First Impressions / Kobato.

Summary:

While running around telling everyone about the bazaar, Kobato stumbles across Ioryogi. As it turns out, Ioryogi had gone to Genko’s place to eat baumkuchen, and he and Zuishuo have been quite busy lately. The three talked about what happened in the past, and Ioryogi felt that they were so close, but Genko disagreed. Regardless, Ioryogi took some baumkuchen with him to bring home, and he spent a ton of effort protecting the box when various misfortunes befell him upon his return to the real world. His hunger then attracted him to the amusement park Mokona Land, but there he accidentally got taken and set up as a stuffed animal prize at a shooting game booth. That led to a lot of people getting involved trying to shoot and claim him, but Ioryogi was ultimately able to sneak away. Kobato then stumbled upon him, and that’s where they are now. After filling him in on what’s going on, Kobato thinks that maybe she shouldn’t have suggested the bazaar idea, but Ioryogi feels that doing what you decided on doing is what’s important. Fortunately, Kobato returns to the bazaar in time to see the crowd, meaning that the event was a success after all. Doumoto even buys one of her hand-made creations. What Ioryogi doesn’t realize until afterward is that Kobato inadvertently sold all of the baumkuchen he brought back to eat.

Preview

So this turned out to be more a fun-type episode than anything else. The bulk of it was Ioryogi’s adventures, which admittedly got pretty amusing at times, like when the old gun lady showed up. The cameos by Watanuki and Mokona were of course great too. The problem is that since bazaar story was a two-part mini-arc, I was thinking that this half would be more story development from an Ioryogi point of view, not just him getting into trouble around town. Certainly there were more hints about what happened in the past with Ioryogi and Genko and company, but actual plot only made up a small fraction of the episode. Okiura didn’t show up again, and Ioryogi didn’t do anything particularly important while he was away from Kobato, so it felt like an opportunity wasted. There’s not that many episodes left either, so I hope there’s some more progress soon.

25 Comments

  3. Eheheh, laughed quite a bit while watching this episode. It really reminded me of how MADHOUSE usually animates series authored by CLAMP, somehow (for some reason the episode where Sakura from CCS fell into Wonderland came to my mind, in comparison to this episode).
    And it’s no wonder they have to air fillers, I mean, the anime is reaching the end of the already written chapters and they take too much time to be released so there’s not much material to make the anime with. They’ll have to pull a X/1999 again (it seems it’ll happen that way since Ohkawa is writting the script for episode 20, or so I’ve read).

    Murasaki Ayame
    Reply

  4. Omg, I laughed so much when Ioryogi was getting hit with all of those cork-bullet-things. Hilarious~ Especially when, like you said, the old woman showed up with her two guns.

    I was a bit dissapointed that there was no real development, but the episode was fun to watch once it got going.

    Neko-Saphira
    Reply

  12. I was expecting a showdown between ioryogi and the goons that took out the posters. As previously said it turn into a fun episode oh well. After the grandama and everyone shooting at him I recalled sora no otoshimono . there was an evil grandama there too 🙂

    Island Esper
    Reply

  17. Satoida: Hmm, I actually thought what he said was about Yuuko, but now it’s certain. I’m not reading the xxxHolic manga, but read the TRC one, so I know what happened with Yuuko, and I heard from one of my friends about what happened with her shop after that.

    And, is that only me, or Mokona’s voice was somewhat strange? Was that the same voice actress who played the role in the TRC/xxxHolic anime?

    viral
    Reply

  18. It is the same voice actress, Kikuchi Mika-san. She puts a slightly deeper voice as Black Mokona than as White Mokona. I’m not too sure why.

    Sorry if I spoiled something, I didn’t mean to.

    Satoida
    Reply

  19. Watanuki and Black Mokona!! It was a really nice surprise to see them, and after everything that happened in TRC/xxxHolic too. I guess Watanuki likes baumkuchen too?

    I was kind of expecting Okiura to show up and scare them while they were walking back home too…oh well.

    akani
    Reply

  22. watanuki is slowing morphing into a evil mystical smoking alcoholic with extravagant clothes… HM WHO DOES THAT SOUND LIKE. actually, i don’t see why she can’t just go over to Watanuki’s shop for her wish instead of collecting hearts. WAIT what if that was the way given to her for her dream to come true, and in exchange, she gave up her memories to pay for her wish?? HM WHO DOES THAT SOUND LIKE =P haha CLAMP…

    QnTiria
    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *