Category: Anime

Bleach Episode 60

Watched this awhile ago. Been queued for awhile, but I finally found time to blog about it. So much gets revealed in this episode, though not much action, which leads up to the next episode…

Spoilers:

The center court where the judges of Soul Society make all the decisions and rulings have been infiltrated. Captain #13 (the chibi captain) breaks in and the alarm doesn’t go off. Instead, he finds a room full of dead bodies. Suddenly he sees Gin’s lieutenant and chases after him along with his own lieutenant. Gin’s lieutenant then hints about Hinamori and Captain #13 rushes back to find Hinamori while his lieutenant (the female with the big boobs) continues chasing after Gin’s lieutenant. We then learn about each of their own Soul Slayer. Gin’s lieutenant’s Soul Slayer apparently makes the enemies weapon 2x heavier each it hits it and after a few blocks, makes it unbelievable heavy for the enemy to continue using it. However, we have yet to see what Captain #13’s sword can do, but it seems to have a similar property to Byakuya’s sword where it can dissolve.

Returning back to the other scene. Hinamori arrives at the center court and guess what! Captain Aizen is NOT DEAD! That totally took me by surprise. Gin was also there. Hinamori of course was overjoyed to see her captain, but things started to make sense. The letter and the blaming of Captain #13 (chibi captain) started to fit together. While Hinamori was hugging Captain Aizen, he stabs her and kills her. At this time, Captain #13 arrives and finds Hinamori dead. Aizen says something very cruel, though very deep: “There’s no one so easy to control as someone who admires you. … Admiration is the emotion farthest from comprehension.” Aizen also goes about explaining how he faked his own death. At this point, Hitsugaya (chibi captain) busts out his BanKai which seems to be an ice dragon and charges toward Aizen. Aizen easily evades and in return slashes Hitsugaya up. At this time, Captain #4 (the nurse) arrives because she had seen through his deception. It turns out the dead body was actually Aizen’s sword and it was part of his Soul Slayer’s ability. But only those with eyes would be able to fall under the enchatment. At this moment, Captain #4 realizes that there’s another person on Aizen’s team, the blind captain (forgot his number).

The scene moves to Rukia and Renji for the 1st time in many episodes and there was the blind captain waiting for them and teleports them back to the execution stage. Gin and Aizen also teleport there too. Next episode is going to be interesting.

Blood+ Episode 8 – Phantom of the School

Spoilers:

This series takes a big turn and we end up in Vietnam. Kai and Rick are abandoned, but are left with a note not saying much and a credit card apparently with enough credit to buy a tank. Curious as I am, I wondered how much a tank costs these days. Apparently they cost an average of $4 million per tank. But Kai and Rick are unsatisified with the situation and decides to go look for Saya herself.

Switching back to Saya, she successfully infiltrated the school they’re investigating by enrolling as a student. She meets her roommate Min, a girl from Shanghai I believe or some other part of China. She’s rather cute, even with her glasses off. But anyway, apparently Haji infiltrated the school too by becoming the new gardener. Apparently all the girls are falling for Haji and calling him the phantom. There’s a story at this school about how there used to be a girl with black hair named Lycée. She was trying to plant roses in a garden, but they would never bloom. Rumor was that a devil watched over that patch of land, but Lycée kept pouring love into the roses and the devil was touched and the roses bloomed magnificantly. The devil proposed to Lycée and Lycée said she’d accept if he could bring her a blue rose. The devil searched all over the world but could not find a blue rose, but did not dare return till he found it. Soon after, news of Lycée dying of old age reached him and he cried and cried until he could cry now more. Legend says that when his last drop of tear hit the floor, a blue rose sprung out and he took it to Lycée’s grave and disappeared. Nowadays, the story goes that the devil returns as a phantom whenever there’s a crescent moon and tries to look for a girl with the same black hair as Lycée.

Saya believes that just a cover story for the vampire(s). That night, she sees a candle in the bell tower and goes there to find the director the school as a vampire. But I don’t believe Saya’s met the director yet or recognized him. Haji came in time and fought the vampire off. But before the vampire disappared, he left a blue rose.

Bleach Episode 59

What an amazing episode! So much happened that there were still plenty of screenshots I wanted to take, but I’ve decided that I’d only do 9 per episode, so I’ll stick with that. Anyway, this felt like 3 episodes worth of action and probably 6 episodes worth of Naruto episodes. I watched this episode almost a week ago when Bleach-Society released it, but I got Lunar’s version today and rewatched it and decided to finally post it on my blog. Dattebayo already released Bleach 60 last night, but I don’t particularily like Dattebayo’s works.

Spoilers:

In the last episode, you saw Ichigo release his bankai. In this episode, Byakuya releases his bankai’s true form, which stops being defensive and sacrifices everything to kill the enemy. One thing I couldn’t figure out was why don’t all the swords attack at the same time? Is it because Byakuya thinks too highly of himself or is it because he can’t or is it because he believes it’d be unfair? Either way, Ichigo started to get tired and started to lose it. When Byakuya was about to end him, Ichigo’s hollow form suddenly overtakes him and starts pushing Byakuya way back where he couldn’t even keep an eye on Ichigo. The hollow form busted out a new move that even Ichigo didn’t know: Kuro Getsuga (黒月牙) which translates to Black Moon Fang.

But Ichigo didn’t let him continue to fight and overtook that body because the hollow was fighting for the wrong reason. This left Ichigo and Byakuya one final move. Before the final move, Ichigo asked one more time why Byakuya wouldn’t rescue Rukia. Byakuya said he’d tell him if he won. So the ultimate move of Byakuya vs the only move that Ichigo learnt from Zangetsu (残月). Ichigo somehow defeated him, and Byakuya tells him his reasoning:

Laws were created to be followed and enforeced. Those who break the laws should be punished. As a member of one of the four noble houses, one should be even more strict when the law is broken to set an example for the rest of Soul Society. Feelings and kinship are useless things which prohibit us from doing our job.

I call a bunch of bullshit. I actually lost a lot of respect for Byakuya just because of his reasoning for killing Rukia. But it was Ichigo’s victory!

The episode ended with the chibi captain (I forgot his name and #) and his big breasted lieutenant trying to enter the center office, only to find that the locked door was not gaurded and the alarm didn’t go off when they broke through. Only the next episode will tell what really is going on in there.

Nakama (仲間) vs Tomodachi (友達). I’ve always associated nakama with comrade and tomodachi as friend, but the subtitled translated nakama to friend, which I found insulting to Rukia. To me, being called comrade means a lot more than being called a friend. Of course I don’t really believe I’ve ever called anyone a comrade, but I guess best friends come the closest to that definition. Basically someone who you’re willing to risk yourself in helping. What do I mean when I say risk yourself. It doesn’t always mean that you’re risking your life, but it can. It means basically from anything that’s inconvenient for you to you losing something in order to help. Rukia was more than just a friend to Ichigo and the clan and as I said before, I felt that the subtitles insulted her.

In the subtitles, I found it strange that they capitalized that the translation of shinigami (死神) was Death god where Death was capitalized and god was not. I understand if it’s not the “true” god, you’re not suppose to capitalize the G, but it brought up an interesting point and that was if Death is normally capitalized when used in literature. According to Wikipedia and Answers.com:

Death, personified is a personification of death as an anthropomorphic figure or a fictional character who has existed in mythology and popular culture since the earliest days of storytelling. Because the reality of death has had a substantial influence on the human psyche and the development of civilization as a whole, the personification of Death as a living, sentient entity is a concept that has existed in all known societies since the beginnings of recorded history.

In modern-day, European-based folklore, Death is also known as the Grim Reaper. In the Septuagint version of the Bible, Death is portrayed in the book of Tobit (considered apocryphal by Protestants) as Azrael, the angel of death. Father Time is sometimes said to be Death.

So I guess you do capitalize Death when he’s personified! What I’m also curious about is if the bible acknowledges Death. I know Lucifer is mentioned, but is his messenger Death ever mentioned in the bible?

King of Fighters – Another Day Episode 1 – Chapter 01: All Out

Just saw this anime released and decided to check it out. It’s a fairly short episode with about 5 mins of content and 5 mins of credits. Looks like they may continue it since they did call this Chapter 01. I wonder if each episode is going to be longer or if it’s going to be weird mini series. Anyway, several famous characters were introduced like Alba, Soiree, Iori, Mai and Athena.

Alba apparently is the other brother of Soiree. Alba had to leave town for the weekend and told Soiree to look after it. There’s a cute little girl named which I don’t recall them ever saying the name. I’m not even sure if she’s in the King of Fighters game. Maybe someone can tell me by looking at images 3 and 4. Somehow in the middle of a nap, a big fire starts in the city and Soiree and a few others try to evacuate everyone. However, in the midst of chaos, Soiree meets Iori who apparently lost his Yata Mirror (some magic thingy that allowed him to make fireballs or something I’m guessing). Athena and Mai shows up when the noticed the little girl was in danger. Athena seems to be some pop star and Mai, well, she just had big boobs. So Soiree and Iori gets into a fight over a trivial reason. I didn’t see why Soiree decided to stop evacutating people and began fighting with Iori, but the fight scene was pretty neat where you got to see some signature KOF moves. The building they were fighting in collapses and Iori disappears while Soiree, Athena, and Mai protects the little girl. Later Alba returns and says he met the red haired guy in another part of the city he was helping evacuate. The animation ended there.

However, a story in text began to be displayed. I’m not sure if it was the fansubber’s addition, but it was interesting:

“Soiree” and “Alba” defeated the boss of the Gang “Mephistopheles”, “Duke”.

But the days of peace did not last for long.

When twilight fell, South-Town suddenly burst into flames. With his brother “Alba” absent, “Soiree” ran to protect the city, and in the middle of the flames encountered “Iori Yagami”, who had lost the power of the Yata Mirror.

But this was nothing more than the prologue to a new battle…

Tokyo Toshokan (東京図書館) is back!

Special Thanks to EALUCO for hosting us. | Bugs, Issues, Problems, Etc: join IRC channel or e-mail admin@tokyotosho.com
The Tokyo Toshokan Staff have decided to start anew with a fresh database with our new server, sorry for any inconvenience.

My first post on this anime since Soldats is really slow about releasing them, but they got their act together and didn’t want to be that behind Anime-Kraze and released 3 episodes almost together. Yay! Gotta love Soldats! Monster is a really awesome manga, and the anime has followed it quite well. Sometimes I don’t even feel like watching Monster since it’s just the same thing as the manga, but anime shows have been sucking lately with the exception of a few.

Monster Episode 63 – Chapter 63 – An Unrelated Murder

Monster Episode 64 – Chapter 64 – The Baby’s Depression

Monster Episode 65 – Chapter 65 – Johan’s Footprints

Spoilers:

In short, Monster is a thriller, a suspenseful story. It starts off with a genius brain surgeon, Dr. Tenma and how he’s trying to move up the ladder. However, it turns out the director and several other surgeons at this hospital are just people who are greedy for wealth and fame. One time, even though he was about to operate on a Turkish man, a new patient came in, I believe he was a renown pianist and Tenma was transferred to operate on him instead. The pianist survives thanks to Tenma’s skills, but the Turkish man didn’t because the doctor wasn’t capable enough. The Turkish man’s wife and grandchild comes pounding on Tenma asking why he didn’t operate the surgery. If he had done it, the Turkish man would’ve made it. So the dilemma starts then. Does every man have the equal right to live, or do some people have higher preference than others. I’m not going to bother introducing his fiancé Eva who says every man is not equal.

However, as a doctor, does he have such power to determine who should live and who should die. Then came several days later. He was about to operate on a boy with a gunshut to the head. Suddenly the mayor came in and needed an operation for a brain tumor. Tenma was of course called to operate on the mayor instead because the mayor had promised more funding for the hospital. Halfway to the mayor’s operating room, Tenma turns back and decides that the power of giving life and death should not be in his hands and goes back to operate on the boy. Miracuously, the boy survives, even with a gunshot into his head. However, the mayor didn’t and from that point on, Tenma was shunned by the director and other surgeons and basically having no more chance of going up that ladder.

However, the story takes a big turn when suddenly, the director and surgeons were killed by some poisonous candy. Tenma being the only good surgeon left was promoted to surgeon lead and he went onwards for a few years saving many lives. However, there was always suspicion that Tenma was the the that killed the director and other surgeons because he had the most to gain with their deaths.

I don’t want to ruin the story too much, but it turns out it was the little boy who had poisoned them, and it was his gift to Dr. Tenma for saving his life. However, no one remembers such a boy even when Tenma tries to explain. The story of why the boy was shot in the head comes out of the water too and it just blows your head. For now, you just need to know, Johan, the little boy had a twin sister who was also at the hospital during her brother’s operation, but she was too shock to speak. Johan is the monster and Dr. Tenma regrets saving his life. If you were a doctor, should you have a choice to not rescue the life of a evil person, so evil that he is a monster?

The last few episodes have progressed a bit far from what I’ve introduced, so expect MAJOR SPOILERS. Johan has been manipulating serial killers to do their killings. Usually, serial killers have only a special category of people to kill. In this case, one only killed virgins and sucked their blood because he thought he was a vampire. Another killed because aliens told him to kill. The final one only killed scum like people who would spit at him or have sex in the back of his taxi. However, in each on of these profiles, there was a killing that did not fit the profile. When asked why, they had met him, Johan, the monster. The vampire claimed he met the true vampire and the vampire wrote the name in the sand in a park and he then did his bidding. The alien guy knew that Johan was an alien and spoke in some weird language. However they communicated when he wrote another name in the sand. The third and final serial killer actually talks about meeting Johan when he was younger and how he and his twin sister were in pajamas as if they escaped from the hospital…

In the next 2 episodes, Baby, a right win extremist leader of the German party was murdered. Peter Capek, scared for his life, decides to run away. Johan, who Peter believe was in his control, apparently had a different agenda. Nina, Johan’s twin sister, enters the story once more this time trying to kill Johan and finish the job. Tenma also follows the monster’s disciple: Christopher Sievernich and meets Eva again when she tries to get her revenge for Martin.

So it looks like TokyoTosho will be back soon since a new hosting page has come up. *crosses fingers* I wonder what happened 2 days ago. My only guess is that their server dropped them for using too much bandwidth.

Detective Academy Q Episode 30 – The School Broadcast of Death

Spoilers:

Not much happen in this episode. Meg just got rescued, but 2 students die and the mystery still isn’t solved. However, Kyu is in the story now! Yay!

Black Cat is actually getting better despite what I originally thought based on the previous few episodes. And the kids that showed up in these 2 episodes are so adorable and cute. One even goes, “Did you make a promise with your boyfriend?”, even though they’re only like 7 or 8 years old.

Black Cat Episode 6 – Targeted Cat

Black Cat Episode 7 – All Wounded Cat

Spoilers:

In these last 2 episodes, a lot has happened. It begins with #1 trying to either convince #13 Train Heartnet to return to Chronos or to be killed. Train wants neither. You also see Creed’s weapon in its true form. His sword apparently is invisible and can extend upon his command. You also see the 1st introduction of a Taoist, a clan which Chronos believe has been exterminated over 200 years ago. This Taoist seems to be able to control insects really well, however the song sung by Saya threw him off. Creed believes Saya has placed a spell on Train and calls her a witch for bewitching him, which leads to the conclusion of this episode, the killing of Saya. Saya had made Train promise to watch fireworks with her, but she got there a bit early and helped some kids win some toys and candy at the carnival. While she was looking for a spot for the best view, Creed comes up and attacks her. It was pretty much one sided. Even when Saya shot him, Creed didn’t seem to be affected. She was also trying to protect the kids that came to thank her, but came at a bad time. As Saya laid there and before Creed killed her, Train shows up. At this point, it seemed Saya was a lost cause, but she begged Train to protect the train, which led to an amazing fight.

In the following episode, you learnt there was an explosion during the fight and Sven and Eve found Train protecting the kids, which only ended up getting light burns. When Train woke up, he asked where Saya was, but neither Eve nor Sven knew who he was talking about. There wasn’t anybody else at the scene when they found him. Train asked for his gun, but Eve wouldn’t give it to him, but instead gave him a plush kitten which the kids asked if they could give to Train for protecting them. Train just threw the kitten on the floor. One really wonders at this point what happened to Saya. You know she couldn’t have died, since she’s on the opening credits and ending credits and seems to be 1 of the 4 who will eventually form a team. My guess was Creed took her so he can force Train to join him later on. At this point, the introduce another Chornos Number, #7. He was basically given the assignment of killing Eve which #13 Train did not finish before leaving Chronos. At this point, Eve was reading Aesop’s Fables and learnt about how the mice try to put a bell around the cat’s neck so they could hear the cat whenever it tried to come get them. So Eve decided to try to put a bell on Train (nicked name Black Cat) for being a bad cat. Train resisted and eventually threw the bell out the window. He also said many hurtful things such as that Eve was also a killer and she also tried to kill him. Sven returns and finds Eve missing. Sven scolds Train for hurting Eve’s feelings and tells him that it was Eve that found him after the explosion and was also the one that tended him for the week he was out cold and recovering. If Sven finds out Eve’s feelings were hurt, he’d be the first one to come after Train. Sven leaves and goes look for Eve. At this time, Eve meets #7 which nicely requests that she follow him. Eve doesn’t comply and actually transforms her arm into a dagger/cleaver. However she still gets caught in the web of strings, apparently his weapon. Eve tries cutting the strings, but because it was made from orichalcum.

At first I thought this was a made up element for this anime, but apparently wikipedia states: Orichalcum is a legendary metal mentioned in several ancient writings, most notably the story of Atlantis as recounted in the Critias dialogue, recorded by Plato. According to Critias, orichalcum was considered second only to gold in value, and was found and mined in many parts of Atlantis in ancient times. By the time of Critias, however, it was known only by name. It is not known for certain what orichalcum was. Orichalcum (or Aurichalcum) literally means “gold copper”. It is alternatively held to be a gold/copper alloy, a copper-tin or copper-zinc brass, or a metal no longer known to man. In later years, “orichalcum” was used to describe chalcopyrite or brass. However, these are difficult to reconcile with the text of Critias, because he states that the metal was “only a name” by his time, while brass and chalkopyrite continued to be very important through the time of Plato until today. For that reason, other authors on the subject conclude that orichalcum is either the gold-copper alloy tumbaga, or a metal that is, in the words of Critias, “known only by name today, but was once more than a name.” Doesn’t sound like a strong alloy to me, but who knows. Are any gold alloys that are actually strong? I don’t recall brass being that strong either.

Anyway, back to the story. At this time, you hear a bell ring and Train shows up with the bell around his neck. They battle out. Train’s bullets were easily sliced with the strings, but apparently his gun Hades is made of Orichalcum too and they end up at a draw. At this time, #7 retreats and Train and Eve returns back to the cabin and have dinner. Sven returns after hours of searching only to find them eating.

In these latest 2 episodes, they were really fun yet was able to make my heart ache and make my eyes watery.

Saber Marionette J to X Episode 7 – Phase 07: The Lonely Fairy

Saber Marionette J to X Episode 8 – Phase 08: Cherry’s Temporary Motherhood

Spoilers:

In episode 7, Lime meets a fairy named Lido which no one else can see. Lorelei explains that maybe it’s because it requires the purest of hearts to see fairies. Lido was really lonely and was very happy that finally someone could see her. Lime promised to be her friend and she was extremely happy. They played and sang and ran around for a day or 2. Lime says let’s play again tomorrow, but the fairy tells Lime that it was time to say goodbye and she could no longer stay and play. Lido thanks Lime for the wonderful time and that she finally made a friend before she had to go. Lido then disappears. Lime runs around town asking if anyone’s seen Lido, but no one knew who she was talking about. Not even Otaru really believed her. Lime finally ends up back at the lake where she first met Lido and sang the song thatLido sang. Lido suddenly reappears above the lake and says she was really happy that Lime remembers her song. She once again thanks Lime and disappears. Lime dives into the lake and finds a small glowing treasure box. She brings it up and meets up with Otaru and the other marionettes as they were looking for her. She opens the treasure box and the fairy shows up and music begins to play. Apparently it’s a music box and it was low on battery, but somehow was transmitting radio waves that only Lime could read. Suddenly, the boy we saw searching for something shows up and thanks Lime for find his music box. It was his father’s last gift before dying. He had brought it to camp several years ago and lost it. When he got back in town this time, he’s been searching for it. At first Lime resisted in giving away her new friend, but finally relented in the end.

In the following episode, we learn that due to an accident, one of the pods carrying a new baby clone was dropped into the river. Cherry happened to find it and inside she finds a tiny very cute baby. She starts having dreams about Otaru being the father and how Otaru says he wanted more kids. She even named the baby Kotaru. However, things turn bad when she became overly attached to the baby and wouldn’t give him up, even when Otaru demanded. The ending of this episode showed Cherry being surrounded and the baby starts crying, and by mother’s instinct, she started breast feeding him and everyone was shocked. Do remember, this was a society with no human females and all birth was done by cloning. Everyone was surprised with the motherly scene, and at the end Cherry returned the baby.