First Impressions / SEKIREI

ED Sequence:

ED: “Dear sweet heart” by Hayami Saori (早見 沙織), Inoue Marina (井上 麻里奈), Hanazawa Kana (花澤 香菜), Endou Aya (遠藤 綾)
Watch the ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Show Streaming ▼

「新屋の扉」 (Shin Oku no Tobira)
“Door to a New House”

Episode at a Glance:
With Musubi unsure how to land from their flight, her and Minato fall into the yard of Asama Miya, who happens to run a guest house named Izumosou (出雲荘) there. Seeing as their clothes are all rattled, she invites them in for a change of clothes (some of which were from her late husband) and subsequently, for dinner. At the guest house, Minato and Musubi also meet two of the other tenants, Kagari and Uzume. Upon finding out that this is a guest house, Minato pleads to Miya to let him and Musubi stay there, to which she quickly agrees. Kagari secretly questions Miya if that’s really okay with her though, to which she says it looks like they’ve been through a lot. On his way out, Kagari gets a phone call from someone.

Back at the apartment he got evicted from, Minato calls his mother about his allowance, which she’s cut in half until he gets into university. His sister Yukari then drops by with the old clothes he asked for, and is introduced to Musubi, causing her to think all kind of weird things about her brother. She also explains that she passed an entrance exam for a university nearby, making Minato feel even more like a failure. After packing all of Minato’s things, Musubi offers to carry it all, and while walking towards their new home, explains that there are different types of Sekirei with different abilities and that they have unique spells like the one she used before.

After arriving at the guest house, the two of them are shown to their room by Miya, while elsewhere, a girl in glasses is monitoring all of Minato’s actions. Later on, Kagari leaves for his job at a host club, while Misubi takes a bath in the public bathroom. During this time, Minato checks out the tree in the yard they fell into earlier and wonders how they survived, when he suddenly envisions a small girl asking for his help. Uzume later joins Misubi in the bath, and notices the Sekirei mark on the back of her neck, so she shows her the same mark on her neck, causing an enthusiastic Musubi to start attacking her. However, Uzume runs off saying she has no interest in the Sekirei Project and asks Minato to stop his Sekirei, but before he can, Miya intervenes and tells Musubi not to fight at the house.

Out on a rooftop somewhere, Kagari (i.e Homura) meets another Sekirei named Tsukiumi. There, Tsukiumi challenges Homura in an attempt to prove who’s stronger, but he/she simply tells her to start looking for a master instead. Meanwhile, Minato is having visions in his sleep about the small girl from earlier, who now introduces herself as Kusano and continues to ask for help.

 

Next Episode:
「緑ノ少女」 (Midori no Shoujo)
“The Green Girl”

Impressions:
Hmm, oddly enough, I’m having a bit of a hard time finding anything worthwhile to comment about on this episode; however, that’s not to say the episode was bad or anything. It’s just that it mainly revolved around Minato and Musubi moving into a guest house run by Asama Miya, after the two of them fell from their flying stint last time, right into her yard. Miya is played by Oohara Sayaka, and is pretty reminiscent Sayaka’s portrayal of Alicia Florence in ARIA, with the addition of a frightening aura. Aside from that, it was amusing to see Minato’s sister, Yukari, in person this time, while she bugged her brother about school uniform fetishes and and not having touched Musubi’s breasts yet. (Little did she know that he had just earlier, but with his face.) I didn’t mention this last time, but Yukari is played by Asumi Kana, and sounds just like Kayano Megumi from PERSONA -trinity soul-, which just recently finished airing. It seems like Kana hasn’t been in a lot of roles, but fans of Hidamari Sketch will probably know her as Yuno.

Aside from what actually happened, it seemed to be a lot of brief character introductions for now, which is understandable given that this is only the second episode. The remaining four females leads have been introduced, with the little green girl Kusano played by Hanazawa Kana (Elea in BLASSREITER), being the most mysterious for now. Then there’s Matsu, the technological stalker, played by Endou Aya (Sheryl Nome in Macross Frontier), Tsukiumi (lit. “Moon Ocean”), played by Inoue Marina (Yoko in Gurren Lagann), and Yukihana, played by Yukana (C.C. in CODE GEASS). I consider these the “female leads” (plus Homura) simply because they all supposedly become Minato’s Sekirei later on. Uzume on the other hand, played by Nabatame Hitomi (Margery Daw in Shakugan no Shana), is a Sekirei at Miya’s guest house who doesn’t seem to have any interest in taking part in the Sekirei Project.

Then there’s the rest of the characters we briefly saw, and their notable, respective seiyuus:
– Mikogami Hayato — Fukuyama Jun (Lelouch Lamperouge in CODE GEASS, Takishima Kei in Special A)
– Seo Kaoru — Konishi Katsuyuki (Kamina in Gurren Lagann, Ozma Lee in Macross Frontier)
– Akitsu — Kobayashi Yuu (Kimura Kaere in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Sakurazaki Setsuna in Negima!)
Undoubtedly, they’ll play a more prominent role in the series (especially Fukuyama Jun’s character), but for now, your guess is as good as mine as to what that is. (That’s unless you read the manga of course.)

On the topic of characters and seiyuus, I guess I should mention now that the anime adaptation had a recasting for most of the major roles, compared to the drama CDs that came out earlier. While it’s not uncommon to see this happen, I usually still wonder why the producers choose to go with such a route. Also, I don’t mind the current cast one bit (and actually like it a fair bit), but after looking at the drama CD cast, I sure as hell wouldn’t have minded those seiyuus either. See below for the changes.

Role — Drama CD seiyuu — Anime seiyuu
– Musubi (結) — Kawasumi Ayako (川澄 綾子) — Hayami Saori (早見 沙織)
– Kusano (草野) — Tamura Yukari (田村 ゆかり) — Hanazawa Kana (花澤 香菜)
– Matsu (松) — Matsuoka Yuki (松岡 由貴) — Endou Aya (遠藤 綾)
– Tsukiumi (月海) — Tanaka Rie (田中 理恵) — Inoue Marina (井上 麻里奈)
– Uzume (鈿女) — Kobayashi Yuu (小林 ゆう) — Nabatame Hitomi (生天目 仁美)
– Homura (焔) — Hirata Hiromi (平田 宏美) — Kaida Yuki (甲斐田 ゆき)
– Seo Kaoru (瀬尾 香) — Nakai Kazuya (中井 和哉) — Konishi Katsuyuki (小西 克幸)

After seeing the characters in the anime, I could easily picture Kawasumi Ayako, Tamura Yukari, Matsuoka Yuki, Tanaka Rie, and Kobayashi Yuu as Musubi, Kasano, Matsu, Tsukiumi, and Uzume respectively, which makes me wonder why they chose to recast everyone. My guess though is that the producers wanted to pick their own seiyuus, rather than using ones other people selected.

Admist the wave of characters, they did reveal that Homura (who goes by the name Kagari when he/she isn’t wearing a mask during Sekirei endevours), is a friend of Miya’s and stays at her guest house. There also seems to be various types of Sekirei, such as Fist (Musubi) and Thunder (Hikari & Hibiki). Next time, it looks like we’ll see more of the mysterious Kasano, plus everyone else.

Hmm, it looks like I wasn’t short of things to say after all. >_> Oh right, the Nico Nico Douga parody was pretty funny too.

 

Cast:
– Sahashi Minato (佐橋 皆人) / Tachibana Shinnosuke (立花 慎之介)
– Musubi (結) / Hayami Saori (早見 沙織)
– Kusano (草野) / Hanazawa Kana (花澤 香菜)
– Matsu (松) / Endou Aya (遠藤 綾)
– Tsukiumi (月海) / Inoue Marina (井上 麻里奈)
– Asama Miya (浅間 美哉) / Oohara Sayaka (大原 さやか)
– Uzume (鈿女) / Nabatame Hitomi (生天目 仁美)
– Homura (焔) / Kagari (篝) / Kaida Yuki (甲斐田 ゆき)
– Kazehana (風花) / Yukana (ゆかな)
– Sahashi Yukari (佐橋 ユカリ) / Asumi Kana (阿澄 佳奈)
– Seo Kaoru (瀬尾 香) / Konishi Katsuyuki (小西 克幸)
– Minaka Hiroto (御中 広人) / Seki Toshihiko (関 俊彦)
– Minato’s mother (皆人の母) / Itou Miki (伊藤 美紀)
– Mikogami Hayato (御子上 隼人) / Fukuyama Jun (福山 潤)
– Akitsu (秋津) / Kobayashi Yuu (小林 ゆう)

31 Comments

  1. Too much big Boobs and girl being pervy. . .I guess this is picked for its ecchiness right? Out of all the mangas that could be done they pick this. . .I have a feeling it’ll turn out like To-love Ru. .. I am not too big on fan service so if you are blogging this I watch through you.

    Paj
    Reply

  5. Too bad it’s only 12 episodes long. Hmm…the number 12 sounds…so…short. 🙁

    IMHO they could conceivably have stretched it out to be 24 episodes. Oh well.

    nobody important
    Reply

  6. I really like how they mixed a lot of up and coming vocal talent with some veterans. In 5 years time Hayami Saori could be as big as Kawasumi Ayako is now, Aya Endo will be a star if her Sheryl is any indication and Nabatame Hitomi is just awesome.

    I’m also liking the rate they are going through the manga though I still wish this was 24 episodes..

    Westlo
    Reply

  8. Actually, it’s a good thing it’s only 12 episodes. The paceing is great for these 2 episodes and they still hape material. Beeing only 12 episodes, they won’t strech it out, it won’t get boring….and NO FILLERS. This is the best anime i’ve seen for this half of the season.

    DmonHiro
    Reply

  10. ‘scuse me while i make a fool of myself…

    KAZEHANAAAA~!!

    *drools*

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Shinn Agami
    Reply

  14. With only 12 episodes they are obviously going to do a second season. Theres plenty of material and this is seven arcs after all. I can’t see them getting to the first big climax in the manga with only 12 episodes though, and since only the first 4 of his sekirei are considered main characters this season they probably won’t get much past that point.

    Man0warr
    Reply

  17. They bascially introduced all the sekireis that would play a big role in the series. Of course there are various scenes I want them to animate fromt he manga (not the pervy ones) this is the type of show with a good promise, I just hope the producers can keep it.

    Andy
    Reply

  18. I am still quite surprised by the quality of this anime -it is good. Other than that, i still get the feeling that this is a little bit slow in development but not annoying. In addition, i am getting a little used to Musubi’s voice or is it that she got better? Well, it would be great that she actually perfect her voice towards the end of the series -after all it is good to see people improving.

    banzemanga
    Reply

  25. Solomon Grundy,
    Born on a Monday,
    Christened on Tuesday,
    Married on Wednesday,
    Took ill on Thursday,
    Grew worse on Friday,
    Died on Saturday,
    Buried on Sunday.
    That was the end of
    Solomon Grundy.

    Eirias
    Reply

  27. i hate it when companies make an anime series based on incomplete manga series bcuz the ending on the manga(which i like) is going to b different or maybe even spoilers. For example To love Ru, the manga of it was really nice but the anime series sucks. I just hope this isn’t going to become another great manga ecchi series going to waste cus it’s rushed into making it into anime.

    Next episode is really nice. threesome with twins is always nice check this out

    http://img.muri.se:8080/SEKIREI/SEKIREI%20-%2002%20-%20Large%20Preview%2005.jpg

    Tag_this_Bitch!
    Reply

  28. unfortunately for me, i’m not a bbw-fan. Plus, those breasts are just waaaaay out of propotion. The only reason I watched Grenadier was because, at the very least, her boobs act as a bullet reservoir; whereas in sekirei, i’ve yet to see any use of the boobs, except to draw my attention away from the story… sigh… :D:D:D:D:D:D

    nonetheless, i’m bored out of my mind, and it’s not like i’ve decided to follow any series yet, so, sekirei will do for now.

    42-42-564
    Reply

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