Summary:

As they ride through the night in a carriage, Komui explains to Allen and the others that the Millennium Earl probably thinks that the Heart resides inside a particularly strong Innocence-compatible person. Lavi thinks that such a person would be as powerful as a general, but Komui feels that if both Akuma and Noah’s family attacked, then it would be too much. For now, Exorcists are being assigned to guard one of the four remaining generals: Cloud, Sokaro, Cross, and Tiedoll. Allen and Lenalee have been assigned to Allen’s old teacher Cross Marian, but the problem is that they haven’t heard from Cross in four years. Komui concludes that either he’s dead or he’s ignoring their mission and fooling around. With all this in mind, Allen and Lenalee board a ship for Liverpool because that’s where one of Cross’ old female acquaintances is. Allen decides to tell Lenalee about what kind of person Cross was by recounting his own experiences with the general, particularly how Cross liked to spend money. Because of this, Allen had been the one who worked day and night to repay Cross’ debts, but the General was never appreciative and instead told Allen to earn more money next time.

Allen then reveals that he did have a best friend named Narain. At the time, he and Cross had been in India at a royal palace of a lady who Cross was involved with. Narain had worked at the palace along with his sister, and he had been studying to go into medicine. After one particular incident where Cross threw Allen in front of a horde of Akuma and then had to save him when Allen couldn’t fight them, Allen had gone to see Narain. However, he had found Narain grieving because his sister had died. Narain had been frustrated that there wasn’t a way in the medical books that he read to bring his sister back, so he couldn’t do anything. This had been perfect for the Millennium Earl, and Narain became an Akuma. Allen initially couldn’t think of killing his friend, but Cross had been the one who told Allen not to run away. He wanted Allen to fight and sever the chains of sorrow that bind Narain’s sister’s soul to the Akuma. After Allen had successfully activated his arm and destroyed the Akuma, he found the experience painful, and Cross had told him to get used to it. In the time after that, Cross always had Allen fight against whatever Akuma that appeared. Having heard the entire story, Lenalee finds Cross to be an amazing person. What surprises Allen is that all the other women in the room who were eavesdropping are now all attracted to Cross based on what Allen said. This causes Allen to yell in frustration over how he doesn’t understand a woman’s heart.

Preview

Although the Komui parts from the beginning of the episode were from the manga, the rest of the episode was not. I think the main problem I had was that this episode didn’t really introduce anything new, even though it was a back-story episode with young Allen and Cross. The whole Narain thing was just another rehash of the grieving-person-brings-back-dead-loved-one story that we’ve seen many times now. I would love it if they either just got back on track completely with the manga, or, as several people have suggested, just go off in a different direction and stick with it. The former of those two seems unlikely to happen anytime soon since Lavi, Bookman, and Krory aren’t with Allen and Lenalee right now. All three of them are instead in the preview for next week’s episode, which would appear to be focused on Krory.

26 Comments

  1. There’s a good chance that it will have a different ending, since the manga’s still going on and the anime is only 52 episodes. But, that’s not a bad thing. In my eyes, it stops being “filler” when it has it’s own story line and sticks with it (like FMA).

    DaveJS
  2. @DaveJS
    I agree with you. Just because the anime does not follow the manga exactly does not mean it “ruins” the story. After all, the anime is an adaptation, which means that there will be some changes but it is still close to the storyline (exorcists vs the Earl); it is just a different take. Besides, the “fillers” bring more character involvement to the minor characters, which is a good thing in my opinion.

    riki
  3. Is it only me who has a hard time watching D.Gray-man recently? I’m really trying to love this show but it has always failed me. The story is getting weirder every episode and farther from The Manga.
    I want to know if anybody else feels the same, it’s like i’m not watching the same show as last year in November 🙁

    Myst
  4. I haven’t watch this episode yet, so I’ll pass judgement later…

    But I won’t be too hasty to conclude that the anime would be TOO different from the Manga arc.

    They still gave the hint at the end of the OP with the “butterfly”, “Ace of Spades” and the background image… Which means sooner or later they’ll have to visit…Erm, the ‘east’.

    Thinking about it, this is a 50+ episodes anime, meaning that they’ll have plenty of time to show off more of the D.Gray-man world.

    I did find that it’ll be weird to assign 5 people to look for General Cross while the other generals only have 3 people looking for them each. At least this makes more sense…

    Besies, more Allen X Lenalee is a great thing!

    Chaos2Frozen
  5. Nope, they seem to still want to follow the manga, seeing as how they have shown the ‘Butterfly’, the ‘Card’ and the bamboo background at the end of the OP.

    Also, I believe I saw Soman in the ED as well.

    I have different feelings about this episode compared to you Omni. I think it’s nice that show more of Allen’s hardship with Cross. Notice it’s somewhat similar to Hayate’s hardship? Funny how they both have white/light hair…

    I also see the Narain part as the first reason why Allen is determinte to walk the Exorcist path, cause it’s quite a big leap for a little boy to have this kind of resolution without having to experience this.

    Lastly, I think it’s amazing how Allen’s story could grab the attention of EVERY woman in the room 🙂

    Chaos2Frozen
  6. while cross is awesome in itself. . .this show needs to get back on track. . .I’ve just finished reading what the manga stopped at. . .and it seems like its about to come to an end soon. and there’s a LOT of material that we still havent seen yet in the anime. . .It should be enoguh material to fill up the 52 eps as it is and be just in time for the mangaka to finish the story. There really is no reason why they need to keep dragging the show on like this.

    jackson burger
  7. You kidding? The manga still have alot to cover.

    What it is ending now, is simply the really big arc about the ‘Heart’.

    1- We still don’t know who has the ‘Heart’.
    2- We still haven’t met all of the Noahs.
    3- We still haven’t seen what the Generals can do.

    And many others.

    If the Mangaka does finish it off at this arc, it’ll be an incomplete story.

    Chaos2Frozen

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