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「デスバザー日和!」 (Desubazaa Hiyori)
“Death Bazaar Weather”
While she’s no Arachne or Medusa, the scorpion-esque Shaula is actually quite the little bitch. Which in all honesty surprised me since I was expecting the main antagonist to be a little more.. mellow? Then again, she is a Gorgon and if there’s anything we’ve learned about the Gorgon family, it’s that every single one of them are pretty damn crazy.
The Calm Before the Storm
If the first seven episodes were just trying to slowly ease us into the flow of things, I’m hoping the next six use them as a jumping off point to really build onto some of the darker themes that have slowly been popping up.
If I remember correctly the original SOUL EATER anime focused a lot on the idea of madness and how it’s something that everyone has to deal with — and I’m really hoping something along those lines happens here. I mean if you take a second to look at it, there’s a lot of things you could pick from. From Tsugumi’s coming of age trials that will eventually pit her against the two people she cares the most about to the twisted Shaula’s plans and her nonchalant view of killing off someone who may become a problem for her later, I see no reason why we can’t have some hard hitting moments among all the light hearted slice-of-life moments.
Cute Moments
Before the crazy ending that I never saw coming, there sure were a lot of cute moments in this week’s episode. While it’s hard to beat Clay almost admitting his feelings for Sid (because who wouldn’t like a buff guy like that?) there’s always something special when Tsugumi and Maka get a chance to talk with each other. Be it words of encouragement or passing on a little something from senpai to kouhai, I really love how Maka’s a strong part of the story without butting in too much.
Also, I think Kim is my new personal favorite. She’s the embodiment of the tsundere with the charm of a tanuki. <3
Looking Ahead
With this episode serving as more of a jumping off point rather than a regular episode, it brought up a lot more questions than it answered. But with half the season still left to give us a proper explanation, I’m really hoping that this marks the point where the action takes priority and we leave the cutesy stuff for later.
That and for a show that’s been doing a great job at not diving into the action, I couldn’t believe how gruesome the ending felt. While it remains to be seen whether or not Eternal Feather was able to stop herself from hitting a vital artery, it sure feels like she did.
Preview
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Finally some action!
We get some action again, and on an episode with the lowest budget so far.
You know which scene I am talking about.
I admit there were some distinctly off-model faces at several points in this episode.
QUA-LI-TEEEE!!!
Bones has a good reputation on handling action scenes (especially the last fight in Sword of the Stranger), but, this particular scene is just a disaster!!!!
Not all studios have just one animation team. BONES is moderately big, and they work on more than one show at once at times, so they must’ve saved their best animation team for Captain Earth, because they believe that to be the more popular title. …also, they could’ve out-sourced the animation in this episode more that others.
all the BONES shows this week seem to be suffering from a slight drop in animation quality it appears
Oh it seems like Maka and Soul appear! Yes! Do i hear action and the development of a story? Hope it picks up and become more interesting!
It really felt like they packed as much slice of life as they could into the first part of the episode, in order to hit you all the harder with the MOOD WHIPLASH in the last third. I’ve been looking forward to that scene, and it didn’t disappoint.
(er… looking forward to in a “the plot’s getting good” kind of sense, not in “ZOMG Eternal Feather’s gonna cut her own throat I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THAT” kind of sense, because… no. I like her, and seeing her hurt is bad. But the scene is cool.)
That would be nice, but for all that they’ve been taking slice of life stuff from the later half of the manga and fitting it in beside slice of life stuff from the early part of the manga to compress things, there still seems to be a fair amount of slice of life material remaining.
On the other hand, supposedly (I have this secondhand, so it may be taken with a grain of salt) the author has said he’s been deliberately stalling by releasing short SoL chapters in the manga in order to avoid spoiling the anime, so it may be that we actually will get a shift towards the true plot, which no one outside the author has even seen yet.
Man, that Maka vs. Eternal Feather scene. I don’t know how that made the cut. Speaking of cuts, it would’ve been better to cut it out. Regardless of bad animation though, the episode got really interesting later on, and all the other animations were fairly normal.
“Will Yukuyou no Tsubasa survive or suffer the same fate as a certain gun wielding mahout shoujo?”
“Stay tune for episode 8 folks”
Tsubasa means wings. Hane means feather.
Wrong spelling….
Yuukyuu no tsubasa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN1_xzXUFWM
This is clearly…. the madness of boobs!
(Points to anyone who recognizes that line)
2 Things.
1) We all know it…but that ET vs. Maka scene was waayy underbudget. Its surprising that Bones actually animated that. I mean sure, they’re doing 2 other shows this season so resources are kind of stretched out. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that it look like a elementary school child drew that on MS Paint.
2) Clay sure likes to call himself gay whenever he tries to think of a cover-story (if he really is gay IDK)since this would be the second instance.
Totally agree man, with most of the episode focused on the slice of life part I don’t think anyone saw the ending coming.
That was quite the 180 degree turnabout from the slice-of-life into that final part. I’m really liking the nice mix of SOL of Tsugumi’s everyday life at Shibusen and the underlying dark plot led by Shaula Gorgon.
On the other hand, Kim is really turning into one of the best side character in the series. I felt just like Tsuumi did, wanting to tease her at any opportunity that comes.
In the end, the primary characters are still the ones to clean up shit.
That fight scene was one of the worst I’ve seen in recent memory. I mean, just look at this.
I admit it, the first time I saw this, I rofled.
After this, i guess it’s time to go back and watch the Naruto/Pain fight again. All mighty rofl, here i go!
Except, despite the exaggerated faces and art, the Naruto/Pain fight is nicely animated.
Yea, it’s really out of character for BONES to phone it in that much, they’re usually the ones you can count on to keep the quality at least passable, but dang, this made even some of the worst animated scenes in kill la kill look spectacular, and they were badly animated on purpose for effect.
But hey, we can look at it this way – maybe this is going to be a good thing in the long run, it could be they’re pooling as much time and money as possible into the climax by cheaping out on some of the less important scenes, and when the time comes, we will get a truly amazing fight to cap off the series.
We can only hope.
So.
… anyone still think this is just a slice-of-life moe show???/
you mentioned the madness theme from the soul eater. since in soul eater NOT, there is a mind control drug or something like that; then maybe instead of yuuki the main character will have/use something that will allow her to defeat the mind control. Maybe they’ll call it love. I have give two examples: Exhibit A from magic knights rayearth when Fuu gets rid of a body controlling spell. Exhibit B from madlax when eleanor defeats the “Elda Taluta” curse when she is carrying a gun before dying.
my lord! that fight scene was terrible… someone should’ve lost his/her job by now and the faces, what’s the deal with BONES nowadays its like they don’t care at all or they just stopped trying all together? 🙁
i seriously hope they wont mess up stein-sensei’s little cameo at least next episode
while I hate the callous attitude of Shaula, I can understand it from operational standpoint – she is deep undercover in enemy territory, hopelessly outpowered by total Shibusen forces, so closing any possible leads to her is paramount priority
Oh wow an episode I actually liked…
The SoL was bearable and that ending was pretty good.
Also am I the only one who likes Shaula a lot as an antagonist? She’s sure better than Arachne who IMO is such a boring evil girl.