remm

Despite what the past two episodes led me to believe, the anime adaptation of what I consider to be one of the best phone conversations ever was very well handled. Due to how the set up for this episode had to change, thanks to the removal of Touma’s scenes, I had expected they would alter the conversation, but to my surprise, they didn’t.

Another thing I’m glad JC Staff didn’t change was the cameo of Heaven Canceller, him being another of the clearer tying points between Railgun and Index’s overall plot.

Saten’s power was shown as wind control, while the manga just showed her staring at her hands. This was most likely done to lengthen the scene, but I hope this doesn’t come back and bits JC Staff now that Saten will, apparently, be incorporated into the Index novels.

After much foreshadowing we are finally getting into the heavy part of the story.

This episode was full of plot points, quite a few of them throwing even more mystery into things (specially that final revel after the airport).

Hei finally shaved and cut his hair. Apparently he’s some kind of reverse Hercules because as soon as he lost that hair he went back to being unstoppable. After he dug out one of his costumes I thought he would wear the mask once again, but given how everyone and their mom know his face by now, it’s pretty much pointless.

Misaki has now gained some real significance to the story thanks to what she as uncovered, however still I can’t shake the feeling that she doesn’t belong anyware in the story.

The detective pair makes their surprise appearance and despite my lack of enthusiasm, they made a good gob helping Suou, even if this was probably their only appearance.

All Suou did in this episode was being sick, get pulled along by others and think of her mom. It didn’t bother me at all;  I guess I just don’t like her in the least, and having as little of her as possible just makes for a better episode.

Next episode Suou goes emo due to what her mother tells her. I suppose it’s understandable but a whole episode of her like that will be maddening. I hope Hei appears in front of her soon. Being love struck makes her less annoying than being emo after all.

This is, without a doubt, one of the best episodes I’ve ever seen.

Ever since the first episode I’ve found the yakuza that kept appearing curious, but I hadn’t actually expected one of them as a patient. The way Dr. Irabu acted on episode 1 when he was accompanying the trapezist really threw me of track.

The way Ino-san’s OCD manifests, combined with the fact that he’s a yakuza made all those outbursts hilarious. The fact that his girlfriend doesn’t really care that he’s a yakuza made me feel sympathy towards Ino, even knowing he’s a criminal and has probably done things that would make us wince at the mere thought.

The way all the previous stories are coming together was of particular interest and made decide that I need to rewatch this series in one sitting once it’s over (I have very little time to watch anime, so I rarely can give myself the luxury of rewatching anything).

One thing that I found odd was how Dr. Irabu suddenly started referencing his other patients; he hadn’t done it before so the fact that he started doing it from the get go was strange. Speaking of the Dr., he was much more proactive this time, with how he kept interrupting others, I wish he was like this more often, but I guess not all the patients’ conditions would allow it.

Next episode: the reporter finally makes his much anticipated appearance. I hope I get the time to watch it.

In this episode we have Tatsuro Ikeyama, a psychiatrist and classmate of Dr. Irabu, who suffers from OCD, which in his case manifests as realistic delusions.

I had expected a more bizarre history, given that the patient is a psychiatrist, but it turned out to be a fairly simple story and Ikeyama’s profession only serves to connect him to Dr. Irabu.

This is his case: he’s a chameleon, just as the episode itself put it. After marriage he tried to live up to the expectations of his father-in-law, an important doctor at the hospital-school Ikeyama works on, in doing so he left behind the things he enjoys, such as baseball. Now, he lives a monotone, boring life.

He is reaching his limit, can’t take it anymore, so the delusions begin. Dr. Irabu’s treatment, to vent the frustration he has accumulated, is the right one, just not focused well. Doing random hijinks may give him joy, but it won’t work. He has to vent in more reserved ways, such as simply watching a baseball game. This works because he doesn’t hate his life; he married because he loved his wife, not because he wanted an advantage at work. So, all he needs is to do the things he likes, even if that isn’t what his father-in-law expects, something both, his wife and kid can understand.

Next episode: a high school student with cell phone addiction. I’m interested in how Dr. Irabu handles the youngest patient so far.

J.C. staff did a very good job adapting this one, considerably better than last episode.
There was a very nice dose of the four main characters, it included Touma being cooler than he ever got to be in his own anime, and it even managed to include some action.
Saten-san’s character development starts here, where we can see her feeling powerless when things get serious and how much she wishes for an ability. So far we are well in course for one of the best phone call scenes I ever seen.
I understand they had to put extra scenes of the graviton guy getting bullied to increase the length of the episode, but these still felt unnecessary and were the most annoying parts.
What I can’t understand is why they are already giving so many clues for the solution of the Level Upper arc. That’s actually the title for next episode, but I believe the big revel for it will come around episode 11 or 12 so those clues seem out of place.

I don’t want to say it… ok, I do: I fucking called it, twice.
First Izanami turned out to be Yin, I don’t know why other didn’t notice this, given the clues, mainly the fact that they kept hiding her; there’s no other character from the first season that may have managed to survive and we are too far in the season to introduce a new mayor character.
Secondly, Suou finally went were I expected and developed a one sided crush on Hei. The set up was too obvious for the relationship to develop any other way. Next I expect they will get separated and she will angst trying to find him, forgetting entirely about her Shion, lest he suddenly appears out of nowhere and she remembers what she came to do.
The no drinking – no shooting deal was silly, although I’m glad we won’t be seeing Souo’s magical girl transformation for a while; at this point the studio was using it only to lengthen the episode and had become unbearable.
Norio’s mom managed to get herself killed way earlier that I had anticipated and her death only served to increase the drama in a sub plot that I frankly couldn’t care less. Suou barely even cared about the whole thing, what with her crush and all.

Next episode: Suou finally changes her clothes. The old ones must be stinking to high heaven by now.

Shinichi Bando is a third base baseball player and a long standing star in his team who has a case of the Yips. After a teammate suggests that he goes see a psychologist from a Hospital the media won’t know about he ends up in Dr. Irabu care.
The treatment consists of figuring out what’s causing the stress that manifests as his inability to throw under pressure. This is actually easy, he’s afraid of losing his position in the team, which he has maintained for 14 years, and he’s envious of the new rookie, Suzuki, raising popularity among girls.
Just like with episode’s 2 patient, Bando has to let go of these feelings, he must understand that Suzuki isn’t trying to throw him out of the team, he’s trying to be the best player he can be and that’s just what Bando should be doing, stop worrying about his position and instead to be a good player and help others who need his experience as a guide.
Dr. Irabu manifested most of the time as his glasses wearing version, being sarcastic and vocalizing what Bando is thinking, so he would realize how petty he’s being and to go help Suzuki. This was a magnificent use of the three faces of the Dr.; since neither the bear nor the child versions would have expressed correctly Bando’s thoughts and therefore would have being ineffective in pushing him towards his realization.

Next time: a Psychiatrist with OCD. I haven’t the slightest idea about how this micht turn out, so I’m very excited.

We start off with Misaka and Kuroko having a fight over how Misaka disregards the difficulty of being a member of Judgment; immediately afterwards she has the opportunity of proving she can do anything Kuroko can.
Seeing her utterly fail at anything she did served to remind us that despite her status as a level 5 she’s still a middle school student and rather inexperienced at life.
I didn’t understand why she jumped to conclusions about the bag; if it was a bomb Kotori would obviously be alarmed.
Essentially this episode was just a set up for the graviton storyline which will be take place next episode. The preview spoiled nicely who the graviton esper is, making me wonder why didn’t they just expose him the first time he shows up where he gets beat up by a pair of punks who play too many fighting games.

In this episode Hei and Mao explain that Suou’s illogical behavior comes from the fact that she doesn’t know how to be logical, which makes me wonder just what kind of sheltered life she had. Living for two years alongside a Contractor brother should have given her at least the idea of how to behave logically. This leads me to believe that Suou is subconsciously imitating the way Contractors behave, similar to Hei, but she’s just bad at it.
The introduction of the Okama’s wife keeps forcing us to draw comparations between his son and Nika. This probably is a set up for the way Suou will recover her emotions, so I’m dreading the future episodes more and more.
I wish they had been less obvious about haw “Izanami” is related to Hei and Yin, the only way I would be satisfied with this plot line is if it’s Amber inside that container, mostly because THAT’s unexpected and because she could instantly pull Hei out of his drinking problem.

It’s impossible to forget why Bakemonogatari is such a great show: character interaction, that is, conversations. Never before has any anime made me feel so entertained watching two people talking to each other, even when they talk about a radio show, it’s still griping. NisiOisiN is the most underappreciated writer of Japan at the moment; at least he is from my perspective.

This episode continues from where the second to last broadcast episode left out (episode 12, while called Tsubasa Cat Part 2, lacked the titular Cat-girl, so it doesn’t count). This time it’s all about Hanekawa, but we still get a couple of short skits with Mayoi and Senjogahara which, briefness aside, exposed nicely the personalities and relations of the cast. Senjogahara is a supporting girlfriend if I ever saw one, Senjogahara-fascination indeed.

Now, the main story revolves around the Meddlesome Cat making a come back after being temporally defeated by Shinobu. That’s the set up, but most of the episode is taken by a series of conversation between Hanekawa and Araragi, before and after the cat ears revel (I have to agree with Araragi, Hanekawa was made for cat ears).

I’m not complaining though, NisiOisiN’s genius shows with conversations and these are some of the best two sided talks  I’ve ever heard/read (most Senjogahara-Araragi interactions were one sided, since Araragi’s responses were almost entirely in his head). The way the subject changes from light to dramatic is a skill many writers try to master but most fail at.

If I’m forced to admit complaints about this episode it would have to be the webcast format. I understand that time constraints are SHAFT’s biggest worry and that they needed the extra time (delay included) to complete the greatness that resulted, but they should have used better video quality! Bandwidth be dammed!

The ED (Tsubasa Cat’s OP was omitted yet again) was the same Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari that we love, but this time it included many new Ueda Hajime illustrations, sadly a few were rather small and scrolled too fast trough the screen, so they were blurry… I have never before being as eager for a BD release as I am now.

Next episode: More Neko-Hanekawa… I’m going to go crazy from all this waiting.