Category: Anime

2 more episodes have been released since my last Fate/stay night post. Yet another 2 exciting episodes and me begging for more!

Fate/stay night Episode 4 – The Strongest Adversary

Fate/stay night Episode 5 – The Two Magicians – Part 1

Spoilers: (Show)

In episode 4, you meet a new master and servant. In fact, you’ve met the little girl before as she warned Shirou to summon his servant. Apparently the servant this little girl controls is Heracles. At first I wasn’t too sure who Heracles was. Name sounds familiar and seems like a Greek myth. Then they say he was the son of Zues and some woman (not Hera). I’m thinking… does Heracles = Hercules? Haha! Turns outs that Heracles is the Greek name and Hercules is the Roman name after they “borrowed” their mythology.

This Heracles monster was a lot bigger than I imagined. Looked more like a giant than Heracles. Wasn’t Heracles suppose to look human-like but with super human strength? Or am I spoiled by the Hercules TV show? So she summons Heracles to attack Shirou and Rin. Saber, as a duty to protect her master Shirou, goes and fights the monster, even though she’s suffered an injury during the fight with Lancer. She really gets messed up, after fighting awhile. I’m not sure what I think, but I thought she should’ve been stronger, even with that injury. I mean, she has an invisible sword!!!

Just as Saber was about to be killed, Shirou jumps in front and blocks the blow. When he wakes up, he’s wrapped in bandages. Apparently the blow didn’t kill him and the little girl had left the way things were. I think she has feelings for Shirou, but that story will probably be revealed later. She could’ve killed everyone right then right there, but decided to leave instead. Shirou on the other hand has a very high recovery rate, probably part of his magic. Rin had to carry him back home that night. Saber was also recovering.

The episode ended with Sakura (the girl that cooks for Shirou every morning and every night… somehow I wish I had someone to cook for me… haha) bumping into Rin as Rin was walking away from Shirou’s house. Awkward moment as Rin told a lie that she was jogging. Shirou also told Saber to rest and that she couldn’t follow him to school.

The next episode was more fun. It started off with Shirou introducing Saber to Sakura and his teacher (the one that leeches food off him). At first, he didn’t want Saber to meet everyone, but felt bad eating dinner and leaving Saber alone, so he brought her out. Everyone was shocked. Shirou made up a stupid story about her, but both girls asked why a foreign girl is living with Shirou. Saber answered it was her dut to protect Shirou. The teacher didn’t believe the story and decided to challenge Saber to fight to see how good she was. She wasn’t a match for Saber and her reaction was cute and funny as Saber hit her head with a shinai and she falls down crying.

That night, the 2 females decide to stay and make sure no funny business is going on, but the next day, for some reason, Saber convinced them there’s really nothing going

There was a horrible confusing sentence in the middle of this episode: 甘ったり… 感じが (amattari… kanji ga) literally translates to “sentimental (or mushy)… this feeling is”. So I guess “This feels… corny.” would work as translation. But still, it just feels wrong and out of place and not fitting with the actions of the characters.

The episode ended with Rin chasing after Shirou, as if she wanted to kill him. Seems like Rin is in some internal conflict. She wants to win the war, but she doesn’t want to kill Shirou. You also get a glimpse of another Master or Servant. Maybe she’ll show up in the next episode.

“Saving one person means not being able to save another.”

I’ve got to say, this has to be one of the best new animes released in awhile, probably on the scale of Bleach. You can visit the Fate/stay night official anime homepage or visit the original game site. Fate/stay night was originally an H-Game (click on link for definition). Like the other Type-Moon game, TsukiHime (月姫) was made into an anime. The animes themselves have no adult materia, but it was because the popularity of these games which gave a reason for these to be converted into anime series.

Check out this intro video: Fate/stay night Curtain Raiser.

Images from the game:

Fate/stay night Episode 1 – The day of the beginning

Fate/stay night Episode 2 – The Fateful Night

Fate/stay night Episode 3 – Curtains Up

Spoilers: (Show)

This series consists of fighting, comedy, and cute girls. Tons of cute girls. Though common elements in many animes, this one also consists of a pretty good start for a storyline. The story starts with a scene of battle 10 years ago. Along with that battle was a great fire. Many had died and there was this young boy who was rescued by ‘a magiciain’. This young boy was determined to be the protector of justice, even now when he’s a teenager. The man had adopted him and treated him like his own son. This man didn’t have any family, so Shirou Emiya was his only companion. He said something very powerful to Shirou one day (I’ve already mentioned it at the top of this entry): “Saving one person means not being able to save another.”

It fastforwards into the present time and you find a young teenager who had lost his foster father a few years ago. He lives along in a gigantic mansion, but a fellow female classmate comes and helps him make breakfast and dinner and tidy around the house. You could say they’re very close friends. There doesn’t seem to be any sexual tension between them “yet”. There’s also the teacher that always drops by to freeload. The teacher is actually the daughter of Shirou’s financial manager and before his father went away, he asked his financial manager to take care of Shirou. Shirou apparently had some magic in him too. He is able to see the composition of any material he touches as long as he can focus. With that he can also strengthen the composition or even alter it, making it a completely different material, somewhat like alchemy. I’m not sure what the basis of this magic is yet, but I don’t think this story will be explaining how magic works.

The story continues. There’s this girl rated prettiest in the school, but she’s cold toward every guy. She’s actually the 1st preset day character you see. She had summon a servant, hoping it to be of Saber class, but it turns out to be of Archer class. She was still satifisfied though, since Archer seemed strong.

So let me get into the Servant/Master business and what this little game is about. Every 10 years, a game starts again for the battle of the Holy Grail. The winner of this game is entitled to the Holy Grail which will grant whatever wish they may have. The Holy Grail chooses 7 Masters and these 7 Masters can each summon 1 Servant. Servants can be of different classes and so far in the anime, we’ve seen an Archer, a Lancer, and a Saber. There’s this new gigantic monster which will probably be introduced in the next episode. I’m guessing Summoner, but I can be wrong. The game is to be the last person in the game. The Masters can lose in 2 ways, either get killed or have his Servant killed. Of course the former is the easier route and when Servants lose their Masters, they can choose take another Master’s sides.

So, let’s continue the story. Shirou always likes to help out people, even when people are taking advantage of him. He doesn’t really care. So one night, he was asked to help clean the dojo, while his friend went shopping with some girls. He didn’t mind and made a the dojo really clean. When he walked out, Rin, the Master of Archer was battling the Servant Lancer. Archer apparently can also weild 2 swords, though I have yet to see him use an arrow yet. Guess he wasn’t meant for close battle. Actually I have seen him use an arrow, but that was during the promotion video which I’ve posted. Shirou couldn’t believe what’s happening in front of his eyes. There’s been several homocides recently and the weapon matches that of Lancer’s. Lancer notices Shirou and suddenly stops fighting and makes it his priority to kill Shirou. Shirou runs away, but ultimately gets stabbed in the heart and dies. Weird as it may sound, Rin, the prettiest girl at school, actually has something for Shirou. At first, she was going to see the student as a casualty of the war, but when she found out it was Shirou, she wasted a jewel to resurrect him. According to the rules, any outsider who sees any event of this battle must be killed and Lancer even made it a priority to stop Shirou and leaving the current fight.

However, Lancer finds out Shirou’s not dead yet and comes back to kill him. Shirou tries to defend, but gets his ass whooped. Right when he was about to get killed, he somehow summoned Saber. SABER IS SO CUTE!!! I posted an chibi drawing of her a few days ago. But anyway, she pushes Lancer back and even has the upperhand during the battle. She uses an invisible sword, though it’s not really explained that well what she uses. At first I thought she was using her aura to fight. Lancer busts out his ultimate move (or maybe just one of his special moves) where the lance actually follows the movement of the heart and tries to stab it. Luckily Saber was able to dodge it, but it still got her in her shoulder. Lancer says his Master is a coward and said if his ultimate move failed, he was suppose to return immediately. Saber was about to chase, but Shirou told her to stop.

A little more info regarding the Servants. The Servants are actually hereos and warriors of the past and present and is chosen by the Holy Grail and materialized in today’s world. The Servants can be in 2 modes: hidden or materialized where normal human beings can see them. They can only fight when they’re materialized, but can still provide magic and support when they’re a spirit.

Saber notices another Master and Servant in the area. Rin and Archer had come to see Shirou. Rin wanted to make sure he was okay. Archer wanted to make sure he was dead. But anyway, Saber starts attacking them and right before Saber is about to kill Rin, Shirou stops her again. Saber says she must kill the enemy. Shirou as you can imagine is very confused at this point. He doesn’t even know what the game or fight or battle is about. So Rin tells him about the things and magic and jists of what it was about and then takes him to the supervisor of the game and he gives a more detailed explanation. I’ve already provided the explanations along this summary.

The 3rd episode ends where Shirou and Saber actually meet the next Master and Servant. Actually, Shirou’s already met her once and she warned Shirou that he’s needs to summon his Servant soon or else it’d be too late. This series is getting exciting!

Did I mention how cute Saber is?

King of Fighters – Another Day Episode 2 – Chapter 02: Accede

Another short episode. Not really sure what this series is trying to accomplish. It had no connection with the 1st episode either. Though it did consist of characters from King of Fighters.

Spoilers: (Show)

Geese Howard, who once ruled Southtown with absolute power. And Rock, bound by the destiny of being his son.

Gee’s right hand man, Billy, pressed Rock to become his successor in order to rebuild the Howard Connection.

His hatred toward his father who abandoned his mother, his connection with the man who raised him, Terry… after many battles Rock cut himself free from the bonds of his nightmares.

But dawn in Southtown was still a long way away…

That summary provided by SNK basically sums up the episode. Although, I’m not too sure who the girl is and who is shooting down that laser beam when she calls backup.

Bleach 64

Trying to finish as much anime entries. I have like 20 episodes worth of material backlogged. I’ll start off with Bleach 64.

Spoilers: (Show)

Nothing really happened in this episode. It’s the beginning of a new season or arc and there’s a new Opening song and new Ending song which are both nice, but not too catchy, yet. School resumes and everyone wants to know what Ichigo, Chad, and Orihime did during summer. Out of the blue, Renji appears in a gigai (the human body suit that Soul Slayers wear to have a physical body in the living world) and starts yelling at Ichigo when he’s at school. Some funny scenes happen and after another hollow slaying, things return back to normal.

The lion puppet is totally pissed off because his lion suit is ruin and his eye poking out. Reminded me of Hostel, but not as scary.

The episode ended with the introduction of 3 new characters who seem to be the ones Ichigo and his group will be fighting. One of these new characters created a figure based on Inoue’s brother and tricked Inoue into going through this weird door. It was more like she got sucked in. Ichigo and them were too late and the magic gate had already closed. Renji says he doesn’t even know what the gate is.

Guess we’ll have to wait till next episode to find out!

Time to catch up on some anime postings. 62 was out a long while ago and 63 is a 1 hour special that I just watched today. Apparently they took a break, and quite well deserved. Thankfully I had my own share of unwatched stuff to catch up on. Did you hear? 24 – Season Five just aired last night! Anyway, back to Bleach!

Episode 62 left us off with a cliffhanger. Several weeks later, 63 comes out and sort of concludes this little arc. Even though 63 was an 1hr special, half of it was reshowing of the great fights earlier. I was sad originally thinking this was an hour of recaps. But thank god I was wrong! The 2nd half consisted of totally new material: funny, sappy, and emotional, but I like that kind of stuff. The funniest part (don’t worry, it won’t spoil anything) was when Hitsugaya startled Matsumoto:

Matsumoto Rangiku: *SHRIEK* You startled me so much, they nearly fell out!
Hitsugaya Toushirou: What did?
Matsumoto Rangiku: My breasts, like this…
Hitsugaya Toushirou: You didn’t need to demonstrate!

Bleach Epiosde 62

Bleach Episode 63

Spoilers:

It’s been awhile, but my memory is weak regarding episode 62. We already learnt that Rukia contained the key element to merge the power of soul slayers with Hollows. In this episode, Aizen uses some weird sorcery and takes the element out of Rukia. At this point, I’m not even too sure if Rukia still has spiritual power or not, since it seemed that it was that element that gave her the power initially. All the other captains show up and even have them underneath their swords, but suddenly Aizen calls upon the power of the Hollow and they are teleported or taken up into the Hollow world and once that transaction is initiated, there’s no stopping it. So Aizen, Gin, and that blind guy escapes.

The rest of that episode was about healing people. A big chunk of that was Byakuya giving the entire explanation on why he was stern on following the laws. Apparently, Byakuya was married. His wife was Rukia’s sister, but she had died young. In her deathbed, she begged Byakuya to find her sister and take care of her and he promised. Because Byakuya was from a noble family, taking in Rukia’s sister was forbidden since she was a Rukongai, and outsider. But he broke the law once to marry her and had to break the law once more to take in Rukia. So swore on his parents’ grave that he would never break the laws again and be the upholder of them. When Rukia was caught, he was in a conundrum. On one hand, Rukia had broken a law punishable by death and he had promised to uphold every law and rule. On the other hand, he had promised Rukia’s sister to take care of her. Obviously he had chosen to uphold the law of Soul Society.

In episode 63, as I mentioned earlier, the 1st half of it was recaps of the major fights and battles. The 2nd half was just random cute stuff. Ishida (the Quincy bow guy) if you’ve forgotten about him apparently made new clothing, all a bit different from the originals, for the main characters. I wonder why he didn’t make one for Ichigo though. Kenpachi is after Ichigo again for another fight. Rukia disappears and Ichigo and Inoue go off looking for her. Rukia apparently went to apologize to the Shiba clan for killing Kaien. The sister already knew about it and decided that if Rukia ever came to apologize, she would forgive her. Ichigo and Inoue show up and they all have dinner together.

Ichigo and the rest were leaving Soul Society the following day and Rukia decides to stay. Ichigo honors that decision as long as it was her own. Before they left, Ukitake Jyuushiro gives Ichigo a pendant which legally allows him to transform into Shinigami (Death Gods) any time. He said it was a token of appreciation, although this was hardly enough to thank him for what he’s done. As they leave Soul Society, Urahara Kisuke was ready on the other side to catch them. Urahara Kisuke thanks and apologizes to Ichigo for partially hiding the truth from him. Ichigo says the person he also needs to apologize to is Rukia. Urahara Kisuke takes all of them home on a flying carpet, but Ichigo stops by at the river where his mother was killed and just stares off. The episode ends like that with an interesting preview. Aizen and them seem to be out of the picture for awhile while this new arc develops.

Blood+ Episode 10 – I want to meet you

Spoilers:

In this episode, the introduce 2 higher classes of vampires: Chevalier and Diva. Chevalier’s the protectors of Diva, and unlike the other vampires we’ve seen earlier in this series, they are smarter. I’ve always wondered what Haji was and what happened to him. I guess we can only wait to have that unravel.

In this episode, Saya receives a blue rose on her desk. That means the phantom has chosen her as the prettiest girl. This made the teacher’s pet jealous. Then the entire school goes to Hanoi to visit the war museum. There Saya’s memories come rushing back and she sees herself slaying vampires along with innocent people. At this time, the school director shows up as the phantom again and tries to get closer to Saya. Haji shows up but gets pushed back. Saya is too afraid to pull the sword after seeing her past, however she remembers the words of her father and brother where they said no matter what happened or happens, they’re always going to be family and Saya is always going to be Saya, so choose the correct path from now and forget about the past. She unsheaths the sword and slices the director’s hand. However, the director is sad that she doesn’t remember everything yet because killing her won’t be as fun.

The episode ends with the director running away.

Bleach Episode 61

Not much fighting in this one…

Spoilers:

Although there wasn’t much fighting in this one, there was a lot of explanations. Why is Captain Aizen evil? Why does he need Rukia? What was Uruhara’s connection to this whole thing? Why was he banned from Soul Society?

What happen basically was Captain #4 (the nurse) found out where Captain Aizen and Gin teleported to and through telepathy, told everyone about it, even the ryokas (Ichigo and group). Just before Aizen kills Renji, Ichigo arrives and blocks and they team up and try to fight Aizen. Do note, both of them are still badly injured at this point and both get knocked down easily. However, Ichigo’s soul slayer is still in BanKai mode. Aizen says since they’re about to die anyway, he’d tell them the story. There’s 4 basic attacks: sword, arms, feet, and spiritual. Once you reach the max, you’ve reached the highest level of a Shinigami. However, can one advance even further? There is a way and that is to merge powers with a Hollow. Aizen has been experimenting for many years without much results (recall the Shino incident where Rukia kills her lieutenant because he transformed into a Hollow). However, Captain Uruhara found a way to do it and created the item that would easily merge the two powers. Uruhara was the scientist/researcher of the 13 captains, so him finding it wasn’t ridiculous. However, he saw that the item as too dangerous, but was unable to destroy what he created. So he hid it instead, inside a normal being. And that was Rukia. That was why Rukia’s spiritual attacks were so powerful initially when she was small. It took Aizen many many years to figure where Uruhara hid this item. And now he can finally advance his powers.

The mouse captain shows up and the episode ends there. We have yet to see his BanKai yet, so this may be exciting.

Here’s what I think (may spoil for the rest of you, if you didn’t see the same thing): Rukia doesn’t actually have the item anymore. That’s why her powers are always so weak now. In fact, that item has been transferred into Ichigo. I’m not sure if he became a Shinigami after the item transferred or if he could’ve before, but that’s another point to think about. He already has 2 beings in him: both the Hollow and the Shinigami. I bet he’s going to bust out a half Shinigami and half Hollow to kick Aizen’s butt.

Black Cat Episode 8 – The Traveling Cat

This series is actually more cute than action, which isn’t too bad of a combo.

Spoilers:

In this episode, you see a totally different side of Train. He’s naive, he’s fun, and he’s no longer serious. He also sold his coat to get get this weird weights he put on his shirt. In this episode, you learn that Train has become part of the sweeping clan and is always hungry. I wonder what happened with the other girl that was supposedly killed by Creed…

Anyways, Eve says she’d help out, but both Train and Sven make fun of her, so she challenges Train to see who can catch this wanted person first.

Then we meet Rinslet again where she’s back to stealing. However, she’s caught by #7 (the Chronos # that tried to kill Eve after Train gave up) and they make a deal. Apparently there’s been rumors that Tao users are still around and have been giving a drink to some people which make them super powerful, but then self destructs. He wants her to steal that drink and is willing to pay dearly for it. Rinslet agrees and apparently the next target is the same target Sven’s group is going after. So obviously they meet up again. However, Eve goes off and finds the person himself. Train chases because he doesn’t want to lose the challenge.

At this time, you meet 2 new characters (seen in the Opening). I’m not sure if they’re good guys or bad guys at this point, but I hope they’re good guys. They have come to give this 4th person the drink. There were special instructions on what to do in order not to self destruct. This person was an environmentalist gone crazy who believed people who stepped on grass or plucked flowers should be killed. He’s hesitant to drink the potion since he’s heard about the other people dying after using it. However, when Eve steps on the grass, he goes berserk and drinks it. Immediately, he gains control of the plants and vines and starts attacking Eve. Train comes in and starts shooting, but he gets blinded by the flowers pollen. Sven and Rinslet enters but arent much help. Suddenly the maniac self destructs because he didn’t follow the instructions in using the potion.

Welp, Rinslet joins the team again. We’ll have to wait to see what comes next.

Blood+ Episode 9 – Each of their Rainbows

I just realized something about this anime. It is really beautifully drawn. Not only the characters, but the scenaries.

Spoilers:

In this episode, not much happens on the Saya front besides her contacting David regarding seeing the Phantom and that the missing girls from this school all look quite similar to Saya.

This episode focuses more on Kai and Rick. They were having Pho in Hanoi and came accross a baseball game. There Rick met Mui, a girl who lost her leg because she stepped onto a mine that was left behind during the Vietnam War. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him, but he blushes whenever she holds his hands. You later also find out that Mui has been taking medicine given to her by some sponsor. I’m not exactly sure why she’s taking the medicine, since the sponsor was interested in her piano skills. You later find out that the sponsors were actually vampire researchers and for some reason, vampires could hear or frequencies that normal humans can’t hear. However, Rick was able to hear the weird frequencies too. Not too sure what’s going on there.

Later in the story, you learn that Mui’s father had injured himself and she needed money and a metal detector to help the family out. Rick gives her the money. However, he was then scolded by the orphanage keeper because the only reason why she would want a metal detector was the fact farming wasn’t enough to keep a family alive. They also looked for mines and sell them as scrap metals. Kai and Rick goes off to Mui’s village and finds her, but both think Rick made the correct choice by giving her the metal detector. To them, being together with family was the most important. That’s why they need to find Saya.

However, at the end of this episode, Rick and Mui get abducted and Kai gets knocked out. You also see a brief sequence of the jouranlist as he heads for Vietnam. In his father’s memorial box, you see that he had taken a picture of a vampire and the journalist hints to the fact his father had died in Vietnam.