「雷鳴、来る」 (Raimei, Kitaru)
“Raimei, Arrives”

Shimizu Raimei, our blonde pigtailed “samurai”, finally makes her appearance in this episode. Raimei, who has a really bad habit of mistaking people for someone else and only relies on her sword as her strength, comes to Banten to check out the Shinrabanshou, a.k.a. Miharu, for herself. Much to her shock, she finds out how nonchalant, carefree, and most of all, how weak Miharu is. When Raimei attempts to assess Miharu’s ninja abilities, she only finds out about his devilish, puppy-dog eyes “ability“. Following her assessment, Raimei expresses her concerns to Thobari-sensei about Miharu’s hijutsu (secret technique) falling into the wrong hands because she feels that Miharu doesn’t quite grasp the situation he’s in. (…and rightfully so. I mean, just look at Miharu spacing out.) She also doesn’t think Thobari alone can protect Miharu from the Kairoushuu (灰狼衆), one of the many groups after the hijutsu.

In the meantime though, Thobari is apparently looking for a way to seal the hijutsu and has asked Miharu to study ninja techniques so that he can better control the Shinrabanshou (and also prevent it from possibly going berserk). Long story short, Raimei convinces Thobari to let her take Miharu back to Fuuma village so that she can introduce him to their leader, Fuuma Kotarou, who will hopefully help Miharu understand what it means to become the Ruler of Nabari. So the four of them decide to make the trek out to Fuuma village by Shinkansen, only to find out that Thobari has a fear of riding vehicles (…apparently he walked to Japan… from Ireland… somehow… o_O). Anyway, with the help of Miharu’s “real” secret technique, they manage to get Thobari onto the train and eventually make it to the Fuuma village, only to find its hidden mist jutsu dispelled and it under attack.

 

Next Episode:
「襲撃」 (Shuugeki)
“Raid”

Well I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, mainly because of Raimei. When I first heard about Nabari no Ou and saw a picture of the characters, I thought that Kugimiya Rie was going to be playing the blonde-haired girl. When I found out otherwise, I was a bit disappointed because I thought we wouldn’t have a Shana-like tsundere ninja in the show. Luckily for me, Fujimura Ayumi totally delivers as the goofy Raimei. (For those of you watching Kyouran Kazoku Nikki, Ayumi plays Kyouka there.)

As for Miharu, I’m actually pleasantly surprised at how well Kugimiya Rie is able to play a male teenager. While Rie played Alphonse Elric in Full Metal Alchemist, I don’t think I’ve ever heard her play an older male role before. Also, given Miharu’s “puppy-dog eyes jutsu”, I don’t think I would’ve found it as humorous as I do if they didn’t cast a girl to play him. (So for all your yaoi-phobic fans out there, you can rest at ease a bit because we have Rie (left in the pic) as Miharu.) In any case, in addition to having ninjas in a modern setting, this unexpected, pleasant seiyuu outcome just made Nabari no Ou much more interesting to watch (to me at least).

Story-wise, I’m interested to know exactly what Thobari meant by, “that time Miharu died…” when he was talking to Raimei. Also, from Thobari’s nightmare, we can gather that something from his past is still haunting him, so I wonder what happened that night. In his monologue, he expressed how much he hates rain because it causes him to have this dream—a dream of a time/place everyone else has forgotten except him, including his sins. From the preview, we can see that our protagonists are beaten to a pulp by the supposed attackers and Miharu has sustained an injury to his right eye. The eye injury is actually something that is seen in the ED sequence, so I wonder if there are any implications of it in the long run. The who-I-would-suspect-to-be leader of the group is pretty prominent in OP sequence too, so I’m curious to see what role he plays in the overall story.

 

Update: Correction to the above line Thobari said, mostly due to my own mistranslation more than anything else.

Thobari said, 「あいつは自分が死んだとき、誰かに泣かれたりするの最悪の不幸だと思うような奴なんだろうな」 to Raimei, which translates to:

“He (Miharu) is a guy who thinks that having someone cry (over him) when he dies is the most unfortunate thing that could happen.”

In other words, figuratively speaking. From this proper translation, my original statement still applies, but for a very different reason. Now I’m interested to know why Miharu doesn’t want anyone to cry over him when he dies. Judging from his kindness, I get the feeling that Miharu just doesn’t want anyone to be in pain grieving over his death, but I’ll have to wait and see.

Thanks goes to lysianthus for the quick heads-up.

 

Cast:
– Rokujou Miharu (六条 壬晴) / Kugimiya Rie (釘宮 理恵)
– Kumohira Thobari Durandal (雲平・帷・デュランダル) / Namikawa Daisuke (浪川 大輔)
– Aizawa Kouichi (相澤 虹一) / Hino Satoshi (日野 聡)
– Shimizu Raimei (清水 雷鳴) / Fujimura Ayumi (藤村 歩)
– Shinrabanshou (森羅万象) / Tamura Yukari (田村 ゆかり)
– Classmate (クラスメイト) / Satou Takuya (佐藤 拓也)
– Classmate (クラスメイト) / Maeno Tomoaki (前野 智昭)
– Classmate (クラスメイト) / Ishii Kazutaka (石井 一貴)
– Classmate (クラスメイト) / Oohara Takashi (大原 崇)
– Classmate (クラスメイト) / Fukui Shinsuke (福井 信介)
– Classmate (クラスメイト) / Koizumi Yutaka (小泉 豊)
– Announcer (アナウンス) / Oonishi Nozomi (大西 望)

28 Comments

  1. thank you for blogging this show 🙂
    @Blissmo:
    I agree =.= But the anime has been following the manga faithfully for the first 2 eps, aside from some random bits, so it should get better..
    Oh, and I’m also curious about that ‘Time Miharu died’ or something >..

    Void
  2. Oh yay! You’re blogging this. Thanks a million. (I know that seems a bit sarcastic, it’s not. I would say/type “thanks” a million times, but that would hurt my fingers.)

    Anyways, yes, I like the seiyu they chose for Miharu. It makes all those scenes where he acts all “kawaii” funnier. I was expecting more action for the second episode, but I guess they need to set things up first, so this episode was alright to me.

    And…thanks again.

    Final
  3. my mistake, anyways, about the seiyuus.

    After the first ep isode i looked into this show and found that Kug Rie did rokujou.

    Then I saw the second episode and right off the bat of Raimei introduction I thought.

    “they must have got the seiyuu listing wrong.”

    Then checking the official websites I was stunned that I was indeed Kug Rie who is voicing Rokujou and not Raimei. Fooled me.

  4. OMG! I have been waiting for this blog. I can’t wait for the next episode. From the way you talk about it you seem to have not read the manga. Please don’t. I’ve been trying to find a fresh outlook on the series and every other site that has blogged this has read the manga and they know what’s going to happen. It’s nice to see a new outlook. I hope you continue to blog this and thank you.

    Hana
  5. @Hana:
    I haven’t read the manga as you suspected; however, I’m a firm believer of judging any anime adaptations separately from their manga (especially if the story diverges greatly), so even if I had read the manga, you probably wouldn’t hear me constantly making references and considering the manga as “absolute”. So in either case, I should be able to provide that fresh outlook you’re looking for. 🙂

    You’re welcome and please stay tuned. ^_^

    divine
  6. i thought rie was gonna voice raimei as well XD but yeah im surprised too at how well she pulls off miharu. its good ~
    waiting for .avi translation of this epi =[ next ep looks good from the screenies ive seen x3 glad i liked this anime from the pic of raimei with the katana =D

    Furuba
  7. Raimei voice fits quite well. Such a funny girl. And such detailed blogging @@. Good job on your first and second blog on Random Curiosity. Continue the good work ^_^

    Sora no Kaze
  8. Thanks for picking up the show and hi 🙂

    As for the Fuuma leader…next episode should be fun. And agree that Raimei is awesome. Female characters by female mangaka in shonen nearly always turn out better than their male mangaka counterparts.

    Ruk
  9. Yeah! This episode is really nice and Raimen is awesome! Anyway, I don’t get it why some people get worked up so much about the vibes here. I’m straight here and I’m a guy but I find it funny how he’s using that to his advantages. Just take it as a joke and you will be fine.

    Silver

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