Angel Heart – 02

OP Sequence

Summary:
Glass Heart breaks free of her confines and makes her way to the city of Shinjuku to find Saeba Ryo, the City Hunter. Two weeks later, Ryo has a conversation with Saeko about the transplanted heart. When Saeko wonders what happened to it, Ryo says that he can hear its beating getting closer. When Ryo drives Saeko back, he uses a longer route that takes them past where Kaori died. At that very intersection, there is a traffic jam being caused by a woman standing in the middle of the road; that woman being none other than Glass Heart herself. The crosswalks form an X pattern in her mind, reminding her of the word XYZ. After defeating two thugs who were yelling at and threatening her for blocking traffic, she goes after their boss because he showed that he might know something about XYZ. One fiery car explosion later, she has him pinned against the roof of a car, and he reveals is that XYZ was a word used to contact City Hunter. Kaori stops Glass Heart from killing the man, and she has to flee when the police show up. That evening, Ryo is at the Cat’s Eye talking with the bartender Umibouzu. Umibouzu is worried about how Ryo has been on a downward spiral since Kaori died, and how it inevitably will lead to his death. Ryo leaves the coffee house going one way as Glass Heart approaches from the other. In a semi-trance, she enters the store and sits down while Umibouzu makes her favorite coffee, sensing that Kaori is inside the person before him. Glass Heart/Kaori gets very nostalgic, reminiscing about Ryo and his habits, and Umibouzu welcomes her home. As she clutches her coffee, Glass Heart realizes that these aren’t her feelings, gets even more confused, and runs out into the night. Umibouzu is sure that Kaori is back.

ED Sequence

OP: 「Finally」 by Sowelu
ED: 「誰かが君を想ってる」 by Skoop On Somebody
I’ve really like both of the songs ever since I heard them on the “making of” zeroth episode and it’s an added bonus that they’re sung by Sowelu and Skoop On Somebody. The opening sequence shows shilouettes of each character and the ending sequence has CG feathers superimposed on an actual city background. I am quite impressed by both of these as they look very crisp, clean, and stylish. The ending song, in particular, with the falling feathers and the R&B beat by SOS, reminds me a lot of Christmas.

I dare say this is even better than the first episode. The animation is very clean and the music is superb with an insert song by Kanon called 「Gloria」 which felt perfect for the scene its featured in. Add to it Umibouzu’s “Welcome home” and that becomes my favorite scene this episode. We’re really getting into the plot now that Glass Heart has become a lot more conscious of Kaori inside her, and decides to go searching for Ryo. She arrives in Shinjuku, and the two miss running into each other by mere minutes outside of the Cat’s Eye.
The episode follows the manga pretty well again, covering chapters three through six. The major omission is the Lee Taijin scene (which includes more explanation about Glass Heart’s motivations and being influenced by the donor), but that’s not quite so important and can be moved elsewhere. Next week will most likely finish out the volume and maybe include that aforementioned scene. I look forward to the next episode of Angel Heart, the show which has to this point exceeded my expectations by far.

Closing Thought: I really cringed when I heard the bits of Mandarin that Glass Heart spoke.