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

Episode at a Glance:
Dreaming in a forest somewhere, Kusano recalls how a MBI researcher, Sahashi Takami, had told her that she’d get to meet her Ashikabi “onii-chan” one day if she’s a good girl. The two of them were then attacked by Mikogami Hayato and his Sekirei, Yomi, causing Kusano to unleash her powers. At the Izumosou guest house, Minato recalls his dreams of Kusano asking for help, while Musubi engages in a morning spar with Miya, who gives her some fighting tips. After having Uzume tease him for a bit, Minato heads off to his part-time job at a construction site, only to have a slacker university student of six years, Seo Kaoru, eye his homemade lunch and recognize the taste. Seeing this, Hikari shows up to beat up Kaoru, and apologize to Minato, but soon realizes that it’s him. Kaoru then introduces himself as their Ashikabi.

Elsewhere, Homura gets a call from Tamaki, who informs him (her?) that some idiot sent a mail around to the Ashikabi, saying that the green girl Sekirei is in the botanical garden and that it’s first come first serve. Tamaki asks him to protect her though, so Homura tells her to let everyone know that he’ll kill them if they’re tempted by the mail. Back at the construction site, Kaoru suspects that Minato is here because he’s been contacted as well, but he has no idea what he’s talking about. They’re then sent home due to an evacuation order from the MBI, but Kaoru busts through the patrols with his Sekirei and drags Minato with him. Meanwhile, Musubi realizes that Minato forget his cellphone and decides to deliver it to him. Later in the evening, Homura arrives outside the forest, only to be attacked by Akitsu, a discarded Sekirei, while Yomi goes on ahead. Musubi then shows up calling Homura “Kagari”, but thinks she’s mistaken him for someone else as Kagari doesn’t wear a mask.

In the forest, Minato sees a vision of Kusano and explains that she’s crying, so Kaoru decides to ascertain this relationship between him and the green girl and continues along. While explaining how Sekirei genetically react to their Ashikabi, and how an Ashikabi can use a Sekirei’s powers regardless of their will, Kaoru adds that if the green girl called Minato, then it may be fate. Minato then instinctively starts running, and arrives in time to grope Yomi and prevent her from taking Kusano away. After finally meeting her “onii-chan”, Yomi starts attacking Minato, but Musubi appears at the very last moment to save them both. In shock that Musubi broke her precious death sycthe, Yomi focuses her attention on her, shredding all her clothes in the process. Kaoru chooses not to help though, as Kusano has chosen Minato as her Ashikabi; however, Musubi is reminded of the pointers Miya gave her, and uses this to get behind Yomi, rip off her clothes, and erase the Sekirei mark from her back.

On the outskirts of the forest, Homura is still fighting with Akitsu, but Hayato comes along to get her after realizing that Yomi’s been defeated. On a rooftop somewhere, two men are discussing how Hayato failed, while Minato and Musubi bring Kusano back to Izumosou. Later that night, Minato tells Kusano how he was saved by the tree in the yard, which makes her realize that her pleas for it to help him got through. After he thanks her, Kusano asks him to be her Ashikabi, so she kisses him and sprouts wings, causing all the flowers in the garden to bloom as well.

 

Next Episode:
「出雲荘奇談」 (Izumosou Kidan)
“Strange Story about Izumo Inn”

Impressions:
Hmm, lots of Musubi fan-service this time around, so for those of you who like seeing girls’ clothes torn up, this episode delivers in that department. I was pleased to see Ueda Kana make her appearance this episode, as Sekirei #43, Yomi, whose clothes also got torn up “nicely”. Seeing as Yomi was defeated by Musubi though, I wonder if this is the last we’ll see of her. If so, Yomi’s sudden introduction and dismissal happened much too quick for my liking, which makes me wonder if this is because SEKIREI is constrained to twelve episodes. I hope this isn’t the case though, because I’d hate to see more characters quickly introduced, only to be written off the very same episode, especially when practically all the Sekirei are played by well renowned seiyuus.

Aside from that concern, this episode did reveal how one Sekirei defeats another, which basically involves destroying/erasing the Sekirei mark on their back. Seeing as Musubi had to rip Yomi’s clothes off to get to it though, I can’t help but wonder if this is going to be the main way of finishing off opponents. (No complaints from the ecchi crowd I bet…) I’m still curious to see what’s so special about Kusano though, being the last Sekirei and all (#108), which would help explain why Mikogami Hayato and Yomi were going after her this entire episode. At the beginning of the episode, Hayato was also trying to get some underage affection, which is a bit disturbing, but only makes his motives more uncertain at this point. Speaking of which, the credits list the woman who was with Kusano, got her eye injured, and talked to Homura over the phone, as Takami. While they didn’t list her surname probably in hopes of keeping her identity mysterious, Takami is played by Itou Miki, making her Sahashi Takami, Minator’s mother and apparently a MBI researcher. (Look at the things you can discover from checking the credits!) Evidently, Minato doesn’t know about his mother’s real job though, as he didn’t even know what the MBI was before, but I guess it’s his fate to be dragged into the Sekirei Project.

As for Kusano, she quickly became Minato’s Sekirei at the end of the episode, so I guess that’s two out of… six that he has now? As for Kusano’s Sekirei type, it seems like she uses plants and nature abilities, making her “green girl” title appropriate. It turns out she used her abilities to ask the tree that broke Minato and Musubi’s fall to do so too, which explains why they weren’t really injured at all. Next time, it looks like we’ll see more from the Izumosou guest house, and what looks to be more of Matsu, the technological Sekirei. Finally, let’s not forget Iga and his glasses subordinate though, both of whom made brief appearances at the end of this episode.

 

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)
– Asama Miya (浅間 美哉) / Oohara Sayaka (大原 さやか)
– Homura (焔) / Kagari (篝) / Kaida Yuki (甲斐田 ゆき)
– Uzume (鈿女) / Nabatame Hitomi (生天目 仁美)
– Seo Kaoru (瀬尾 香) / Konishi Katsuyuki (小西 克幸)
– Hikari (光) / Kaida Yuuko (甲斐田 裕子)
– Hibiki (響) / Neya Michiko (根谷 美智子)
– Takami (高美) / Itou Miki (伊藤 美紀)
– Mikogami Hayato (御子上 隼人) / Fukuyama Jun (福山 潤)
– Yomi (夜見) / Ueda Kana (植田 佳奈)
– Akitsu (秋津) / Kobayashi Yuu (小林 ゆう)
– Iga (氷峨) / Takewaka Takuma (竹若 拓磨)
– Iga’s glasses subordinate (手下眼鏡(柿崎)) / Takahashi Kenji (高橋 研二)

26 Comments

  1. I hope that they are planning for the second season and won’t try to slam everything into 12 epi ‘cos that would suck… Not that Sekirei has lot of plot but it is still too long to fit into 12 epi.

    Kaitune
  2. Thank you! Your the best divine! I’m glad that you made the pictures big for this anime series. The reason why i’m happy is because i click on the pictures for a series like Allison & Lillia and sometimes Special A the pictures are small. I think last week for this anime series the picture were small, so now i can save the pictures and print them out and draw them at my art class. Thank you again! =)

    Ping
  3. one question. Is it true that all Sekirei were once male? That was written somewhere in the scanlation of the manga, but not sure if it was just the translator’s personal interpretation or if it was really a note in the original oO;

    minikui
  4. How do you come to the conclusion from the character’s Seiyuu that Takami is Sahashi’s mother?

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Kokusho
  5. Re: minikui

    Where did you read that?

    As far as I know, Male and Female Sekirei just exist and they weren’t all one sex and transformed to another. Their background is kinda fuzzy and the manga hasn’t told us a whole lot.

    Example:
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Wait till you see who he gets partnered up with 😀

    and
    https://randomc.net/image/SEKIREI/SEKIREI%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2032.jpg
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Kokusho
  6. They are pushing the story forward quite a lot. Think as for this seasons final
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Ah, and on who gets partnered up with him
    Show Spoiler ▼

  7. @Kokusho:
    Simply because Itou Miki is listed as playing Sahashi Takami on her Japanese wiki page and no one else.

    @Mike:
    I’m purposely avoiding the manga to save myself from any potential spoilers, and to avoid making any needless comparisons between the anime adaptation and manga in my impressions. In a sense, I want to take the anime at face value and make my own judgments along the way.

  8. Oh, the scythe girl is gone for good. She served her prepose to the story, she set the example on how Sekirei are defeated so she’s not going to appear again. Although, from the manga, this was probably the one of the rare cases that a Sekirei is introduced and killed off quickly.

    Andy
  9. I have no problems with the manga -> anime adaption so far, the only things they are removing is totally unnecessary stuff. End of Episode 3 is the end of Chapter 10 in the manga (11 if you count chapter 0), which should put Episode 12 at around chapter 40ish, aka the bridge battle. Seeing as how Minato has only winged 4 Sekirei at that point, and those 4 are considered main characters for this season, I think that is a logical conclusion.

    Man0warr
  10. yomi appeared and died like that in the manga too so no, they didn’t shorten her appearance in the anime. it’s just like that. tho i have to admit that for a scythe-using sekirei to die so early in the story is a bit of a waste. my guess is that the author probably has better sekirei ideas in store

    YaHa
  11. So far the ideas for sekirei powers shown in the manga – with the exception of uzume – has been pretty generic.

    I think it is fair to say that the manga won’t be pulling any super-unique-bankai-pwn-everything-killer-moves for a good while longer.

    nobody important
  12. After watching the anime, I can see they took out a few things.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Andy

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