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「勘弁しろし BASARA BOY KAMU」 (Kanben Shiroshi BASARA BOY KAMUI)
“Give Me a Break – Basara Boy Kamui”
What Yuto is to Rokuro, Kamui is to Benio.
Cooking Gags
The first part of this episode is an interesting object lesson. While the cooking stuff ultimately led to an emotionally resonant moment (or at least attempted to be one, YMMV on these things), the gags that led up to it felt overly long while I was watching them. Those parts felt like two minutes worth of gags stretched into five minutes. Which is rough, right? The studio clearly felt this was buildup that needed to happen to make the end work, and they probably knew they had more airtime than they needed (hence the overly long pre-OP summary once again), but it didn’t work particularly well in the moment. And three minutes is too short to pull in content from elsewhere.
I’m not sure I have a particular point here. You might even have enjoyed the cooking gags enough to have no complaints. It does show the difficulty of balancing buildup for future payoffs with enjoyment value in the now, especially when your runtime is constrained by factors other than the needs of the narrative. I can sympathize.
Family
Ever since Yuto arrived on the scene, it’s felt like Benio’s been taking a backseat to Rokuro. Not so much that it feels like a blunder, much less sexist or anything like that (sexism exists, but I damn well ain’t gonna ding Sousei no Onmyouji for it when there are harem shows to take to task—and I enjoy those anyway, ’cause I’m a ridiculous human being, so yeah), but there has been a lack of impetus on the Benio front. She’s wanted to get stronger for less concrete reasons, without as clear of a goal as Rokuro, and everyone’s always talking about how Rokuro is so special. Now, at least, that problem is partially solved. And it didn’t even take long, so good on Sousei no Onmyouji.
Kamui (Ono Yuuki) is to Benio what Yuto is to Rokuro. A sentient, talking kegare gives me hope for kegare as enemies, but more importantly the murderer of Benio’s parents is sure to push her buttons. Obviously. Plus, bonus points for Kamui throwing out a “But for me, it was Tuesday” moment (trope!). I highly suggest watching that movie, by the way. Most of it is drivel, but Raúl Juliá chewing the scenery (trope!) is bloody magnificent. But I digress.
Even beyond a new promising antagonist, what I most appreciated was the theme of family. Benio lost hers, and is consumed by a need to avenge them, which is sure to work out well for her *sarcasm*. Yet that loss is real. Then appears Rokuro, saving her in the nick of time and talking about their promise to eat together, and Benio is stunned. It occurs to me that, for the orphaned Benio and the orphan Rokuro, the desire for family is a driving factor in both of their lives. They have family-like relationships (Ryougo, Kinako, that old woman), but a true family? No. They might end up deciding to make one for themselves.
tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – Benio’s arch nemesis appears, and nearly kills her. Luckily Rokuro saves the day, and preserves their fledgling family #sousei 12
Random thoughts:
- I’ve actually made oyakodon a couple of times. It’s really good. Highly suggested!
- Ten bucks says they live because of a deus ex perverted underpants guy. That scene was flagrant foreshadowing if I’ve ever seen it.
- FYI: next episode will almost certainly be the last episode of Sousei no Onmyouji that I blog, even if it continues after that. Or that’s what I was originally going to say, but I read in a few places that there might not be an episode next week, in which case this might be the last one. We’ll see what happens/how I feel.
My first novel, Wage Slave Rebellion, is available now. (More info—now in paperback!) Sign up for my email list for a FREE sequel novella. Over at stephenwgee.com, the last four posts: I love sales jobs, Good realism is character realism, Dying idols, and Frictionless routines.
Full-length images: 32.
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I think you really should make certain to blog the next episode at least, as (unless they change it drastically from the source) it will introduce one of the fundamental aspects of the twin star exorcists that will significantly shift the balance of things in the series.
One of the problems with the blog format is that it seems (at least here) that you either blog every episode, or you just mention it as part of the monthly summaries. For a series like this you might want something in-between – perhaps a blog entry for each 2-3 episode arc with pictures covering the highlights rather than trying to keep everything neatly tied to a particular episode. Just my .02 anyway…
Well, we don’t do the monthly summaries anymore, so there’s really just weekly or intro/finale posts. That aside, we’ve done things like that before, but I’m not personally a fan. It wrecks with my schedule to be blogging a show some weeks but not others.
Mostly this one just isn’t panning out as well as I hoped + I didn’t sign up for blogging a four-cour series + I’m hyper busy, so coverage isn’t getting renewed for the new season.
Can’t blame you. From a blogging standpoint it’s pretty slow. Things are happening but a lot of things aren’t. It will hopefully pick up once we’re past all the introductions and setup but there’s really not anything to blog about right now.
Well, this explains a lot of things: I was wondering why in the hell there were completely random and useless fillers so early in the series, but if it was already decided there would be 50 episodes, everything make sens now…
I think they shouldn’t have gone into the comic route through said fillers, making the protagonists feel more silly than it should be: I prefer the manga in which things are a bit darker and serious (not that there aren’t comic relief parts too of course).
That said, I’m still watching and hoping for the best! (especially hoping for more consistent drawing and animation please…).
The first (mostly) canon episode in almost a month, and they stuff it with a pointless 2 minute recap of last week’s filler just to stretch… Okay now that’s just insulting. Also I’m sure I’m already beating a dead horse here, but this episode could’ve… well frankly, should’ve happened 2 months ago. Pushing Kamui’s intro this far back added nothing of value to the anime.
I keep watching because of Benio. And the action is good too. I just wish Rokuro’s “shark boy” design was better…
https://randomc.net/image/Sousei%20no%20Onmyouji/Sousei%20no%20Onmyouji%20-%2012%20-%20Large%2010.jpg
Hopefully next episode will be a good wrap-up for the fight.
Seeing Benio cry, made me start crying too. :´(
why stop Sousei no Onmyouji.
I explained it several times, but to recap: uneven implementation of source material has led to a serviceable but not outstanding anime, which could have been fine if it was one or two cours, but since it’s four cours (an entire year), and I have three jobs at the moment (not counting blogging at RandomC), I don’t have the time to cover a show I’m not loving for so long.
Hi I’m Peter , I love this anime and would like to know is when they put the pictures of the upcoming episodes? Only that a greeting from Argentina 🙂
Don´t stop blogging this please!!!
Sorry, already did. It’s been over a month at this point, so that ship has sailed.