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「一眼一足」 (Ichigan Issoku)
“One Eye, One Leg”
Sometimes, ignorance truly is bliss. I say that because I came into this premiere of Kyokou Suiri having completely forgotten what the series was supposed to be out. I knew there was some girl who could talk to spirits, and some older boy, but even though I’d signed on as watching it on the preview, I forgot all the rest. Which turned out to be great, because the series of slight zags as compared to expectations that the premiere dished out worked great for me, even if they may not have worked as well on all of you.
Start with the meeting between Iwanaga Kotoko (Kitou Akari) and Sakuragawa Kurou (Miyano Mamoru). A lot of good dialogue, all of it leading us to believe that his girlfriend Yumihara Saki (Fukuen Misato) dumped him because he turned tail and ran from the kappa … only it was the kappa that was scared. That was a good little zag, even though the way he said it made me clue in on something there. Still, it changed the complexion of his character in the space of a few seconds, and that happened again when his arm got chomped off, it regrew with Wolverine speed, and he revealed his dark secret. Great misdirects, leading to a more interesting premiere than it easily could have been. That’s just good storytelling right there.
Which was aided by good acting. Kitou Akari hasn’t been around that long, but I can see why she keeps getting lead roles. If you need someone to be calm, collected, and cooly flirtatous in the middle of a crisis, she’s your gal! And, I mean, c’mon. Miyano Mamoru? Always a good thing. That’s an able lead pair, to say the least.
Other than that, all proceeded as expected, which is good for now. I think the next episode will be the major test of Kyokou Suiri for most people, because the status quo is liable to be different than this episode was. I won’t be blogging this further, but I will be watching it. Which means I’d better get out my only real complaint right now: the ED. They didn’t dance enough! As soon as I saw it I was expecting a Kekkai Sensen-type ED (season one, of course), but it was sorely lacking. What a gyp!!
So, minor complaints aside, it was pretty good. Hopefully it’ll continue as the season progresses.
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Preview
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ED Sequence
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ED: 「Last Dance」 by Miyano Mamoru
The plot demanded a romance from her to him, and it just happened. No build up, no substance. It didn’t work for me even as a comedic bit. My hope is that this story element doesn’t get a lot of focus in further episodes, because otherwise, this was a pretty good first episode for a mystery anime.
No buildup? No substance? well… No shit. She’s a seventeen year old girls that crushed on a cute guy. Sure her interest in him was initially grabbed by his indifference to injury or death when she first saw him but it was unlikely that the spirits started warning her about him until later, up until that point she was likely just a girl smitten stealing glances and gossip about a cute boy she kept seeing around the hospital.
you’re probably looking at it wrong then…
Kotoko is a treasure.
Source material’s author also wrote Zetsuen no Tempest. If you like what they wrote you’ll like this one.
Well, I wasn’t planning on watching this before, but now I have to.
Yeah, really like this 1st episode. Not too big on the details, but this
story has my interest for now. Let’s see what happen next…
Echo your disappointment on the ending! The song itself was good but I briefly got hyped we’d see something like Kekkai Sensen and then was disappointed it was mostly stills than actual dancing.
Based on the next episode preview, it looks like they changed the order of things from the manga and I think it’ll be an improvement for the adaptation. The manga starts off with a big arc early on but it has a lot more exposition and other issues since it was being adapted from a novel into manga form. I felt the manga’s best stories were more the smaller mysteries, like in the intro, and if the anime keeps adapting things well it could be a really enjoyable series.
The lack of buildup in romance was off-putting at first but I think it’s because the relationship won’t be as romantic. I think it’ll be more professional considering Kurou is apparently a monster!! But I think that leaves the room for romance to be built, or at least an interesting dynamic between the two. I think the ED didn’t have as much dancing as an indicator of how their relationship stands as of now, with further development of character relations I think the OP/ED will change to reflect that. All in all I’ve enjoyed the first episode and can’t wait to see what happens next!!
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