First Impressions / sola

OP Sequence

OP: 「colorless wind」 by 結城アイラ (Yuuki Aira)
Watch the OP!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2
I had already heard this song streamed on the official site, but it was good to see it in broadcast quality. I rather like the song and prefer it over the ED.

Summary:

While the man with the sword is occupied with Yorito’s sudden intrusion into the church, Matsuri grabs a candelabra and rushes toward the entrance. The man responds by throwing his sword at her, but she jumps up into the air and chucks the candelabra into a stained glass window, creating an exit for herself to fly out of. The man chases her outside and finds her on the ground by the scaffolding. When he starts running towards her with sword drawn, she uses her powers to quickly rust the metal scaffolding until it crumbles and falls onto him. He manages to keep from getting hurt, but Matsuri disappears during the commotion. She’s actually just hiding in the bushes, and as soon as she starts moving, he throws a broken pole at her. Matsuri jumps out of the way and then counters his next light dart with a piece of brick she had used her powers on. Unfortunately, the blast of bright light still engulfs her and sends her falling into the forest below. Having witnessed everything that just happened, Yorito starts to run after her, but the swordsman stops him. He tells Yorito that Matsuri is not human, but rather the Woe of the Night. Despite this, Yorito still runs down the hill to look for Matsuri. Although the man attempts to follow, he stops when he sees Mayuko, the young girl that he’s been caring for, and he immediately puts away his sword.

Yorito finds Matsuri lying on the ground inside a cemetery and brings her unconscious body back home. As she lies in bed, Yorito notices that part of her right hand looks unnaturally gray. He attempts to touch that part, but he jumps up in fright when that causes it to crumble a little, as if he had just touched an object made of sand. Matsuri briefly wakes up after that and says Yorito’s name twice before she closes her eyes again with a smile on her face. When Yorito gets up the next morning, he sees that Matsuri gone from the room he left her in. He finds her again downstairs staring at a framed picture of the sky, and she thanks him for helping her by patting him on the head. She offers to cook for him, but she proves to be pretty inept with kitchen technology, so that doesn’t work out. Instead, she gets Yorito to tell her a little about himself, and when he asks about her, she turns off the lights and heads over to the window where a sliver of daylight is peeking through the curtains. She then puts her index finger into the light, and Yorito can see the pain she feels and the particles coming off of her finger. It seems that she can’t be under the sun and has never stood under a blue sky in the hundreds of years that she’s been alive.

As for what Matsuri is going to do now, Yorito wants her to stay with him. She thinks that it’s impossible and cites the reason being because he’ll eventually come to hate her. When Yorito then gets called to the hospital because of Aono, he makes Matsuri promise that she’ll wait here for him. But after Yorito leaves, Matsuri quietly says to herself “bye-bye.” At the hospital, the first thing Aono tells Yorito is that she’s hungry. Before heading home again, Yorito gets lectured by Mana about how he isn’t coming to the hospital or calling. As he nears his house, he notices that all the lights are off inside. Fearing the worst, Yorito runs in and finds Matsuri gone with only a “bye-bye” message written on the picture of the sky. Yorito rushes back out to go after her, but he first hears something upstairs, so he goes to investigate. To his relief, he finds Matsuri lying on the bed inside his room and staring at the painted sky on the ceiling. She makes him lie down beside her and then asks him if the sky is really like this, so he tells her that it’s much more amazing and much more beautiful. Matsuri suddenly gets the feeling that she’s floating through the sky and comments on how pretty it is. Hearing this, Yorito vows to show her the real sky someday.

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I think this second episode did a good job keeping me interested in the show and looked quite pretty to boot. As you can see, the action this week took place at the beginning (in a very cool sequence), and the rest of the episode leaned more towards character development. We find out all sorts of things about Matsuri, but her past isn’t clear yet (though I wouldn’t want it to be since this is only the second episode). Also interesting was the fact that the man with the sword (named Tsujidou) put away his sword when he saw Mayuko and doesn’t seem to want to let her know about Matsuri.
So after seeing this, I’m getting more positive feelings about this show, and I think that the 13 planned episodes will be the perfect number to develop the story and not draw it out too much.

35 Comments

  7. I knew it she cant stand on lights! It was too obvious in the first episode. Always out at night, always talking about sora and cried when she heard the guy said that it was amazing. The guy attacked her with light and affected her! Oh anyway, Looks like another great episode.

    AznSoulBoy
    Reply

  16. So far, I’m really liking this show. This seems to me to give us Noto-kawaii at her most kawaii. I didn’t like Rozen Maiden. However, I did like PetoPeto-san, and this seems to be doing something similar with its youkai. She’s not a vampire. She says she’s some kind of night monster. I also liked Kanon. Is this “sad girls in the dark”?

    hashihime
    Reply

  21. Thats right Rasmiel, lol. They’re always related by blood that way there can possibly be a romantic relationship between them. Case and point Yami to boushi to hon no tabibito who Noto played Hazuki. One of the reasons why I was exited to watch this anime since Noto just does such a great job. Anyways I see I wasn’t the only one who was impressed by the opening animation plus the song was nice too. Nice action scene at the beginning and I’m wondering if we’re going to keep seeing action scenes even thought they’re brief since this doesn’t look like the kind of anime to have action. Still the series continues to impress me and I’m looking forward to each episode.

    Hyosuke
    Reply

  30. It’s not just a matter of being afraid… Light causes actual physical harm to Matsuri. But loli may be the same way. At this point who can say? But I don’t think Matsuri deserves to have that guy after her. She hasn’t shown any signs of being aggressive or dangerous at all. And even with the guy trying to kill her, what little fighting she did was purely defensive: she was just trying to get away. She is not an evil girl.

    Wanderer
    Reply

  31. ^^^
    You don’t really ask a vampire slayer why she would slay vampires. It’s her job.
    Same with the guy. It’s probably his “family tradition” or something. Unfortunate but it doesn’t matter if Matsuri is such a sweet, fun loving character.

    Rasmiel
    Reply

  33. >>Same with the guy. It’s probably his “family tradition” or something. Unfortunate but it doesn’t matter if Matsuri is such a sweet, fun loving character.

    It matters to me. She IS a sweet, fun-loving character. She does not deserve this. I cannot believe that this girl they’ve shown us thus far would willingly do something that would justify hunting her down like this.

    Wanderer
    Reply

  34. Matsuri HAS to do something to maintain her youthful appearance…I bet she eats souls…she did say that Yorito would come to hate her…he would prolly hate having his soul devoured…lol

    Pucci
    Reply

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