Darker than Black: Ryūsei no Gemini
The story of Darker than Black: Ryūsei no Gemini begins several years after the epilogue of its prequel, Darker than Black. It is centered around one Suou Pavlichenko, a mostly ordinary teenage girl who lives with her father and twin brother, who got turned into a contractor two years earlier when he got hit by a falling comet. Her ordinary life is suddenly upturned one day when it seems that every intelligence agency in the world wants a piece of her, and she gets dragged off by Hei, the now even more apathetic main character of the prequel.
Eden of the East: The King of Eden
I just had the good fortune to watch in a theater the first movie for Eden of the East, The King of Eden. It continues the story from the end of the television series, and the movie starts with Saki having arrived in New York City in search of Takizawa. I might have started out dubious with how New Yorkers were driven to full panic mode because of a dinky little pistol, but it immediately made sense when an arsenal was revealed: I needn’t have worried about the animation studio suddenly losing touch with reality.
The movie had many of the elements that made up the television series, so you’ll want to watch it if you liked the television series (on the flip side, if you didn’t like the television series, then I don’t see how you could enjoy the movie). The Eden of the East people trying to figure out just what the heck is going on, Selecaos trying to outsmart each other, Saki getting dragged around confusedly, the situationally inappropriate but still amusing humor, …: these all appear in the movie. No hordes of naked guys, though.
The movie also reveals more hints about Juiz and the Selecao game, and the rate of revelation makes it feel like all the major secrets will indeed be revealed in the next movie (so it won’t feel like they come out of nowhere, or worse yet, not revealed at all). Lasting 82 minutes, The King of Eden concludes at the end of a subplot, but this time the ending is also an outright cliffhanger. Personally, I greatly enjoyed the movie, and I look forward to the next and concluding movie for Eden of the East, Paradise Lost.
Non-plans and plans
I had previously toned down the amount of anime blogging I did because of lack of free time. Now that I have more free time, one would think that I would be blogging about anime like mad. Oddly enough, the increase in free time has only made me suspend my anime blogging for the past month. There were a lot of things that I had been putting off because of the lack of free time, and once I got some, I have been doing so many other things that I’ve been neglecting anime, much less blogging about anime. On top of that, it’s not as if I have oodles of free time, just more than I used to compared to the later months of the previous year. The anime blogging hiatus was totally unplanned, though.
Things are more under control now, so unlike my previous lack of planning, I plan to resume my anime blogging. I’ve got to write my review article for Umineko no Naku Koro ni and actually finish watching Darker than Black: Ryusei no Gemini. I also need to catch up a lot with the currently airing anime. I think I will be blogging about Dance in the Vampire Bund and Ookami Kakushi, although not with the excruciating detail I did for Umineko no Naku Koro ni. It’s not just to save time, but also because they don’t look like the sort of anime where every little thing might be a huge clue to something.
Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya trailer
A trailer for the upcoming Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya movie is now available. As someone who has read the novels, I feel duty-bound to reveal what is happening in each scene of the trailer.
Timeline for Umineko no Naku Koro ni IV
Continuing the tradition of setting up a timeline as I did for the first arc, second arc, and third arc, here is a timeline for the fourth arc of Umineko no Naku Koro ni. As always, it is based on what was shown on screen, which cannot be trusted. In fact, certain red truths make it clear that some of the events described in the timeline could not have happened, at least in a literal sense. This story arc is very different from the others in that almost all of the significant events in the real world occurred in the first day.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni IV-VIII
Episode IV-VIII of Umineko no Naku Koro ni, “sacrifice”, starts out in the Golden Land where Beatrice and Maria intend to hang out forever. The suspension of the game does not sit well with Ange, however, so she shows up to convince them otherwise. Interestingly, Beatrice does not seem to be quite sure how Ange got into the Golden Land. Maria is quite content to stay with Beatrice in the Golden Land where all her wishes can come true. Ange begs to differ.
Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~
Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ is a story about assassins and what they kill for. It starts out with a young man who should have been eliminated as a witness to an assassination but instead had his memory erased and recruited as an assassin with great potential. I totally failed to foresee how it would end with the protagonist bloodily conquering the entire criminal underworld with his killer harem, though.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni IV-VII
Episode IV-VII of Umineko no Naku Koro ni, “forced move”, begins at the Rokkenjima of October, 1998 with the arrival of Ange and Amakusa on Kawabata’s boat. While still en route, we get to eavesdrop on some interesting revelations. It turns out that there is a secret dock on the island besides the official one we have already seen. A surprisingly large number of people are known to have known about it: Kinzo, Genji, those who worked on the boat, Nanjo, and other servants, among them being Kumasawa.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni IV-VI
Episode IV-VI of Umineko no Naku Koro ni, “adjourn”, begins in the underground dungeon of the Quadorian. With the three goat servants watching the prisoners having been summoned by Gaap, it’s a chance for the prisoners to escape. The prison cell isn’t so flimsy that the prisoners can just shake the bars loose, however, and apparently none of them have lock picking skills, so there is no escape through realistic means. But the bars are no obstacle to Kanon’s magic power: when the others are shocked at what just happened, Kanon and Shannon simply declare that they are human.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni IV-V
Episode IV-V of Umineko no Naku Koro ni, “breakthrough”, begins in 1998 on the island of Niijima, where Ange is investigating certain aspects of the Rokkenjima incident. Her first stop is the Nanjo Clinic, operated by the son of Nanjo Terumasa. Of particular interest is a letter with the Ushiromiya seal, which was supposedly sent to Nanjo Terumasa by the son Nanjo Masayuki on October 3, 1986, right before the Rokkenjima incident. The receiving address was fake and the letter was returned to the son about a week later: it was a roundabout way of sending the letter to the son.
