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「縁の鶺鴒」 (Enishi no Sekirei)
“Sekirei of Fate”
Episode at a Glance:
With Musubi defeated, Minato tearfully clutches her in his arms, but Benitsubasa and Haihane aren’t the slightest bit remorseful. Kuno however manages to contain the two Disciplinary Force Sekirei for a bit by borrowing her Ashikabi’s powers and using her “Funya Funya Song” prayer ability, which drains the strength out of those affected by it. She’s unable to maintain the effect though, so Benitsubasa decides to take out Minato. Tsukiumi arrives in the nick of time though, but is shocked to find Musubi defeated. Angry about not having an opportunity to win against Musubi, Tsukiumi takes her frustration out on the Red and Blue Sekirei, who are shocked to find out that she’s a single number. Two on one proves unfavorable for Tsukiumi though, and she winds up trapped under a rumble caused by Haihane’s attack. Watching from afar, Homura figures things will be difficult now that the Disciplinary Force has shown up, but Kazehana senses Uzume around and decides to go in for a closer look. Nearby the railway bridge, Kazehana stops Uzume from helping them, claiming she still hasn’t been shown anything yet.
Walking through the plants left in Matsu and Kusano’s wake, Yukari and Shiina barely miss running into them and are discovered by Hayato, Mutsu, and Akitsu instead, the first of which questions how Yukari can refrain from making Shiina hers when the urge between them is this hot. Back on the bridge, Minato attacks Benitsubasa back with a headbutt, causing Haihane to laugh and make fun of her. Refusing to run and leave his important Sekirei behind, Minato is about to be killed when Musubi reawakens as Yume after proclaiming that this is love. With everyone around hearing this, Shiina uses this opportunity to form a contract with Yukari, after which he chases off Hayato and his Sekirei with his “World End Garden” attack. Musubi then declares herself as the Sekirei of Fate, Yume, leaving everyone around wondering who that is. “Yume” however questions when the Disciplinary Force started picking on the weak and decides to teach Benitsubasa and Haihane a lesson as their senpai. After Yume scares the hell out of them with a beam attack that destroys a huge portion of the bridge, Matsu arrives with Kusano and explains that the “S. Keikaku” Disciplinary Force that Yume claims to be apart of is the old name for the Sekirei Project. Yume then proceeds to literally throw Benitsubasa and Haihane off into the distance with everyone looking on speechless.
Claiming that his strong feelings for Musubi called her out, Yume stuffs Minato’s head into her chest, much to his other Sekirei’s jealousy. Happy that Yume has returned, Karasuba arrives and greets her, before attacking her head on. Dodging the Black Sekirei’s attack, Yume suggests that she isn’t the one that she should be fighting, thinking there will be someone else standing in her way later on, and allows Musubi’s consciousness to return. Sensing this at the last moment, Karasuba stops herself and decides to leave. Matsu’s hack on the surveillance satellite soon expires, causing a laser beam to be fired upon them from orbit, destroying the bridge. While Minato and his Sekirei are able to get away, Haruka and Kuno end up being saved by Uzume and Kazehana, the latter of which is happy about the young romantic mood in the morning, but feels that the real man inside Minato is still hidden. With Haruka and Kuno well on their way to freedom, Minato decides to stay behind feeling that there’s something here that only he can do after hearing Yume’s voice asking him to teach all the young Sekirei birds what love is. He then tearfully apologizes to his Sekirei for being naive and dragging them into this fight when he can’t do anything himself, but Musubi tells him that being himself gives them the motivation. Sensing the Musubi is capitalizing on the situation, the three other girls then make their own move on Minato.
Epilogue:
Back at Izumo Inn, Hikari and Hibiki apologize frantically to Miya about Kaoru eating over again for the third time in a row, while Musubi, Tsukiumi, and Kusano fight over feeding Minato. At M.B.I. headquarters, Takami is surprised to hear that Musubi reactivated herself and decides to start an investigation into it. Hayato on the other hand is wondering where he can get new Sekirei. Bruised and battered from earlier, Benitsubasa is mad about the big-breasted Yume beating her up, causing Haihane to make fun of her being at most a B-cup. In her defense, Benitsubasa says that Natsuo doesn’t like big breasted girls anyway (which seems to be the case when you look at his Sekirei). As for Natsuo himself, he senses that Karasuba’s having fun, so she reveals that things will only get better from here on. Visiting Chiho in the hospital, Uzume is unaware that Kakizaki is informing Izumi about how she helped Kuno instead of eliminating her and adds that she’s likely to betray him. Izumi however says that there’s still a use for Uzume. Out on the streets elsewhere, Shiina easily defeats another Sekirei, after which Yukari questions the Ashikabi if he knows about No.108. On the roof of Izumo Inn, Kazehana bugs Kagari about not being honest about his feelings when his body is already reacting to meeting his fated person. Out on his usual clock tower, Hiroto declares that the story about the little birds has just begun.
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Impressions:
Fear the “Funya Funya Song” (i.e Limp Song), Kuno’s Sekirei prayer ability that saps the power out of you and puts you on cloud nine much like Haihane found out. Given that this is the finale (at least for now…), it was nice to see Kuno do something helpful for a change. Granted, she did inadvertently harm herself in the process somehow, but at least it’s better than her putting on a face like this for the entire episode.
Tsukiumi on the other hand made her grand entrance and got the obligatory “single number!?” reaction from both Benitsubasa and Haihane, which I rather enjoyed because I was hoping she would show the two of them their place. Unfortunately, two-on-one proved to be quite unfavorable, but at least Tsukiumi did put up a really good fight with the sword-like technique she used to counter Haihane’s claws. Water is pretty damn versatile huh?
Fight impressions aside, there sure were a lot of sprouted wings in this episode, with Yukari finally forming a contract with Shiina being one of them. On that note, I was wondering how they’d fit Hayato’s part in this episode given all the other things going on. Much to my surprise though, they managed to do so really well with only a brief confrontation. I figured they’d still have to leave things open-ended for now, but at least something worthwhile came out of it in the form of Yukari and Shiina’s contract. In addition, we also got to see Shiina display his powers with his “World End Garden” attack.
So as the preview and episode title nicely spoiled for us last time, Musubi made her “return” in the form of Yume. While it was hinted that Yume gave her life up in order to save Musubi’s, I was a bit surprised to see that she’s still very much alive. With no clear cut explanation regarding why that is, I’m under the impression that Yume shared her life with Musubi, rather than simply giving it to her. As such, I guess it’s fitting that they’re numbered 08 and 88 respectively. Anyway, I was still curious as to what a Sekirei of Fate’s powers would be, so much to my surprise, it’s firing insanely powerful beams with yin-yang eyes.
Karasuba evidently still has a grudge against Yume, but surprisingly distinguishes her from Musubi. Seeing as they haven’t revealed much about why Karasuba wants to kill Yume in the first place, it’s kind of hard to pinpoint what the Black Sekirei’s motives are, but she did hint at the fact that she’s waiting for Musubi to become stronger. My hunch as things stand now would be that she wants to fight (and defeat) Musubi only when she’s at Yume’s level. Of course, I still can’t fathom what the reason for this might be, but Yume alluded to the fact that she isn’t the one that Karasuba should be fighting. To me, this suggests that Karasuba may change sides some time down the road, so hopefully they’ll make a sequel like they’ve suggested. Otherwise, I may find myself reaching for the manga soon.
Overall, the episode was a climactic ending to the series, but not conclusive in the slightest. Since there’s indication that there’s going to be a sequel, I would say that this is a good way to start things off. (If there isn’t and this ends up being just a tease… Ugh…) I’ve also been told that this anime adaptation follows the manga reasonably well, so I imagine that most people should be happy with this outcome. The epilogue gives us a lot to look forward to as well, with Homura’s metamorphosis into a woman being the most interesting (…or should I say disturbing?). I’m still quite torn between whether having this happen or having Minato get a male Sekirei would be better, but it looks like they’ve already decided for us. In any case, the most surprising thing about this finale is that it didn’t feel rushed in the slightest, despite all the things they had to cover. In fact, they even had time for a fairly lengthy epilogue that continued through the credits.
Aside from the main issues involving Musubi, Karasuba, and the Sekirei “reactivation” via Yume that Takami is investigating, there’s still the whole East Shintou Teito group we haven’t seen much of. However, their scarce involvement in this season in conjunction with the related Uzume/Chiho sub-plot gives us some interesting things to look foward to. Also, Yukari and Shiina still haven’t to run into Minato or Kusano, despite getting pretty close this time.
Final Impressions:
Seeing as there will likely be a sequel down the road, I don’t know if a “final impressions” section is even worthwhile, but I feel the urge to reflect on the series thus far, so here we go.
When I first started watching SEKIREI, I wasn’t really too sure what to expect aside from the cast I read about. After watching the first episode, I made immediate comparisons to Fate/stay night because the Sekirei Project resembled the Holy Grail War. While I feel that this comparison is still valid, the similarities pretty much end there as the setting and level of ecchiness is completely different. Personally, I’m fine with the ecchi flair that SEKIREI has, but I can really do without the oversized breasts since I find characters along the lines of Karasuba and Yukari more attractive. Luckily, this didn’t detract me too much from continuing watching this series, as there’s much more to it than just “big boobs”.
Production-wise, I had some complaints with the animation inconsistencies (usually in distant shots of the characters), but thankfully this final episode looked much better than the previous one. Overall, I would say I’m fairly content with the quality, but I can’t ignore the fact that when it was bad, it was pretty damn bad. The music however was surprisingly good, plus the characters are amusing/interesting enough that I really enjoyed the drama CD a while back. Throw in an interesting plot with a lot of possibilities like they have and I can’t really find much not to like. All that’s left now is to see what they have in store for later on!
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)
– Uzume (鈿女) / Nabatame Hitomi (生天目 仁美)
– Kazehana (風花) / Yukana (ゆかな)
– Asama Miya (浅間 美哉) / Oohara Sayaka (大原 さやか)
– Homura (焔) / Kagari (篝) / Kaida Yuki (甲斐田 ゆき)
– 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)
– Sahashi Yukari (佐橋 ユカリ) / Asumi Kana (阿澄 佳奈)
– Shiina (椎菜) / Ishidzuka Sayori (石塚 さより)
– Kuno (久能) / Akesaka Satomi (明坂 聡美)
– Shigi Haruka (鷸 ハルカ) / Okamoto Nobuhiko (岡本 信彦)
– Minaka Hiroto (御中 広人) / Seki Toshihiko (関 俊彦)
– Takami (高美) / Itou Miki (伊藤 美紀)
– Karasuba (鴉羽) / Paku Romi (朴 璐美)
– Natsuo (夏朗) / Toriumi Kousuke (鳥海 浩輔)
– Haihane (灰翅) / Saiga Mitsuki (斎賀 みつき)
– Benitsubasa (紅翼) / Itou Shizuka (伊藤 静)
– Mikogami Hayato (御子上 隼人) / Fukuyama Jun (福山 潤)
– Mutsu (陸奥) / Matsubara Daisuke (松原 大典)
– Akitsu (秋津) / Kobayashi Yuu (小林 ゆう)
– Higa Izumi (泉 氷峨) / Takewaka Takuma (竹若 拓磨)
– Kakizaki (柿崎) / Takahashi Kenji (高橋 研二)
– 冷水 / Shimizu Hiroyuki (清水 博之)
– 朱魏 / Akagi Nao (赤城 奈穂)
First >__>
So glad there’s a strong confirmation of a sequel!
Be quick about it!
lol okie, here’s “my” final impression. ^^
From the moment I saw the opening, I sorta knew it’d turn out like this.
the whole harem thing is always a win for me. xD
but even though it wasn’t a epic series, it was enjoyable to watch.
(yea yea, I know none of you care what I think)
and also, wtf is up will all these 12-13 ep series? o__O zero no tsukaima and now this? I just hope the actually ending is worth the wait. xD
a geat ending.
They massacred the ending as compared to the manga. Argh, I hate it when shows do that. Luckily I read the manga ahead upon recommendations.
I would have been fine with the changes they made to the story in the anime if they had left in kazehana trying to rape minato… but they couldn’t even leave that in! damn them!
aye she might rape him in season 2 so be happy about it. lol but ya this was a good episode, especially the part where Yume took over, i liked where her mark was, and its a good thing that the two siblings still have not met because they are not supposed to yet
But they best moment for me was https://randomc.net/image/SEKIREI/SEKIREI%20-%2012%20-%20Large%2057.jpg
and the boob face hugs lol
I started reading the manga because of this series and i was suprised how different the last 2 epsiodes were compared to the manga, but I guess it was okay since they wanted to end it with them together which is not how that fight ends =/ If they did end it the way the manga ends this arc, I think it would have been a good ending.
Lolz, I wasn’t exactly expecting it to end like this. Either way, there better be a sequel. I remember the guy winged six people…
really, really enjoyed this to bad its over. even the manga seems to be at a stand still “or the scantilators, that is”. liked the charecter design, though i agree they shoulda mixed it up a bit more wit da boobage size’s. but all in all i found most of the charecters interactions interesting, unlike some shows that are being done to death in their third season *wink, wink*. with dat said BRING ON THE BLACK LAGOON!!!
Wow, Yume sure is lively for a dead chick. Reminded me of Usagi.
yes that’ll do, she’s the SAILOR MOON SEKIREI!
“I’m still quite torn between whether having this happen or having Minato get a male Sekirei would be better, but it looks like they’ve already decided for us”
Well… Since the mangaka also writes (pretty explicit) yaoi mangas, she might write a doujinshi of Sekirei featuring the alternative choice to the question you are wondering about… Many mangakas write to do that just to add the scenes they can’t properly put in the usual storyline. However, I am not entirely sure whether you would want to see it or not if she actually makes one………
Kaitune:
I think I should’ve replaced “better” with “less damaging to me”, to give you a better idea where I was going with that train of thought. =)
hoping the wait for the second season won’t be too long
haven’t read the manga at all, but I wonder if the other akushibas are going to attack one another (since there can only be one winner) and not just be Minato and Yukari vs. all of them.
I thought they’d at least wing Kazehana, but didn’t look like it. Gotta wait for s2 I guess.
Season 2! 😀
Musubi’s “reactivation” via Yume almost makes me think the writers took a few pages out of other series:
Code Geass R2, where Marianne in fact hid herself in Anya to stay alive (kinda like Yume sharing her life with Musubi, effectively putting her consciousness into her)
Tokyo Majin Gakuen – Aoi Misato’s “Bodhisattva Eye”, which looks like a Yin Yang symbol when fully activated (not to mention frighteningly powerful), and apparently Yume has two of them!
You know, there’s something REALLY unsettling for a yaoi manga-ka doing a heterosexual ecchi action harem comedy series. 😕
I never really understood the complaint about the breast size of the characters. Sure they’re big but I think calling them “oversized” is a bit of an exaggeration.
/sigh wtf did they do? They followed the manga fairly closely and then they butcher the ending. (Going by the pictures and summary, watching the eps later)
I was going to put in a bunch of comparisons but…everyone should just go read the manga instead, and see how it should have gone down.
Anyone else realise that Kuno’s song is incredibly similar to the Doctor’s theme in Doctor Who?
It’s almost the exact same. ~
“I’m still quite torn between whether having this happen or having Minato get a male Sekirei would be better, but it looks like they’ve already decided for us”
Well, not quite. As far as the manga goes Kagari’s current and future gender status are best phrased as uncertain.
I’ve been reading the manga for a while and watched the final episode last night. I liked the series overall but some of the changes from the source bugged me a bit. Not because I wanted things to stick like glue to the manga, but more because a lot of the time the changes were either pointless or actually detrimental to some of the character development while not providing anything in its place.
well im happy with the to be continued, i dont want this anime to end like this, i want more of it, so im guessing a second season will be in order, the question is when??????????? let the rumors begin.
There isn’t enough manga material for a second season right now, atleast not at the pace they did this 12 episodes (about 52 chapters) and theres only 71 (72 comes out Friday I think) in Japan right now.
They did change things around a bit, only things that mattered to the story are Kazehana not being winged (strongly hinted that she will be in beginning of 2nd season by her dialogue in the epilogue) and Karasuba showing up at the bridge fight (she doesn’t in the manga, but I guess they had to have her show up in the anime bridge fight for it to be kind of conclusive).
one thing thats also missing is tsukiumi’s new power to summon yamato no orochi water snakes. i thought i saw that in the preview last episode but maybe they cut it for time? oh well, water sword, meh.
The singing part was good, but they should have made her spew blood then stop singing, than stop then spit blood. They also could have made a more flashy entrance of Karasuba back there. I mean, she was just there then began running to Yume. Also, there could have shown some kind of more stalemate scene between Yume and Karasuba. I mean they could have fight, but then MBI satellite blow up the bridge, ending their fight. Aw man, now I’m thinking more and more of “what if”‘s
@Sailor Enlil:
I dunno about the Code Geass part of your argument. Is there a manga/media of Code Geass where it proves so? Because in my part, I think the idea of Yume having shared Musubi’s body was around before Nov./Dec. of last year in the manga. If Code Geass’ idea of Marrianne having shared Anya’s body was around before that time (I mean, with evidence, not “they could have thought about it before that”), then I would be convinced that they might have copied that.
@xcswmboy
Tsukiumi showed that technique after that “Escape from the city” arc, so they did not miss that thing.
Also, that ending where Homura showed some boobs made me jump off my seat in surprise, eventhough I know s/he have that thing for a long time know.
that homura situation at the end really freaked me out, like wtf transexual’s?
No, Himura!!!!! Stay strong!
STARLIGHT BREAKERRRRRRRRRRRRR
OMG NAKED GIRLS..I UN CARE ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE..WHETHER ITZ GOOD OR NOT..HAHAHA..I sound like a paper humper haha..Nice anime 🙂
cant wait till season 2 zomg <333 its such a good anime and the big breast are just a plus imo lol
Season 2: Here we come!
In term of SEKIREI, my favorite is still Matsu and Kazehana both of them are just too damn funny, even you a manga follower you will understand what I mean, when Minato got back from the hospital and the dress that Kazahana put on to welcome him :). In term of attack I love Benitsubasa shock wave attack, so freaking damn cool how she perform it.
Overall SEKIREI is not a bad anime, it did follow the manga pretty closely, around 90% manga with 10% change here and there. Which isn’t bad at all, but it gonna be a while before we get the second season since the manga doesn’t really have that much material left to make into an anime. But I gonna wait patiencely for the next season then.
congratulations to sekirei!!!!
Its because homura’s power is unstable and his gender, go to wikicyclopedie and read it
at last, after a long finished, I hope next year will be season 2…. speaking of which, any more new anime titles next month? Where are the Winter 2008 Anime List?
No this wasent a great ending, it was an alternative ending sorta compare to the manga, first of all Minato didint wing Kazehana and ku and Matsu should not have bin on that bridge, also Karasuba should not have appeared as well on the bridge.
Nice to know a secondseaso is comingad hopefully we and Minato are spared yaoi moments
does anyone kow when the next episode or even manga are coming out its been months
Man, Im really upset at Kigari’s transformation. I’m such a fangirl~! Thats the only reason I watched the series> For him/her!!!!