「黄昏館」 (Tasogarekan)
“The Twilight Mansion”

With the sheer number of new character introductions upon Yuki’s arrival at the Giou’s Twilight Mansion, J.C. Staff must be pretty relieved to have two cours (24-26 episodes) to animate this adaptation. While the pacing could probably be sped up a tad bit as Yuki gets brought back to familiar surroundings from his previous life, there’s actually been ample material covered thus far that would make it somewhat difficult to do so. I dare even say it might be too jarring to the viewer if the subtleties of each character aren’t given time to flesh out, such as mansion manager Giou Tachibana (Miki Shinichirou) and his flamboyant behavior and resident doctor Fujiwara Isuzu (Narita Ken) and his emphatic desire to want to study Luka’s body. Then there are also the resident servant Kureha Aya (Yahagi Sayuri) and cook Tooma Katsumi (Okamoto Nobuhiko), along with Luka’s adorable dragon familiar Sodom (Ishikawa Momoko), whom we all meet for the very first time. To top it off, we also see Reiga and some of his crew, namely Ashley (Ueda Kana) and the twins Jekyll and Hyde (Oohara Takashi and Nakanishi Hideki). So um yeah, character introduction overload yet?

In an otherwise fairly uneventful episode amidst the flurry of new characters, the story did reemphasize the attachment Yuki still feels towards Kanata and how it’ll likely lead him to more heartbreak down the stretch. That of course is in addition to the pain everyone’s foreshadowed that he’ll have to endure once he starts regaining some of his memories leading up to his death as his former female self. There’s still the deception that Takashiro hinted at the end of the previous episode as well, so I get the feeling that there’s a lot of character angst in store for Yuki once each of these come to light. I’ll admit that the whole shoujo-esque nature of this series did become very apparent in Yuki’s dream when he called out to Kanata and told him he loves him (in the older brotherly kind of way), but that was cleverly balanced out by the bits of humor throughout.

The Tooko hug on Yuki for example was nicely followed up with one from Tsukumo, making Luka’s reaction pretty priceless. Tachibana on the other hand is Miki playing a somewhat goofy character like Urahara Kisuke in Bleach, which is a role you don’t see him in too often. Then there’s Dr. Isuzu, whose a completely different person once he gets his face out from underneath his piles of research and shaves. Fan girls of ultra hot doctors will probably rejoice about that, but even I admittedly prefer that look over the creepy one. Story-wise, it looks like Kanata/Reiga will be coming into contact with Yuki once again, so I imagine things should pick up in the coming episodes. There’s always the possibility we’re in store for even more character introductions though!

 

Preview

11 Comments

  1. Tachibana must own a closet full of hats! So far, we’ve seen two and they matched his outfits. Lol. Because I don’t watch Bleach, the only goofy character which MikiShin played that I love to bits is Sakamoto Tatsuma (Gintama), with the infectious-obnoxious combo laughter.

    That aside, I was quite surprised when Yuki found his way to his room without Tachibana and Tooko guiding him. And I love how Ibuki answered that she lied numerous times to those other than Takashiro. Speaking of lie, I am a terrible liar.

    Lil' Lilly
  2. Yeah, the hug by Tooko and Tsukumo together with Luka’s expression was just great! The doctor was also pretty funny because I was watching and when he reemerge all shaven, it was a total shock because man he looks so creepy at first.

    Silver
  3. Go Sodom bite that doctor!

    Geez if Sodom was any cuter I would switch him for my avatar, but no Dorimon is still my fav 🙂

    well on the ep itself, I liked the character introductions and Miki alwYs voice James in the Jap vesion of pokemon. Skipped yuki dream scene though, but I really enjoyed that yuki remembered his room and walked to it. It had a certain feel that made his character and the gion partners have more depth. Well I say this because it makes you realize that this isn’t just some you have power you must join us to fight the “darkness or evil enemy” like bleach where ichigo randomly gets powers, but more of the all have been fighting for a long time and bad things happened. With the return of yuki, they had a moments peace of joy, but they all know that it won’t last and have to fight again with the prospects of losing friends again.

    To sum it up, these guys to me feel that they cherish each other and there time together more than in other mangas and animes

    Cherubium
  4. 2 cours! Makes sense with the slow pace.
    Still obsessed with the voices which make me think of other characters. Character overload.. Agree (and to think there will be even more Zweilts coming) but actually the villains won’t be around for long.

    Yukiruchan
  5. Whoa, those were a lot of characters introduced. I loved it when the doctor creepily appeared from the pile of books.

    Sodom is ADORABLE. Doesn’t it kinda look like a mix between Black Mokona and Pikachu with wings, though? I lol’d when Luka sicked Sodom on the doctor.

    Also, I am very interested in the next episode since Shusei seems to have some very bad bruises. Poor guy. I wonder where they came from?

    akani
  6. I feel like..I can’t take this unmanly behaviour of Yuki any longer and it’s even worse that Zess still has feelings for him *vomit*. Does anybody feel the same way? I mean like I know a lot of homosexual people (I even have friends among them) and they’re all kinda wierd (not in a bad way) but I mean none of those people I know ever behaved in such a strange way: crying over every little thing, feeling sorry for people for no reason and yelling and begging ‘ I LOVE YOU PLEASE WAIT! ‘ after childhood friends..wth? Seriously there’s something wrong with this series..err..no with Yuki. I think they went a little off the edge with the ’emotional stuff’. This also contributes to the feeling that everything is being dragged on and on and on..like please let me be sorry for all the people and let me please feel love for all of them too and while I’m at it let me remember some of my childhood friends and again for no reason dream about them. Sorry for my absolutely negative post but I kind of needed to say that.

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