「そして天魔が、歌われる」 (Soshite Tenma Ga, Utawareru)
“And The Tenma is Sung”

Unlike the previous episodes where there was very little, if any plot-related material, this episode when coupled with the serious parts of last week’s make for the beginning of what sounds like a really interesting story. I’m not sure what it was about this week’s episode but I just didn’t want it to end! The idea that the Seraphim are trying to prevent the rapture from occurring by utilizing Gekkou to prevent an ancient prophecy from becoming true sounds impressive on paper. It sounds a little like the bible with references to angels and whatnot, except with lots of fanservice and smack talk thrown in-beween.

Even with an interesting story, it doesn’t matter if what leads up to it is boring right? Luckily, the talk between Taito and Rapture Mode Himea was more interesting than I thought it’d be. I would have been content with a dirty-talking Himea who couldn’t resist feeling up every part of Taito, but was rather surprised when Taito decided to step up and demonstrate how tough he really has. Instead of that runaway first and try again later attitude from last week, it felt a lot better watching him stand his ground and eventually saving Himea.

In Gekkou’s case, I was a bit floored with just how much of a power up the guy received. I’m not sure what Hinata was trying to do when he lead his brother straight to the Seraphim, but giving him the key to destroying the one thing he couldn’t even touch doesn’t sound too bright. I guess you could cough it up to his cocky personality, but these villains need to learn to stop giving their enemies so many advantages! And who can forget about Mirai and how she accidentally let it slip that Gekkou made the Seraphim promise to leave all of his allies friends alone? At this rate, I think everyone is going to brush off Gekkou’s punk attitude — which isn’t necessarily a bad thing since he’s a good guy.

At this point, the only mystery that’s left is the one surrounding Haruka. If my instincts are right (and they usually aren’t) then maybe Ramiel Lilith is the one who’s taken over her body? But if it was Ramiel Lilith, who is also apparently in love with Taito, that could mean that she also might just be another part of Himea?! As I start wandering down this crazy path, my expectations for this show have been renewed a bit (:

 

ED3 Sequence

ED3: 「Strawberry Eyes」 by サイトヒメア(高本めぐみ) (Saito Himea (Takamoto Megumi))
Watch the 3rd ED!: Streaming ▼

23 Comments

  1. Is there a reason Tenma = Seraphim when the name of this anime is Itsuka TENMA no Kuro Usagi? dark rabbit has 7 lives does not have seraphim in it. Am I over thinking thinks? Is it a pun or 2 words sounding the same

    deafvader
    1. I’ve been contemplating how to refer to “Tenma” for the past few weeks. I’ve started going off of Nico’s translation as Seraphim since even though Tenma (天魔) literally means Demon or Evil Spirit, I dunno how the show is referencing it.

      If you break the title down piece by piece:

      いつか (Itsuka) – Five Days / Fifth Day of the Month / Someday (Depending how the Kanji would be used if it were there)
      天魔 (Tenma) – Demon, Evil Spirit
      の (No) – Possession Particle
      黒 (Kuro) – Black
      ウサギ (Usagi) – Rabbit

      I don’t know where Seven Lives comes from, sorry :/

      1. It doesn’t come from anywhere. “A Dark Rabbit has Seven Lives” is an Americanized title that was made up because the literal translation of “Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi” come off roughly as “Everyday Tenma’s Black Rabbit,” which… yeah, sounds a bit on the strange side, hence the new title.

        Shinn_Kamiyra
      2. The “Seven lives” thing is an American title for the series that just refers to Taito’s seven times immortality.

        The Japanese title I interpret as “The Black Rabbit who will one day become a Tenma” which refers more toward Himea’s power as the most powerful witch I think.

        xcswmboy
  2. It was refreshing to have some actual plot advancement this time around; though with what respect to what Takaii said about this being the beginning of a very interesting story… too little, too late. Indeed, what could’ve been an eloquent foreshadowing to the main story in these past few episodes has turned out to be an unsatisfying mesh of scenes cut-and-pasted together with a seemingly relentless bombardment of unnecessary fan service and even cheesy dialogue at times.

    I give ZEXCS’ its due credit in what many could consider to be an attention-grabbing episode (in more ways than one for some, but whatever), though it’s not enough to salvage this as a series, as reflected in the exceedingly poor state of Itsu-Ten’s anime sales.

    As for what’s to come,Show Spoiler ▼

    Can’t say as I have much in the way of expectations for this series anymore, though it’ll be interesting to see how they try to end it.

    Shinn_Kamiyra
    1. Doesn´t look like it, but as I said before the anime is been fairly faithful to the novels. The problem is that the story takes time to take off in the the original work; it´s something like this:

      Novel 1: reunion betwen Taito and Himea, defeated of Hinata and stablishment of the student council.
      Novel 2: spell Rapture goes out of control and Gekkou has a littel chat with the silver familiar sent by Hinata.

      In fact they add a little of the first chapter the the third novel, so I have hopes for the uncoming episodes to give a more deep understanding of the story, what they show in this episode was good but it´s just the tip of the iceberg in the general plot.

      haseo0408
      1. You’re correct in that the story in the original works needs time to take off, however by that same token that’s one of the reasons why ZEXCS’ adaptation is a failure.

        A great story needs time to build up. People need to come to understand the characters so they can sympathize with them, and the fact that ZEXCS has steamrolled through Itsu-Ten to the point that we’re already at the 3rd Volume at Episode 6 is nothing short of ridiculous. How could someone new to the series honestly be expected to have a comprehensive understanding of what’s going on here? As someone who’s talked to his fair share of people about this, I know what I’m talking about when I say that they can’t, and they don’t.

        Now then you can argue that there’s still a chance for everything to be explained properly later on, however that’s like putting all your homework off until the very last minute. You may get by with it, but it’ll still never be as good as it was if you took your time with it and gave it the focus and attention it needed. It’s no different here.

        If ZEXCS’ tries to cram any kind of a bulk of Itsu-Ten’s story into the remaining episodes, I can only imagine it would serve to further confuse its viewers who, as I’ve said, haven’t had a proper build-up to prepare them for it.

        Shinn_Kamiyra
  3. https://randomc.net/image/Itsuka%20Tenma%20no%20Kuro%20Usagi/Itsuka%20Tenma%20no%20Kuro%20Usagi%20-%2005%20-%20Large%2020.jpg

    “With this right hand, I’ll break your illusion! Imagin-” Oh wait, wrong series, but still really quite similar setups. This entire scene I just drew parallel with Touma reaching for Index in Johannes Pen mode through the dragon breath. Also, what’s with the growing trend that all magic personalities talking in technical computer terms?

    xcswmboy
  4. This episode had a lot of good material from the novels, all that is left is to see if ZEXCS can adapt the rest without destroying it. There is still tons of good story from the novels that could be adapt making the series a lot better, but I don´t think they could do it with this time left. I´m in favor for a second season of the anime, to this point on the novels get really interesting, so I look for more of the novels been made into anime in the near future.

    haseo0408
    1. ZEXCS hasn’t hasn’t had a second season made for any of its anime in quite a long while. And given how poor Itsu-Ten’s sales are at the moment, the odds of a second season are quite unlikely, to put it mildly.

      Shinn_Kamiyra
  5. I honestly almost fell asleep watching this ep ._.

    Himea calls out Taito’s name so many times, and for some reason I hear Taito as “tight” sometimes so it’s quite disruptive. Maybe that’s saying something about me … 😮

    PWAA.MEAP
    1. Trust me. after watching one episode of Inuyasha, and hearing Kagome and Inuyasha call each other’s names repeatedly; this is nothing. I watched at least 10 episodes of Inuyasha so my patience has not worned out yet

      deafvader

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