CANAAN / First Impressions

Summary:

Minoru is working on his big story about the Borners and their village, but his editor tells him to make it simpler. He gets interrupted when Maria brings him an invitation to the anti-terrorism conference, but he decides to leave it up to her while he continues working on his own story. Maria thus heads to the conference hall by herself, unaware that Liang Qi and Cummings are in charge of security there. The event begins with a speech by the American president, and while taking pictures, Maria sees Alphard coming towards her. Maria doesn’t recognize Alphard though, and their meeting – as well as the speech – is interrupted by an explosion in the conference hall courtesy of Liang Qi. Alphard catches Maria from falling and mysteriously mentions that Maria still has a role to play, but she then disappears into the crowd. Maria isn’t able to follow her because more explosions rip through the building, and Liang Qi uses a combination of explosions and fear to keep people inside.

Unaware of what’s going on at the conference, Minoru spends his time tracking down Hakko. When he finds her, he tries to question her about the village and why she’s here, and to his surprise, she actually speaks. She starts to say something about if he wants to know, but Minoru is then overcome with a strange headache, and Hakko walks away. Once Minoru recovers, he follows Hakko back to Santana’s and tries to question her again, but he’s restrained by Santana. Before the two can get into a fight, however, they hear a TV news bulletin about what’s going on at the conference, and Minoru runs out because he’s concerned about Maria. Back at the conference building, Alphard calmly heads towards the control room and learns from Cummings that all of the leaders are in the shelter room with the infected Japanese vice-minister.

In the meantime, Liang Qi has Maria brought to the control room, and when Maria asks where Canaan is, Liang Qi kicks her onto the floor. Liang Qi then calls Canaan to taunt her, and she lets Maria talk, so Maria apologizes to Canaan for getting caught again. However, Maria doesn’t want Canaan to come save her, and that gets Liang Qi angry, so she kicks Maria some more. Liang Qi’s fury causes Alphard to then question what she’s seeking, and Liang Qi’s answer is love. She ends up getting so pissed off at Maria that she tries to shoot her, but Alphard shoots the gun out of Liang Qi’s hand fries. Liang Qi has no choice but to calm down and back off, and afterward, Alphard makes it clear to Maria that the reason she saved her was because Maria’s role is to live. Everyone’s attention is then turned to monitor showing the shelter room where the vice-minister has suddenly started to react violently to the Ua Virus. He spews blood everywhere before dying, and Alphard is happy that everything is going according to plan.

Preview

For an episode where Canaan didn’t do much other than a lot of running, this was pretty exciting to watch. We’re finally seeing the culmination of Alphard’s plan which has been hinted at and building for several episodes now, and it looks to involve infecting the world’s leaders with the Ua Virus or something like that. I found the scenes with Liang Qi beating up on Maria a little frustrating to watch though. I’m starting to despise Liang Qi because of her insane jealousy and hatred towards anything related to Canaan, but at the same time, I also don’t like watching Maria always be so helpless and unable to fix her own problems. I thought she had grown as a character after episode four, but she comes off as whiny as ever.

As a bonus, this episode also had Noto Mamiko‘s Hakko finally saying something, though I’m not quite sure I understood what was going on in that scene. Her power appears to be related to sound or brain waves or something, and I still wonder how she’s going to fit into the overarching story. In any case, I had thought that all this stuff with Alphard’s plan was going to be saved for a big climax towards the end of the series, but the fact that it’s happening at this point makes me think that Alphard will be successful and will be able to escape even if Canaan manages to save Maria again. Liang Qi might not be so lucky though.

36 Comments

  5. @ Kere

    Yes that is what I think. She can’t do anything because she really in a way just a normal person that unsuspected gets drag into bigger things. Not only that, she never really causes anyone any harm and the whole time just want to enjoy her passion as a photographer. Really annoying to see her dragged into this mess but since they did it like this, I think we surely will see interesting things later.

    Silver
    Reply

  6. PM down! and a earlier-than-expected-climax of sorts, which hopefully means solving the problem won’t be saved for just one end-all battle during the last two episodes. Poor Liang Qi. =[

    Meery
    Reply

  7. https://randomc.net/image/CANAAN/CANAAN%20-%2006%20-%20Large%2029.j

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Harems Rule
    Reply

  14. Is that a younger version of Alphard? Was Alphard originally named Canaan? That dialogue suggested that the name Canaan was meant to be a source of hope to those that were oppressed. Does this mean that Alphard was originally named Canaan? It appears that Alphard originally was supposed to be a heroine of sorts. Also, perhaps I missed something, but are there three people with a matching tattoo. Alphard, Canaan (the character voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro), and the man who raised Canaan.

    Canaan rocks
    Reply

  15. Did Yunyun set them up? How did Liang know where Maria and Minoru were staying? Liang had that guy she always shoots with BBs drop the invitation off right? Ah next episode is going to be great 🙂

    Christopher
    Reply

  17. Given that Hakko doesn’t normally speak, maybe her voice is partially ultrasonic – causing headaches?

    I hope Maria does a little less of the Princess Peach thing =_= she’s thoroughly vulnerable and stupid genki civilian. However, one occasion she was close to trying to kill Alphard…

    S_1
    Reply

  19. lol, this series has done a great job of making some extremely awesome minor characters… Taxi driver, that Chinese girl and the American President… He was so over the top, loved it 😛

    Also, to that guy who posted earlier, Canaan was like the place the Jews or some sort of wandering people, I forgot, were supposed to go to, it was like their ‘Promised Land’ according to my memory (Could be something else lol), so maybe he was talking about the ideology of a promised land, who knows 😛

    Vim
    Reply

  21. @ Vim:

    Indeed, Canaan refers to the promised land that the Jews were to enter after fleeing captivity in Egypt. I was actually referring to the dialogue a little further into the scene. You hear a female voice saying why would such a highly symbolic name be given to me? She then is told something to the effect that her training will eventually help her to fulfill her potential, to live up to the expectations that a name such as Canaan will generate. Yet, in the screen cap, the speaker looks like a younger version of Alphard, and not Canaan.

    This led me to wonder how all of this ties together. If Canaan was meant to be the literal and figurative heroine, then this development would suggest that originally Alphard was meant to be the heroine. If so, then the next question would be, how did she end up leading Heibi?

    Also, Lianq Qi seems to go off the deep end, and implies that at some point Alphard was more of a loose cannon, prior to killing Canaan’s mentor. These scenes just have me wondering how much of a twist is going to be thrown at us in future episodes.

    Canaan rocks
    Reply

  22. Alphard was the “land of hope” to terrorists. Siam was training her to work for terrorists. Her families remaining assests were going to help fund the group while she becomes their leader.

    Canaan is the “land of hope” to everything else. Remember that before Siam was killed, Canaan worked as an assassin too.

    We already knew they both had the name of Canaan from an earlier episode with Canaan’s Siam flashbacks. Alphard introduced herself to Canaan as “Canaan.”

    Melchior
    Reply

  23. lol @ animated chibi-Liang Qi 😛
    lol @ letting PMC run such meeting security – even if it was allowed, secret services would x-ray everyone involved and 3 generations of their ancestors…
    lol @ Liang Qi getting so emotive of her sister, Canaan, and as a result poor Maria.

    ewok
    Reply

  24. I’m entirely sure, but I don’t think Alphard also being a Canaan was part of the story Nasu wrote, but an anime detail…

    The President is a senile and middle aged windbag Vash the Stampede minus all the awesome parts.

    Also – Liang Qi = Yandere Hisui in Kohaku’s wet dream

    That is all.

    S_1
    Reply

  27. this episode was just amazing! more than I expected ^^ Liang Qi is amazing, she just insane XD just for loving her sister xd and poor Maria 🙁 when Liang Qi was kicking her, I felt pain inside u.u

    and that president!! I hope he lives XP

    lol
    Reply

  30. @Anon – That makes a little more sense. I was wondering, “since when was the president fluent in Japanese?”
    (I was also wondering when we elected a president like that. Then it hit me: damn, we just did…)

    Idolon
    Reply

  36. @S_1:

    I’m pretty sure that is indeed the case. Alphard was originally called Canaan
    prior to Siam meeting the current Canaan as a young girl.

    I’ll provide the same link that Omni provided us with the conclusion of his
    impression of episode 1.

    http://www.akiba-ch.com/?p=902

    Here you can read the series of events that occur in the game that was the primer
    for this series, called 428 Fuusa sareta Shibuya de.

    Here you’ll see that Alphard goes by “Canaan” on two occasions, throughout the game
    and during the game’s epilogue where we are shown the current Canaan’s past (we got
    a clip of this during episode 4).

    Disillusion
    Reply

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