last time I heard his voice was several months ago in the Best Wishes special with Dent and Brock. When you're used to hearing a voice once a week every week for
three years, then even not hearing it for a couple of months can feel like forever. He's not my favorite voice actor by any means but his roles as Dent and Suou have definitely endeared him to me. It's fun to have him along as Haruka.
I'm a sucker for romance and by golly if I didn't just devour Takane x Haruka.
I absolutely loved these two. The episode was lopsided in favor of exploring Takane, both as a character and as one half of a romance pair, but I still feel like we got enough to work with out of Haruka to form an initial impression of this couple. I can definitely, definitely say that I ship Takane x Haruka -- so much so that I won't allow any other pairs to get in the way. If Ene wants to fall in love with somebody different, that's her business so long as she's a bonafide A.I. and isn't simply an avatar for Enomoto Takane. If Konoha wants to be romantically uninvolved, that's his prerogative so long as he's a robot and so long as it doesn't get in the way of Haruka partnering up with Takane. But if Takane
is Ene ... and if Konoha
is Haruka ... then step aside, Shintarou! Fuck you, Hiyori!
It's Takane x Haruka or bust!
Up through last week, I'd wondered about the possibility that Konoha might be an android. Last week, I advanced the theory with a little bit of gusto. This week, with the introduction of Haruka, I feel like we have to consider a new possibility. I've already mentioned it a lot in this post, but I want to take the time now to really, really explore both options.
At the end of Episode 06, Haruka appears to be suffering from a medical crisis. It's vague (DAMN YOU, SHAFT!
) and it's quite possible that all he was doing was crying and/or having a panic attack, but it
looks like his chest is causing him pain, he's bowled over from difficulty breathing, and, well, like I said -- he's having a medical crisis. Near the
start of Episode 06, we learn that the enigmatic science teacher -- one Tateyama Kenjirou by name, it would seem all but confirmed at this point -- is a remarkably talented computer programmer, able to craft a compelling FPS from scratch in just a matter of days. Putting these pieces of information together, we have two real powerful possibilities with the mysterious Konoha.
Possibility 1: as previously stated, Konoha is a robot. This theory would hold that Konoha is an android built in Haruka's image, his design inspired by the avatar Haruka crafted for the one shooting game that he ended up playing together with Takane. His creator would likely be either Tateyama alone, Tateyama with Haruka, or all three of Tateyama, Haruka, and Takane working together. I would place my money on Tateyama working alone. And my theory would be that
Haruka dies and that Tateyama then created Konoha in his pupil's memory.
Possibility 2: as recently stated, Konoha
is Haruka. This theory would hold that Konoha is not a robot but that he is instead either a cyborg (at worst/most invasive) or else simply a mind-controlled human (at best/least invasive). The theory can veer off into several different directions from here.
- One subpossibility is that Haruka still died and that Tateyama pulled a Dr. Frankenstein and used Haruka's dead body to give life to the being known as Konoha. Creepy.
- Another subpossibility is that Haruka suffered a medical crisis but that he did not die (or that even if he technically died he was resuscitated very quickly); however, as a result of his medical crisis, he suffered memory loss and was "reborn" as Konoha.
- A third subpossibility is that Haruka's body is perfectly fine (if frail) and that Tateyama used mind-enslaving headphones to override Haruka's real personality with this impostor "Konoha" personality. Again, creepy. ^^;
I'm sure there are other possibilities there too, but the point is that they all have one thread in common: the boy we now know as Konoha has the very same body as the boy that Takane knew as Haruka two years ago. Whether she'll be able to be reunited with Haruka or not remains to be seen. I'm hoping that she will be. I'll be crushed if Haruka's dead, is permanently replaced by Konoha, and so there goes Takane x Haruka with it.
I'll say this though: if Haruka does indeed die, and if Tateyama does indeed attempt to bring him back to life (and in so doing produces Konoha), it sure would make sense given Connor's theory about Tateyama being Ayano's father. I'm convinced Connor's right, and
if he's right then we can assume (as much as it may be a huge cliché) that a scientifically gifted father might be trying to find ways to bring back the dead such that he can bring his little girl back to life. That could go a long way to explaining why we have Konoha now. Haruka died, Sensei used magic headphones to bring him back to life, he did so imperfectly, and so instead of having Zombie Haruka we have a new being known as "Konoha" who resembles Haruka in some ways but is completely different in others. A failed experiment.
Not what Tateyama seeks if his goal is to perfectly resurrect Ayano.
Not to go too far down the rabbit hole, but this also introduces an eerie possibility with Hiyori:
what if Tateyama is planning on using Hiyori's body as a vessel for Ayano's soul? In other words, what if he plans to bring back his daughter by having her soul go into Hiyori's body? I'm probably barking up the waaaaaaay wrong tree here
, but just throwing it out there because weeeeee it's fun to speculate with these mystery series.
* * * INTERMISSION * * *
Okay, let's look at some of the other parts of this episode. We've got a lot of ground to cover yet!
Kido was one hell of a surprise this episode. When she showed up, I still wasn't certain that what we were watching was a flashback. For all I knew, this was Kido's and Kano's idea of going in undercover to try and root out Takane and reveal that she's the real Ene. (At the time I watched the episode, it didn't occur to me that Takane, as the real Ene, would've recognized these clowns immediately and accordingly done her best to avoid blowing her cover, thus making the hypothetical operation foolish.) So here we have a Kido who I'm not quite sure is a flashback Kido or an incognito Kido from the present. All I know is, she's behaving remarkably shyly.
And goddamn if that wasn't adorable.
Fans of
Suzumiya Haruhi will know what I'm talking about when I say that Moe Shy Kido was in many ways enjoyable the same as Nagato Yuki in
Disappearance. It was incredible, adorable, remarkable -- all these things -- to see a Kido before us who was clearly Kido and yet
so clearly different from the Kido we normally know. Where present-day Kido is a confident, socially brave leader, the Kido we see here is paralytically shy, barely able to maintain eye contact with anyone. Where Kano's aggressive teasing in the present day is met with swift physical responses, the gentlest of admonishments in the past nearly brought poor Kido to tears. Veeeeeeeery interesting, veeeeeeeeeery fun to see a side of Kido like this.
P.S. We learn this week that Kido's name is Tsubomi. Like a flower bud. Aww.
It was fun to see Kano too. He didn't seem that different himself from the Kano we know today; however, it was clear from his interactions with Kido that Kano used to be more of the emotionally strong one, there for the weaker Kido to cry on, as contrasted with his role today as being more of Kido's punching bag. This further accentuates the bond that these two have; while I know some people say that they ship Kano with other characters, I don't see how it's possible to ship either Kido or Kano with anyone else but each other. Even if they're not in love, they are one
hell of a brother-sister combination.
I'm not really sure where Kido and Kano wandered in from or why they were present. It would strike me as strange if they were already in foster care with Ayano's family seeing as they seemed to be a separate group from her and Shintarou. (Indeed, we don't see Kido and Kano in the later flashback sequences which depict Takane, Haruka, Tateyama, Ayano, and Shintarou all hanging out together.) But it strikes me as no less strange that these two orphans would've wandered into a high school's festival all by themselves.
I still can't get over how cat-like Kano's eyes are. Those narrow irises, man. Reminds me once again of the cat we saw in the Hibiya episode. I said it before, I'll say it again: wouldn't be surprised if the cat ties back in to Kano and he was making people perceive him as a cat rather than as the human being he really is.
When Ayano and Shintarou first showed up at 15m02s, that was the straw that broke one of two camels' backs. The first camel, the one whose back hadn't yet been broken, was the one wondering whether this was a flashback episode or not. Lots of stuff that came before had supported the belief, and seeing Ayano with Shintarou very strongly supported it, but it wasn't until Takane's bet with Shintarou that I knew.
(See Shintarou discussion below.) But the second camel was the one that, I guess you could say, represented this episode being a bad episode. That is to say, with each straw of goodness that piled onto the camel's back, he became more and more strained. But despite the many previous good straws -- Takane, Haruka, Moe Kido -- that stubborn camel kept his wobbly legs upright and refused to buckle. It wasn't until Ayano and Shintarou's arrival that the poor camel said, "I can't take any more! @_@" and collapsed to the ground, exhausted. The episode was officially a great episode.
And while Eerie Ayano is neato, and while we haven't mentioned Shintarou yet, I've gotta go ahead and say that ...
... adorable flashback Ayano is
HRNNNNNNNNNNNNGH so adorable! >.<
Nakahara Mai isn't my favorite voice actress in the whole wide world -- I really disliked Furukawa Nagisa in
Clannad, for instance, and a big part of the reason was just how whiny and how much of a baby she sounded like! -- but man oh man if Nakahara isn't blowing it out of the park as Ayano. Love her voice here.
Love her voice here.
So cute. So, so cute.
Flashback Ayano was just as fun as Flashback Kido, possibly even moreso because of
how unbelievably adorable she was, for much the same reason as Kido: it was such a surprise. The Ayano we've seen so far has been cloaked in mystery, speaks in riddles, and committed suicide. She's a serious character attached to intrigues of serious tone. But the Ayano we see in this flashback is like the magical product of Furukawa Nagisa and Miura Azusa. It's like you've got the cuteness of Nagisa without any of the obnoxious babyness; and you've got the waifuness of Azusa without any of the silliness. It's hard to imagine this girl killing herself. It will be
fascinating, if very sad, to see what drove her to it.
Flashback Shintarou was quite the character too. I like Shintarou in the present, honest I do, but
man if Flashback Shintarou wasn't an asshole!
^^; There's being cocky and then there's being
mean cocky! Shintarou was
mean cocky! Why did he have to be so denigrating towards Takane? What did he gain from humiliating her so badly in front of Haruka? It's not like Takane had been smug about being 2nd place in the national tournament. In fact, she'd downright gone out of her way to hide the fact! Why then did Shintarou feel the need to put her in her place and so utterly demolish her at her own game?
I'm intrigued to learn what Shintarou's power is. Shaft being Shaft, they love laying easter eggs and clues along the paths of their episodes. I don't think making an obvious deal about Kido's cheating was an accident: I think it was an obvious setup to lead us to wonder as to whether Shintarou later cheated himself using his own red eye powers. If so, what then are his powers? Do they tie in to how he got on top of that citadel? Do they tie in to how quickly he was able to fire the gun? We'll just have to wait and see.
Like I mentioned earlier, Ene's bet with Shintarou was what sealed the deal for me that this was a flashback episode. Everything else that pointed to it being a flashback -- Haruka's presence, Takane in a school uniform she should've long since graduated from, Kido's odd behavior, even Ayano's physical presence -- all of these things could've been explained away one way or another. But when Takane tells Shintarou that if she loses she'll agree to refer to him as "Master,"
that was what sealed the deal. That was when I knew for certain that we were witnessing events that took place several years ago in the KagePro timeline. It was one hell of an exciting moment. I felt like I was witnessing the birth of Ene -- or quite possibly Takane's transformation
into Ene. Very exciting stuff.
The final portion of the episode left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I'm sad that the end of the episode was a rushed montage of scenes. Shaft was obviously pressed for time -- this week's episode skipped the OP and ED credits as well as the usual fairy tale segment -- but it still would've been nice if we could've properly seen the next school year play out, Shintarou's and Ayano's first year in high school and Takane's and Haruka's second or third.
But on the other hand, I was really delighted by this segment. For starters, the song felt like it symbolically fit the scene by virtue of how night-and-day opposite Enomoto Takane's personality it seemed to be. The Takane we'd met in the episode had been bitchy, hardcore, serious, etc. Yet this song sounded like a tropical smile!
It really showed just how much Takane's next year of life (between meeting Ayano and Haruka's possible medical crisis) was magical to her, was like a vacation to the tropics for her soul.
Getting to see Tateyama join the kids in a number of scenes, namely the snowball fight, not only shows that he was "one of the gang" despite the decades that separated him from the other children but I guess also shows how much of a surrogate father he was to these kids. Despite some of my earlier ramblings about possibly sinister doings by our good friend the science teacher, I'd like to think that scenes like the snowball fight scene show that Tateyama is a good person who genuinely loves children and wants to be their friend, their mentor, their crutch, etc.
Kinda surprised that if Ayano and Takane knew each other so well (as clearly they did) that Ayano wouldn't have invited Takane to join the red eyes club. In fact, it's still strange to me that a piece of software like Ene got to join even though she shouldn't have red eyes (and certainly hasn't demonstrated having them yet). Takane on the other hand very well could. Anyway, I'm speculating about Ayano having not invited Takane simply because we've been told by Kido that the Blindfold Brigade was founded by Ayano and that its first three recruits were Kido, Kano, and Seto, with Marry being the fourth recruit and -- years later -- Momo the fifth. How strange then that Ayano wouldn't have invited Takane!
Guess we'll find out more on this later, e.g. if it's confirmed that Takane doesn't have the red eyes ability despite being a major character in the story whereas the artificial intelligence based on her does.
* * * CONCLUSION * * *
Man! I feel like there is still so much more I want to say, stuff I've forgotten about from Saturday evening. But this post has already gotten so long that I fear the only person who will read every single word without skimming is Yuki. Soooooooooo I should wrap it up here if I don't want to lose even
her attention.
But yeah. One last time, I'll say that Episode 06 was a great episode. Maybe not "great" amongst the giants of my anime-watching career, but certainly a great episode for
Mekakucity Actors. It's great to see that the curse has been demolished. Here's hoping that every episode from here on out is just as good as Episode 06 if not better.
* * * EPILOGUE * * *
... okay, so, a few final thoughts that didn't really fit in anywhere above.
^^; These are things I noted on Saturday that I forgot to incorporate into this post. So, without further ado, here goes!
I wrote at length about the possibility that Tateyama is Konoha's creator (be a robot, a Frankenstein's monster, a hypnotized boy, what have you). But I neglected to mention that I am also considering Tateyama a likely candidate for
Ene's creator. And that's because, where we're sitting right now, we only really know for a fact that
Tateyama is a remarkable computer programmer. We've assumed --
I've assumed -- that Takane is too, but the episode doesn't give us much to work with beyond Takane's surprise that Tateyama was able to produce an original FPS in less than two weeks. While she could be impressed by his skills as a fellow programmer, she could also be being impressed simply the way you or I would be. I'm not a programmer. Most people on UPN aren't programmers by hobby or trade. Yet we all appreciate that it takes a lot of talent to produce an FPS from scratch in just a few weeks. Maybe that's all that Takane was doing. And thus the episode gives us only that Takane is an expert
FPS player, not that she's necessarily an expert computer programmer.
"When it comes to programming, you don't want to mess with me. " Tateyama says this of himself at the start of the episode. Another Shaft clue? Quite possibly. Couple this with the fact that Tateyama, not Takane, would've been the one to create the Ene inside of the shooting game and it seems all the more likely that the A.I. Ene we met at the start of the series was sent to Shintarou not by Enomoto Takane but by Tateyama Kenjirou. Well, again assuming his name
is Tateyama Kenjirou. (Let's see Connor be proven right! We're so close! I'm already convinced he is right myself!
C'mon, Shaft, just confirm it already!)
It has not escaped my notice that August 15th keeps cropping up. It feels like this date is important for a number of reasons. Whether we'll find out that all August 15ths are linked together across time, whether the same August 15th keeps repeating over and over again (and it just so happens that Episode 06's final event takes place on August 15th several years ago), etc, who can say. Well, who amongst the unspoiled can say, anyway.