D.Gray-man / First Impressions

Summary:
Since Allen identified her as a doll, Lala goes hostile by throwing a pillar at him. Allen stops her with his arm and calms her down, allowing her to tell him that Guzol is going to die soon. She’s willing to give up her heart, but she doesn’t want to be separated from him. After they settle down, Lala explains that to avoid the severe climate and heat, the people of Mater expanded underground. They had discovered the Innocence underground, and had implanted it into a doll they created to allow them temporarily to forget their painful days. Hundreds of years after that, when the town is ruins and there were no people to hear its song, the doll came across a young boy. She had offered to sing for him, and the boy named Guzol had been overjoyed. Guzol was the one who named her Lala, and they’ve been together ever since. Lala now wants to be with Guzol until the end, which is when she’ll give up her heart to them. Despite Lala’s pleas, Kanda refuses because they have their mission and should take the heart now. When Allen claims that he can’t do it, Kanda reminds him that they are Exorcists and that it is because there is sacrifice that there is salvation.
Kanda draws his sword against Lala, but Allen steps in to declare that he will be the sacrifice by destroying the Akuma. Kanda punches Allen for that, calling him naive, and questioning if there’s anything important to him. Indeed there is something important to Allen, but he confesses to have lost it a long time ago. He feels that he can’t throw away what’s in front of him, so he wants to protect what he can. However, this conversation is interrupted when Lala and Guzol suddenly get impaled and pulled away. The Akuma is back and now it has extracted the Innocence from Lala. Seeing the bodies in front of him, Allen becomes surrounded by a purple mist and his arm starts changing into a gun. Allen proceeds to fire rapidly on the Akuma, but it appears to have disappeared. Actually, it has taken on a sand form and manages to swallow Allen up. Allen soon frees himself and brings out a blade from his gun which he uses to cut the Akuma’s sand outfit in half, exposing the monster inside. It attempts to defend itself against Allen’s gunfire by using the copy of Allen’s arm, but that is not powerful enough. Unfortunately for Allen, he suddenly coughs up blood and his new gun arm reverts back to its normal form. Seeing an opportunity, the Akuma lunges for Allen, but Kanda is there to defend him.
A pissed Kanda declares that he hates naive people like Allen, but he hates people who don’t do what they say they will. Allen powers back up his arm after a moment and the two combine their attacks to vaporize the Akuma. With the Akuma gone, the Innocence they were after falls down from the sky, landing beside an exhausted Allen. Lala has regained movement, but she has lost her personality and is now just a doll. Right before he dies, Guzol declares that he loves Lala, and she starts singing a lullaby for him. She continues singing, and it is three days later that a healed Kanda finds Allen still depressed. Having been in contact with Komui, Kanda is preparing to leave for his next mission while Allen is tasked with returning the Innocence to headquarters. He suggests that Allen go stop the doll if the singing is too painful for him, but Allen remembers the promise that only Guzol would stop Lala. Kanda calls Allen naive again, and states that they are destroyers, not saviors. A sudden wind blows through, causing Allen to notice that the singing has stopped. In the room where Guzol died, Lala’s eyes have become lifeless, though her mouth is still open. Approaching the doll, Allen hears Lala thank him for letting her sing until she broke, allowing her to fulfill the promise. With these words and the motionless doll in his arms, Allen starts crying. As Kanda and Toma come up behind him, Allen declares that he wants to become a destroyer who can save people.

Preview

Wow, this was a really good episode, by far the best one so far. The action parts were certainly good, but it wasn’t Allen getting to show his new arm that impressed me most about the episode. Instead, it was the sad ending, which was made so much more poignant by Lala’s haunting lullaby. On the topic of the arm though, it kind of feels a bit too early for Allen to be getting a second level (or whatever you want to call it) of his arm already. Maybe it’s just good pacing to keep things interesting.
In any case, it’s pivotal episodes like this that reinforce to me that this show is worth following. Hopefully there will be more of these to come, though somehow I doubt next week’s episode will be better than this week’s. Looks like at least we’ll be finding out more about the Millennium Earl.

25 Comments

  6. Yea, they don’t seem to ever get along really even in recent chapters.The episode looks great I have to show it to my friends(I’ve been trying to convince them it’s good,they say they’ll look at it, but they never do so I hope this episode inspires them to look at D.Gray-man).

    shirousama1
    Reply

  7. I’m still a tad iffy about this anime, the first four episodes have been kinda slow paced and at some parts the animation quality was questionable. But this episode does look more action packed then the other ones.

    coco-0106
    Reply

  8. i still got to watch it but i agree with with coco dat the anime is going pretty slow *thinking when we get to see the noahs OH TIKI!!!*
    I guess we needed the Jan chapter for the Earl to meet Allen once again.

    Emperess
    Reply

  10. x3 This was one of my fave chapters in the manga. ♥ 😀 ~ True, the manga is better and this is somehow slow, but the quality is better than most and I’ll stick to this because I’m such an otaku. n__n

    Shii
    Reply

  16. AWESOME EPISODE!!!!!
    and next week episode is gonna be from earlier in the manga. So far in the anime, they finished 2 books. But the next episode goes back to the beginning of the first book, with that little kid.

    keith
    Reply

  17. HEY NEXT WEEK IS WHAT I THINK IT IS?
    we’re having FLASHBACKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    gosh I wanna se thr M_E face when he dicovers who Allen is I was just laughing at his face jajajaja but then…. Mana NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO *cries*

    RickaZ
    Reply

  20. Yeah, I’ve been waiting for the next Arc for awhile but I was afraid they were going to jump back to the part them missed in volume one. It looks like I’m right about that one. Nothing personal, but I really hate Kanda and I was just waiting for them to finish up this mission.

    Likkun
    Reply

  21. I guess they did it for dramatic reasons, putting in Allen’s background story after a shorter story arch. The first episode is pretty similar to the next part, aswell.

    Just my opinion.

    As for the “bankai”, power upgrades is par for the course with “power quest” manga/anime. It’s not really anything new. Even adventure stories have a modicum of power increase, though there it’s usually more symbolic for character growth and less of a sudden burst.

    Vincent
    Reply

  23. Im really excited to watch this ep but something in WAY more excited about is the BLOOD+ DUB COMING ONTO CARTOONNETWORK

    ZOMG….BLOOD+ is getting dubbed and its coming on Carttonnetwork/ adult swim.
    Ive been reading up on it, theres no air date or time yet..but its deffintly coming on

    BLOOD+!!

    keith
    Reply

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