An otaku of legendary reputation whose tastes foretell the rise and fall of anime series. Or not.
Episode 8 of Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae, “Neighbor”, starts off with a middle-aged woman just buying a bracelet from a home shopping channel.
A few days later when Yuzuki is coming back from school, she sees Kikuri chasing down a chihuahua dog. When Yuzuki picks up the dog, Kikuri demands it, saying that it would look delicious with some seasoning. While Yuzuki is bewildered, Yamawaro pleads her to get away from the seemingly silly girl.
Episode 8 of Shikabane Hime: Aka, “Tranquility”, begins with Makina still at it against Mitsuyoshi. She’s doing pretty well by taking full advantage of the fact that she currently doesn’t have a right arm. But Minai’s contract monk Shuuji wants to have all the credit, and doesn’t want Makina to defeat the shikabane when Keisei isn’t even around, so he orders Minai to destroy Mitsuyoshi. As Minai closes in for an attack, Mitsuyoshi proves that an attacker doesn’t actually have to land an attack for him to use his special ability: he stabs his own neck, which causes a stab wound in Minai’s neck and knocks her down.
The first half of episode 7 of Hyakko, “Hundredth year since meeting of fox and tiger”, starts off with Yanagi, the capitalist from episode 5, and Koma ready to enthusiastically take new pictures for the new season, as new demand is created with the switch to summer school uniforms. A bored friend of Yanagi’s comes across them, who has a really sinister-looking face but probably not so evil in reality, and he joins them to amuse himself. His name is Kitsune, which Koma finds to be an odd name, but Kitsune could say the same about hers.
Episode 7 of Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae 7, “Liar”, starts off with a new transfer student, Inuo Atsushi, to a neighboring class of Yuzuki’s. Outwardly, he seems to be a pretty great kid that soon becomes popular with everyone, with great manners and good at sports. The odd circumstances of his transfer, odd because he transferred during the last year of middle school, is explained by his sick mother. The mother had to move to the country to convalesce from an illness, and with his father unable to come because of work, Atsushi had to move schools and take care of his mother.
Episode 7 of Shikabane: Aka, “Soul of False Words”, starts off in a subway, where a group of teenagers are disruptively loud as someone is ominously typing words in a computer. And one of the words typed is that the author will administer justice against those who commit evil. This is soon borne out by actual action as a creepy young guy wearing glasses approaches the group of unruly teenagers that just got off the subway, and when one of them tries to punch the guy for being an annoyance, the attacking teenager instead ends up falling on the subway tracks. It’s real unfortunate for him, as he is promptly crushed by an arriving subway.
Episode 6 of Hyakko, “Tiger on both sides of three houses over there”, begins with Torako, Suzume, and Ayumi hurrying off somewhere when school ends. Tatsuki feels somewhat excluded, despite being annoyed by Torako the other times she was dragged somewhere, as she thinks to herself. Or actually, Nene narrating what Torako should be thinking, which annoys Tatsuki eventually.
It’s official now (actually a couple of weeks now, I’m a little slow on the update): Slayers Evolution-R will be broadcast on AT-X in January next year. We’ll finally get to see the other half of the plot started by Slayers Revolution. And the theme song single CD by Hayashibara Megumi has already been scheduled for sale, which is another thing to look forward to.
Episode 6 of Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae, “My Teacher”, starts off with a lone girl in a street connecting to the Jigoku Tsushin with her cellphone. Once connected, Kikuri appears and gives the girl an eyeball, obviously in reference to Ichimoku Ren. The episode then pans to the opening sequence.
At the beginning of episode 6 of Shikabane Hime: Aka, “At the End of the Demon Run”, as the traitorous monk’s exposition to Ouri is interrupted by Itsuki and Takamasa, the bald monk Honda and the other monk we saw in the first episode, Shirae Rinsen, are talking with the boss at Ouri’s part-time job. It’s no coincidence that the boss, Mibu Sadahiro, and his employee, Too’oka Akira, were an apparent shikabane hime and handler pair, since it turns out that he’s from the same graduating class as a monk as Keisei, along with one other monk who turned traitor.
The first half of Hyakko episode 5, “Meeting connection, tiger connection”, starts out with a boy creepily printing out pictures of some students at Kamizono High School. It’s all for the sake of satisfying a certain market that exists in the school: love-struck students who want photographs of those they have a crush on. A male friend of his is weirded out by how enthusiastic he is about free market capitalism and money, which is his justification for selling the photos. He even has a business associate in one of the lower grades, which happens to be Kobayashi Koma, the paparazzi girl. And to think I thought they may have been rivals …