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「永劫の調べ」 (Eigou no Shirabe)
“Eternal Investigation”
After seeing more of the female version of Yuki and hearing more of Yukana‘s sultry and seductive voice along with her, I’m left wondering why there had to be some gender bender bit going on with the main protagonist in this series. Having covered Nabari no Ou, I’m not opposed to the slight hints of BL they’re going for, but the notion that Yuki was once a girl makes his personality a bit too feminine at times. It’s not enough to make me shy away from this series altogether, but hearing Hoshi Souichirou play these type of roles isn’t on the top of my list of things I want to watch either. The reason being is that Souichirou’s a bit too good at bringing out all that womanly angst, which is sometimes a bit too much to take in when it comes from a male character. Female, sure. Yuki here on the other hand? He’s making Kira Yamato look like a “manly man” at this rate.
It’s not exactly my cup of tea, but I’m aware there’s a fan base for his character type alongside the dark and mysterious Zess, so I don’t really dwell on those scenes too much. To their credit however, they actually help reiterate how Yuki was female at one point, either in a past life or otherwise. For instance, he shows genuine concern for his corrupt classmate Uzuki (Tachibana Shinnosuke), who anyone flowing with testosterone would’ve simply brushed off and started ignoring by now. As such, I’ve pretty much started picturing Yuki as a girl trapped in a guy’s body but that pretense still isn’t enough for me to condone anything too homoerotic here. I may be fooling myself a bit, but I have to draw the line somewhere! 😛
Now what I really enjoyed about this episode is how it started introducing more of the story, namely the Giou family line that Yuki is a member of and their battle against demons known as Duras, which I briefly mentioned back in the Spring 2010 Preview. In addition to Yuki’s stepbrother Giou Takashiro (Koyasu Takehiro) revealing the above to both Yuki and us the viewer, we also got a glimpse of what these Duras are like and how the Giou lineage battles them. I was a bit put off by the CG rendered small fry ones shown here, but it was nice to see how Tooko and Tsukumo go about dealing with them. I found it a bit cheesy how they struck a pose on entry, but at least it showcased their choice of weapons in the progress.
Given the BL undertones, the whole “hidden world within a world” involving a battle with demons, and Yuki being a key yet reluctant person in that struggle, it’s hard to deny how much this series resembles the aforementioned Nabari no Ou. I originally compared this series to Vampire Knight, but Nabari unquestionably has more similarities, even when it comes to the character designs. Seeing as I enjoyed Nabari a fair bit, I pretty much plan to continue following Uraboku as well. I’m actually quite curious about what’s going to happen with Kanata, given all the ominous foreshadowing they’ve given him in this episode and the last. Also, it should be interesting to see what Yuki’s capable of once he starts honing his abilities.
Note: I plan to watch this series, but that doesn’t guarantee I’ll continue covering it on a weekly basis.
Preview
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I’m following it as well. Just skipping the overtly angsty BL scenes and it’s a perfectly fine anime. At least it puts itself in this genre unlike 7 ghosts where the studio deen decides to make it BL. Hope we get introduced to the other partners cos i think there are a few and i would like to see some comedic squabling.
From the screens, it looks interesting. I might pick it up as well.
BL really isn’t my cup of tea either, but in this case I find it rather sweet because it’s not so much about the characters being in ghey love with eachother, as it is still loving someone’s soul regardless of gender.
Yuki does act too whinny in this episode, though. =/ He *should* get much better if they stick with the manga. I’m not sure why the anime went so far into his inner angst and emotions anyways, it was a bit much lol.
Here’s to hoping they get on more with the plot next episode lol.
Have you noticed it’s more darker in the anime than the manga? I hope that’s a sign for good things to come.
I noticed that, too. Hopefully the darker mood in the anime ends up being beneficial and not corny XD.
I’m left wondering why there had to be some gender bender bit going on with the main protagonist in this series.
I agree with your comment, but as a part of the other fan camp. Why hide the BL under the previous-life-hetero tactic…just make it all out BL. I suppose true BL would turn away certain viewers from the get go…*sigh*
Haha, I was waiting for someone to make that comment. “There’s no need to sugarcoat it. Let’s just get down to business!”
im thinking of adding this to my list
maybe…..
I have feeling its gonna be similar to Blood+ since the whole mysterious guy protecting him/her and feeling something nagging in his/her brain of familiarity.
Whats BL stand for anyway.
“Boys’ Love”, a.k.a. Yaoi.
will he turn back into a girl ? looks good but BL is not my type of anime 😐
This shit is so sick and wrong.
@SAGO It’s not sick. It just makes for a an interesting story. Zess’s love for Yuki’s previous self could prove to be a potential conflict with his already emotions if yuki(female) were to come back. Plus, I think that Uraboku is better then Vampire Knight, rather than having Vampire Knight’s Yuki narrate and always put on a face of angst, I’d rather Uraboku’s Yuki, who gets more action and has a more complicated past.
I’ve pretty much started picturing Yuki as a girl trapped in a guy’s body
I think you could compare this bit of the story with Angel Sanctuary’s Setsuna.
Ewwww girls, gtfo my yaoi paradise babyyyyyyyy.
angsty BL… mmmhmmmm
Compared to other BL animes and manga’s this isn’t actually to much. I mean from what I’ve seen and read so far it isn’t about yaoi so much as someone loving a person’s soul regardless of gender. And in that sense it’s very touching. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the series turns out.
I don’t mind if this anime turn out to be BL. Hehe..
Wow, next ep.. Looks like Zess going to fight.. Interesting~
Loveless all over again.
the only reason because i am not watching this is because there is too much bl, if the previous life thing was just a tad bit more predominant………..
I noticed that, too. Hopefully the darker mood in the anime ends up being beneficial and not corny XD.
Everything would be better if Jun Fukuyama voiced Yuki. Then the voice casting would have been awesome tribute to the best OT3 ever: SuzaLuluCC
Except now it’s Gino, Suzaku, and CC, with Lulu being the soft-spoken Tsukumo. :\
Having read the manga, Yuki coming from a past life where he was a girl ties in with some of the larger themes of the series, so I don’t feel like it was just thrown in as “here have a heterosexual excuse for the BL”. Hopefully they should start to get into that within the nex few episodes, although they’ve been rearranging the plot just a little bit with respect to the original. (And Yuki was way more emo in this ep than he was at this point in the manga, ugh.)
After watching 2 episodes Ive decided to give up on this one. Im not a BL fan and it seems like it has more of an impact on this series then it should.
It’s romantic enough for me~ XDDDD it’s full of rabu rabu~ XDDD and thanks for many screencaps… since i can’t watch the anime and need to wait for about 3 months… to buy the dvd!!! >..< like odagiri style of BL manga~ XDDDDD