Shameful Otaku Secret!

Something That Couldn’t Be Said

[What's a Tomogara, you say? Try the Shana info page]

Last week, I said something to the effect that I’d be OK with Shana doing that Bleach/Dragonball thing where a single fight draws out for a whole season, if they’d just get us out of the void of nothingness that the show’s been stuck in almost since day one. Well. I said “almost.” Good thing, too, as that appears to be their goal. Is this going to end up a 200-episode show with drawn-out action scenes and minimal character development? Maybe I just can’t be happy either way, but I was sure glad something happened this week.

Recap, The Summary of Injustice

Turns out Zarovee the Collation Flux is a Jaeger, which sounds like hunter but is really more of a decoy. He’s here to pull Yuji away, thus luring the Flame Haze into a trap set by the Wanderer, a giant slug-shaped cannon. His ability to clone himself keeps Yuji at bay: attack me here and I’ll eat some souls over there. So most of the first half is spent with Yuji’s incessant internal dialog as Zarovee leads him to the designated spot. During this time, Shana takes care of Yuji’s mom while wearing a pink sweater, thus sealing the deal on her transformation from killing machine to useless girl.

Funny, no one takes me seriously when I make that threat

Zarovee is planning to draw her out by taking Yuji to a strategic location. Fortunately, Yuji susses this trap out (easily, Zarovee’s a pretty dumb Tomogara), and when he happens to see Tanaka and Ogata on the street, he starts yelling crazily to signal them. If you remember, Tanaka quit the henchman game, but he can’t let it go — so he visits Margery anyway after about 8 minutes of internal debate, with shame in his heart. Unsurprisingly, the kinder gentler Margery-san forgives him, and her and Satou take off to… do nothing the rest of the episode.

Pan to the sky.

It involves a thousand meangingless terms designed to impart an illusion of depth to an otherwise barely-written show

To be fair, they do contact Shana and Wilhelmina, who do all the slug-fighting after Yuji cleverly casts his own Fuzetsu to take care of his situation and kills the fuck out of Zarovee. I’m sorry, but for a guy who’s never done this before, he sure seems to have no qualms about ramming the Blutsauger through the middle of a human-looking thing begging for its life. He even breaks one copy’s neck with his bare fucking hands.

at the intersection of hopelessly GAR and needlessly cruel, there stands the New Yuji

All seems well, but in the place where the Slug Cannon was destroyed, a huge explosion drowns out Yuji’s attempt to make some apology none of us care about.

What We’ve Learned

Action is back! So is fanservice, apparently. And Yuji understands why Shana and Kazumi are mad at him: he wasn’t ready to leave the city, he was lying to himself, and now it sounds like he wants to stay after all, to protect it.

Oh god I think I just got served

One thing hasn’t changed. When the camera cuts to a new character, that character will have a sweaty distressed expression and will make a small grunting noise. Every time.

Thoughts

As president of the Margery-San fan club, I apologize for that.

Next week, the explosion is revealed to be Sabrac the Destructive Blade, Wilhelmina’s old arch-enemy or whatever, so the time to kill of a major character might come exactly one season after she joined the story. Either way, I say again — the action is back, and hopefully it’s not going anywhere this time.

Hotaru

Am I really watching this show? At this point in a season, it’s pretty easy with a time investment of less than 3 hours to catch up with something, and that’s the problem. I guess I have no excuse not to watch H2O.

Story

Just to recap, H2O in general concerns young Hirose Takuma, who’s moved out to the country to recover from a mysterious illness that left him blind. You know how I feel about mysterious illness, but whatever. A spirit girl who only he can see, Otoha, kisses him on the forehead and suddenly he can see — but she tells him it’s temporary. Bothered by the tomfoolery and bullshittery in this tiny village, kindly city boy Takuma goes about setting things right between the disenfranchised residents. He’s already brought homeless Hayami from a world of constant beatings at the hands of her classmates to the star seamstress of their junior high.

But the real story now appears to revolve around Hinata, whose mean-ass grandfather has done more to her in his quest to retain power than just force her to stay away from Hayami. I’d spoil it if I mentioned in too much detail, and it’s my unofficial policy not to talk about big drama-bombs until the next week when it’s time to not spoil another drama-bomb. Let’s just say, though, that it concerns her late sister.

What We’ve Learned

If you’re just dropping into this thing, there are surprises all over the place. While I easily deduced at least the general idea of what Hayami’s back story was going to be, and why the village hated her, these developments were a little more unexpected. Most notable is not the apparent main thrust of the week’s story, but the sketchbook that proves Otoha is not a figment of Takuma’s imagination — rather, she’s a figment of Hinata’s. Interesting. It’s very much the standard incidental supernatural element that tends to tie these kinds of shows together, though.

General Impressions

I don’t hate this show. The characters are not horrible, although some are really thin and most don’t act especially like kids. Takuma’s got a long way to go before he’ll win the Okazaki Good-Deed-Doer award, but he’s fairly likable (if drawn way too effeminately) and acts from pretty reasonable motivations.

Episode 4, I believe it was — the obligatory beach episode — creeped me out, not because of cross-dressing but because of fan “service.” I was waiting nervously from minute one for such an episode, though, so I guess I have myself to blame. A show focusing on protagonists of this age has infinite potential to creep me out to begin with, and that’s without little-sister panty shots.

However, I’m digressing into something that rarely enters into the show as a whole, which is pleasantly drawn (especially backgrounds) and forgettably written, but not too insulting. Propped up next to this season’s other dramas Clannad and (my current favorite show) True Tears, it looks pretty anemic but it seems like it’s going to be able to pass me by without offending my sensibilities too much, and the rural setting is a nice change of pace. Incidentally, the old three-episode litmus test was made for shows like this.

So give it a shot if you’re looking for something else to watch, it’s still not too late to catch up pretty easily. The light but nevertheless constantly-dangling mysteries provide the carrot on a stick that keeps you watching through some weak character interaction, but it should be a tasty enough carrot to keep drama fans entertained.