Summary:

Kanda is on a mission to find a general, and his search brings in the direction of a village called Dankern. However, an elderly woman from another village tells him that there was a famous witch who lived there who was said to eat lost children and travelers. Since Kanda insists on going, the woman points him towards a forest that leads to Dankern. However, soon after he enters the forest which is called the Forest of No Return, Kanda gets attacked by a man who turns into an Akuma. Once Kanda destroys the Akuma, he is approached by another man, but this person turns out to be only a Finder named Gozu who had lost his two companions to that Akuma. Since Kanda doesn’t have anything to do with Gozu’s mission of investigating Dankern, he tells Gozu to go back to the previous town to wait for another Exorcist. Gozu, however, chases after him. Back at the Black Order headquarters, Komui tells Lenalee about the possibility of Innocence in the forest and sends her to investigate since the three Finders didn’t report back and there might be Akuma there.

Kanda meanwhile gets attacked by a large group of Akuma, and he manages to defeat all of them except one. That one Akuma tries to hold Gozu hostage, but Kanda charges him anyway without regard for Gozu’s life. In response, the Akuma knocks Gozu into Kanda and escapes before Kanda can get back up. Kanda and Gozu then hurry to Dankern in case the Akuma fled there, but there’s no one on the streets and Gozu attributes it to all the blood on Kanda’s clothes scaring people away. The two head back into the forest where Kanda cleans up by a pond, and he notices a semi-hidden door to a cabin tucked between some trees. He also finds a girl standing nearby who explains that no one is living in the cabin right now. This girl claims not to have seen any suspicious people, and she then turns towards the lotus flowers floating in the pond. She explains that she didn’t know these flowers bloomed here even though she’s lived in this village since she was young, so Kanda suggests that this could be the first time they’ve bloomed since lotus seeds can sleep for a thousand years in the soil. When the girl pities them because they’ll just wither after blooming, Kanda reveals that they’ll bloom again.

The girl, whose name is Sophia, brings Kanda and Gozu home with her and gives them a place to stay. Gozu finds out from Sophia’s father that her mother died over ten years ago from an illness. As Gozu tells her why he and Kanda are here, Kanda notices something in the way Sophia responds to learning about people not coming back from this village. It turns out that Sophia hasn’t been around because she’s been looking for work in another town, and she only returned recently. When Gozu mentions the rumor of the witch, it is Sophia’s father who gets surprised and drops a plate on the floor. He soon excuses himself from the table, and Sophia explains that there are a lot of people in the village who believe in the witch. The cabin they were at earlier supposedly belongs to this witch. Sophia, however, doesn’t believe that the witch is real because she knows that it was just an old woman who lived in the cabin until a month ago. In their room later, Gozu tells Kanda how he thinks the Forest of No Return got the name because of the Akuma, so there might not be Innocence. Less than convinced, Kanda feels that something is strange and that there’s something he doesn’t like.

That night, Kanda has a dream of Sophia playing a harp, floating above a pool of water. He realizes that it’s not her, and the dream’s focus then shifts to a lotus flower, similar to the one he has in an hourglass sitting in his room back at Black Order headquarters. Kanda wakes up from this dream in a sweat right after he sees all the lotus petals fall off, and the first thing he notices is that Gozu is gone. Outside, Kanda finds footprints and a jelly bean that Sophia had given Gozu, so he follows the trail into the forest, not knowing that he’s being watched by Sophia. He eventually comes face to face with the last remaining Akuma who escaped the battle last time and questions why the Akuma is killing people who come to Dankern. The Akuma only reveals that it was an order from that person before attacking Kanda, so the Exorcist has no choice but to finish off the Akuma. Strangely, the Akuma asks for forgiveness before exploding, and Kanda finds that he’s near the door the cabin again, so he heads towards it to investigate.

Preview

We don’t get many episode about Kanda, so this wasn’t bad since it had a decent amount of action and featured one of my favorite voice actresses Kawasumi Ayako as Sophia. It’s still nothing terribly exciting, but I liked it a lot more than last week’s episode, especially since the lotus flower stuff ties in with Kanda’s character and background (which hasn’t been revealed yet in the anime). The preview was a bit too spoilerish for me though. I suspected a little that Sophia herself was the witch, but the preview seems to all but confirm that she has special powers – either her or what appears to be her twin. Regardless, it’s got me at least a little interested, which is more than I can say of the recent one-shot episodes.

35 Comments

  1. @ Omni:
    I think it would be a very wise decision to stop blogging this series. D.Gray-man is a complete waste of bandwidth.
    What started as a promising anime series has turned to this god awful mess of brainless filler episodes one after another.

    Myst
  2. I don’t mind fillers as much as most people do, i prefer good and funny stories, by the way, this is my only way to update myself on d.Graymen, please don’t stop!

    Xewleer
  3. WHAT THE HELL OMNI?!!! YOU BEST NOT STOP BLOGGING THIS. You know that all anime has fillers, plus Bleach has fillers are you going to stop blogging that also? And so what if it is filler? It goes in details with Kanda I would like to know as much info on the character as possible. Plus I really don’t like Allen as a main character. Kanda would so much of a better one.

    Tokki
  4. “rielle” GOT A GOOD POINT, EVEN THOUGH THE SHOW IS ASSCREAM. somebody needs to man the front to watch it. how else will we know when to tune back in.. OMNI IS A TRUE PATRIOT!!! HE’S LIKE THAT HERO OF THE GROUP WHEN YOU GO CLUBING, the guy that just as a favor crushes the ugly chick so you can get with the dime’s.. I SALUTE YOU OMNI!!!!!

    BROOKLYN otaku
  5. As a lot of people said before, this really isn’t a filler. It’s Kanda’s chapter from the first D.Gray-man Reverse novel. I hope they do the jellybean part. x3

    I just wonder how they’re going to fit the rest of the storyline in with only 52 episodes in the series..

  6. I can’t say that the D.Gray-man anime is getting too good just yet, since as everyone knows, it’s already so full of fillers. But I think it would be a good choice to overlook that and continue watching, because you can’t deny the fact that D.Gray DOES have a good plot, and that it WILL be worth watching once the fillers have gone by.

    Omni-san deserves cookies for continuing to blog this. xDDD

    (Besides, hardly any shounen animes don’t have fillers. No seriously. oO;)

    Fi
  7. My god, looks like I made a commotion in here 😛
    Relax guys, I just stated my opinion, there is nothing wrong with doing that. I don’t know Omni, so I guarantee you he won’t be listening to what I said. As a regular visitor to his site for the past 2 years, I believe this show is a complete waste of time. Now if you like the show, good for you! Have fun watching filler episodes.
    some people…

    Myst
  8. I find it laughable right now that some people actually prefer the manga plotline over the anime original.

    Let me explain to you why they are going into a different direction..

    The mangaka did a poor job of developing character development in the manga (besides Allen and Lenalee). By spending too much time on these 2 main characters, certain role characters disappeared in the manga *cough*Kanda*cough. Kanda disappeared for a extensive period of time in the manga because the mangaka failed to develop his story in detail. The mangaka manage to recover recently as the manga is still ongoing. You can’t leave a big gap of nothing for role characters. It does not help the series. Main characters are important, but role characters help develop the series to become even stronger.

    Secondly, for those who have read the manga, you should know better. Do you have any idea how graphic the manga is compare to the anime? Do you really expect TV Tokyo to air something that graphic to little children when the anime airs in PRIME TIME? You guys whine about how they are not following it. If they did, wouldn’t they just ruin it more by cutting out all the graphic parts in the manga? They already did that when Road Kamelot met Allen and Lenalee face to face during the Miranda arc.

    So before you people start criticizing about how the production team is not following the storyline, think about some of the restrictions they are forced to put on this series.

    Kyouya
  9. *response to post above*
    I agree with you about poor character development of the minor characters. However, the other reason why there are fillers is because the mangaka got in 2 unfortunate situations (one being illness, other injury?) so the manga was held back alot. If the anime follows the manga, the series would run out of plot and have to rely on filler episodes to let the manga go ahead (*cough*year of fillers for naruto*cough) I admit I get annoyed with some of these fillers, but there has been some that are quite amusing. We have to give some credit to the animators that have to think up new stories to keep the series airing.

    phemion
  10. I think the problem is not the fillers themselves – it’s the fact that the fillers SUCK.

    You can’t even call it “original plot”. It’s not a plot. It’s a series of stand alone episodes that lack imagination. What makes it even worse is that those “anime originals” say nothing new about the characters, there is no development.

    I personally don’t care that the anime goes in a different direction. FMA did it, and did it well (though I still prefer the manga). But the D.Gray man anime, instead of creating a new plot after Yeegar’s episodes, was fooling around with boring Akuma-of-the-day episodes.

    Also, from hints at the new OP/ED, it seems that they ARE planning to use the plot from the manga. How exactly are they going to make it in 20 episodes?

    Northern Lights
  11. For goodness sakes, stop bitching about ‘fillers’. If you don’t like it, stop watching the series already. The same thing goes for reading the blogged reviews too.

    Sometimes some people can be so stupid.

    Don’t like D.Gray-man anymore? Stop watching. Duh. Its that simple.

    Cat
  12. Personally I think you sohuldnt waste your tiem with this show anymore omni, there are so many Better shows out there that you can blog, I eman really the manga is so much better and it doesnt take that long to go to stoptazmo.com and click on the d.grayman link and download the manga and read them for an afternoon. I mean seriously. There’s really no reason to have this crap of a show waste your time.

    My 1.5 cents

    jackson burger
  13. Ugh I need to spell better. . .

    @cat. . .You know what? I dont bitch at you and insult for having a fucking opinion So I’d like it if you’d respect everyone else on here who does!

    If it’s something you dont like and you can’t do anything better than bark back at people who are voicing an opinion, then you and me are going to have problems

    (a.k.a internet fight)

    So if you would please show the same respect you want us to show you and just STFU if you cant respect other people’s opinions then that would be wonderful.

    jackson burger
  14. I always thought blogs like this were meant for posting opinions negative and positive…

    Anyway, yes, some character development, non-manga episodes are fine, but isn’t this a bit too much? Plus, most aren’t even that good. At this point, it seems like we won’t get back on track 100% with the manga, as they won’t be able to end properly with only 52 episodes. That’s not a bad thing, but if these episodes are any testament as to what they can come up with story line wise, then…

    I know they’re going back to the manga at some point, but how chopped up will it be. IMO, either follow the manga very closely, or don’t follow it at all.

    DaveJS
  15. It’s a shame that they can’t air half a year’s episodes, then take a half year break, then air another half year’s worth of episodes.

    It’s probably easier said than done and in addition to liking the time slot they’ve been giving all other sorts of pressures must be on the creative staff to make weekly as opposed to sensibly taking a rest.

    Thank God Full Metal Panic doesn’t follow the same trend!

    Honeyman
  16. u ppl r retars, it’s already good enough da some1 is actually bloggin dis things, if u don like it then do comment, cuz commentin on dis just mak u another supporter, dumb asses

    bob
  17. sigh… okay… if no one has nothing good to say, don’t say it at all =/

    but like… LOL! wth… only about… 20 more epi.s left…
    don’t tell me they’re gonna do a second season… XO
    cuz I don’t see HOW they can put everything into 20 epi.s
    lol, oh well, guess we’ll find out =D

    nanami
  18. I have to say that i loved this episode! It was so awesome, and I especially loved KAnda. i guess my expression, and devotion is something, but i really have to complain that this anime feels like it’s not getting anywhere. i didn’t enjoy the last episode. it was in my words, very boring. I’d rather see all the action, and watch the ending of D Gray man!

    kashley16
  19. This episode is not a filler. This is actuall in the reverse novel of D Gray Man, but i’m not so sure if it is before Kanda has met Allen, since in the second chapter of the reverse novel part three (which i will post in crunchyroll.com, which is all writting) it has the part when Kanda jumps out of the window when the gatekeeper gives the alarm that Allen is an Akuma, and all, but for certain this is not a filler. (gauranteed)

    kashley16
  20. besides that this episode really isn’t a filler, if you knew anything about D.gray-man you would know that. Also we are just starting to see the personalities of the other characters, and its not late either cause if you compare it to other manga, D.gray-man is still in its infancy. They should have waited before they decided to animate the series. Though all the fillers can be considered good news as it may point to them expanding the series beyond 51 episodes. It seems likely as they have to somehow introduce the relationship of the ace of spades and Allen, General Cross and Lenalee’s upgrade.

    chibi-chan
  21. Hey, guys..
    I see fire of fight here.. ^^

    Just wanna tell you all that this episode was picked from D.Gray-Man Novel, Reverse. But I think that the other episodes (ep 32 for example) are anime original.
    But, hey, I think anime were showed for our entertainment so we better enjoy it and take it easy..

    Peace.. ^^

    erlia91

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