Friday, June 30, 2006

Higurashi ramblings part two


Higurashi no naku koro ni 13/26

Well, more wtfs, I know I have pieces of a puzzle here I just can't put them together.
Piece one: Takano and Tomitake
Takano knows about the Mion yakuza family, and she knows they are using Oyashiro's curse to cover their tracks and commit murders.
When she meets Keiichi in the rain, it is OBVIOUS both of them have just committed murder, or what feels like murder.
"Did you make sure the corpse was buried properly?"
"We never met tonight."
I'm assuming Takano killed Tomitake, had Tomitake's bike in her car, and had Tomitake's body in her trunk, used false dental records to falsify her death to pretend it was Oyashiro's curse.
She came there for the sole purpose of pulling the murder off in the context of "creepy town atmosphere," having herself as the "death" and Tomitake as the disappearance.

Piece two: Rika
Rika seems to be rather sane and rather apart from all the madness, yet she dies anyway.
I think of Rika is a sacrifice.
I am not sure what killed her in arc three, though it turned Satoko against Keiichi.
In arc two she stabbed herself in the head, possibly to appease psycho demon Oyashiro Mion to let Keiichi live.
Rika is also probably never possessed.

Piece three: Satoshi
Satoko's brother was probably very similar to Keiichi.
He and Shion were in a relationship most likely from the amount of fanarts out there and her rage at hearing the words "transferred out."
Mion was also most likely jealous.
He is also most likely dead from the opening scene of episode 9.
Nails impaled in his hands and intestines hanging out would indicate that psycho Mion from arc 2 got her hands on him.
Keiichi's guess that Satoshi killed Satoko's aunt is probably correct, but I think instead of the bat he offered himself as a sacrifice to Oyashiro.
From arc one it is also implied he was at some point possessed.

Piece four: Rena
Both Rena and Satoshi were at some point possessed by Oyashiro.
This is mentioned in arc one while Keiichi is feigning sleep.
Only Rena managed to return alive.
I think that the first arc is Keiichi being possessed and that Rena was perfectly sane.
Arc three Rena has relatively few scenes.
She gets angry for suggesting once that it is not Oyashiro's curse (she probably experienced it first hand in her past at the school of broken glass), and she has a very weird grin in episode 13 when saying "Yeah I'll ask you for your clinic receipt."
Arc two Rena is curiously strong.
She says she will never "go away," when Keiichi breaks down when Rika disappears and she is with Keiichi when they confront psycho Mion together.
My opinion currently of Rena is that when she left the town she was possessed in the school of broken glass, seeing completely fucked up shit akin to Keiichi in arc one.
She managed to come back alive from the ordeal somewhat stronger, and the Rena we see is a survivor.

Piece five: Mion
Even though she flat out denies it in arc three, Mion IS the inheritor of a Yakuza clan.
She is also half demon.
It is obvious that she can get genuinely violent through just her demon self alone, I believe she is the only one who when not under Oyashiro's influence is still a very dangerous individual.
Still, I think that Mion in arc one when her eyes go crazy is Keiichi's hallucinations of both her and Rena.
However Mion getting angry when Keiichi accused her while swinging the bat is normal scary Mion (demon showing a bit).
Mion in arc two is her demon self, triggered from Keiichi giving the doll to Rena, probably combined with some Oyashiro posession also.
Mion in arc three is Mion with her demon self never having triggered, thus she denies her Yakuza involvement, and rather is a picture of perfect calm.

Piece six: Satoko
Satoko seems to have a pretty rough life after breaking the hand off the Oyashiro statue.
Her parents fell off a waterfall, her brother is probably dead by Mion's hand or possession insanity, her uncle and aunt beat her.
Has Satoko ever been possessed?
Now there's a quandary...I don't think so, I think people around her have been, and so, as a side effect it has made her extremely unstable. (Her brother, Keiichi)
In the end seeing Keiichi holding the axe near Rika's body snapped what little little trust she had in her world, it's a pity.

Piece seven: Keiichi
Ah Keiichi, how far we've come along.
Anyway, first things first.
At this stage I believe the entire first four episodes to be Keiichi being possessed by Oyashiro and hallucinating.
In the flashback of Satoko breaking the Oyashiro statue's hand, there IS a !chibi! Keiichi next to Rika.
Meaning he had lived in the town before and has forgotten on his return.
In Rena's words, deserving of Oyashiro posession because he "tried to run away." (Rena tried to run away herself, if you remember, and her posession when she broke all the windows in the her new school and beat up her classmates was the result.)
Keiichi in arc two I think is sane, batshit Mion has enough insanity for the entire rest of the cast in that arc.
Arc three is a problem.
Keiichi actually survives the entire ordeal (no crazy last minute psycho undead Mion showing up or is it leaving the viewer in suspense) and his actions completely originated from within himself ("I want to protect Satoko") instead of reacting to perceived threats. (Like psycho Rena/Mions)
However, Keiichi also shows some neurotic signs, as shown by his elaborate trap to kill Satoko's uncle which looks like it succeeds, the flashback to his student examinations revealing him to be very intelligent in respect to certain goals (cunning), his ability to hold his own against the four girls in games of all types.
The major problems that show up in this arc are the same ones that sort of felt thrown on at the end of arc two just to screw with you, that is, multiple identities.
In arc two, in the hospital, Ooshiro randomly throws out a "we found all their bodies, including Mion's, in the well," when you know that Mion just stabbed him in the stomach.
In arc three, ALL FOUR girls claim to have seen Keiichi at the festival, shooting a gun for stuffed dolls, eating ice cream, watching Rika's performance, when he most assuredly believes he was killing Satoko's uncle and burying his body and meeting Takano (who probably just killed Tomitake.)
The evidence is all there, the uncle's motorcycle was thrown into the lake, along with Satoshi's bat, the hole was dug according to the investigators.
But where is the body then, and who came back and beat Satoko after Keiichi supposedly killed him?
It seems to me that Oyashiro, instead of directly working against Keiichi by possession this time around, seemed to be something that he randomly controlled, by directing it against people he didn't like (like the ENTIRE town being raped by volcanic gas? geez)

That's it for now, I'm all out of analysis, and I'm avoiding the spoiler threads like mad.

All caught up

Well, I am officially caught up with all my anime.
Except one Ouran episode.
It came out while I was watching the others.
SUE ME!

Anyway:
The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi 13/14
It's funny how many people say Koizumi is HAADO GEI for Kyon-kun.
Anyway, next on Haruhi, the end of the world!

Utawareru Mono 11/26
Changes from the game, mainly time rearrangements and movement of events.
"Karura has joined the party!"
Seeing Karura animated is lot more <3 than reading about it.
The "Touka has joined the party!" message still has not appeared, even in episode 13's raws.
They better not delay it (What I mean by story changes), I want my Touka.
Plus, the start of Hakuoro trying to stay sane.

Ouran High School Host Club 11/26
"Reverse harem!"
Bwahahahaha, Nekozawa's little sister is too good.
Cute and hilarious.
I seriously thought Renge would be a one time joke but if this episode says anything it's that Renge rocks.
Yes I haven't seen 12, yes I know it's about evil Honey-san or something.
Stop nagging me :V

Higurashi will get its own post because of the length of the analysis.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Metal Wolf Chaos



Sometimes you HAVE to wonder how Japan views the USA.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Shakugan no Shana 22-24 END

I had a dirty little secret.
I never finished Shana because I heard all the meh things before I got to it.
Anyway, I made a deal with Lilyes that I'd finish the last three episodes of Shana if she finished the last three episodes of Fate Stay Night.

So here I am.
Hm, status quo endings are never good.
That and when you change too much of the novels.
Thing is, I think I would have preferred it if they had both DIED.
That would have been a real WOW WHAT THE FUCK for emotional impact.
I think it was the only way you could have saved the show.
But of course, they had a movie in production so there's NO way they could have done that.

Bah.
Whatever.
Lilyes I expect at least a post on your feelings on the ending of Fate Stay Night.
I know you're not an anime blog, nor do you even fake being one, but I'd like one still XD

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Random

Learned a new term today: "Anison."
Refers to anime song.
Like this one:
Now Playing: Hirano Aya (Suzumiya Haruhi) - GOD KNOWS - [03:18m of 04:39m/192Kbps/44KHz/6.39 Mb]

Going to start Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria soon if I can stop feeling sad over the deteoriation of my IaMP skills.

Friday, June 23, 2006

Ouran 10

Haruhi's dad is voiced by Koyasu.
That's just plain funny (Guess it fits? Sort of? I don't know Koyasu's just plain weird.)

Thursday, June 22, 2006

The Undeniable Awesomeness of Nagato Yuki

KyoAni's insistence on going out of order as some sort of joke at the fan's expense really doesn't make me angry anymore, as they've conveniently (coincidence I think not) saved all the ridiculously over-budget episodes for the season end to go out with a bang.
And what a bang it will be.
I know what episode 13-14 are about, no spoilers, but let's just say plot wise it's pretty huge.
But enough of KyoAni jerking us around, let's get to what this post is REALLY about.

Yuki.
Nagato.
3 year old space alien, android, glasses girl, no glasses girl, witch, hikkimori, gamer, guitarist, goddess.
Yuki is amazing, as she starts out literally as a super robot and just becomes more awesome.
She changes the most over the course of the novels, and there are some really nice moments (alternate universe Yuki in novel 4, even if it IS an alternate universe Yuki, is still Yuki) as she "evolves."

So...all Yuki screencaps!

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Ahoge Mobile


Couldn't resist.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Catching up

I had fallen way behind the previous week because of headaches, the head and general sluggishness.
So, it was time to...
Catch up on all the anime I missed (What a difficulty goal -_-)

Utawareru Mono up to 8:

Kamyu's voice is slightly annoying, but I like Kamyu, so I can live with it.
Bishewi is now on the good side, yay.
Hakuoro hates paperwork.
Still rocking along at its own leisurely pace, but well, no tactics game can be a game without lots and lots of battles, so unfortunately nothing peaceful can last forever.

The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi up to 9:
Kyoto Animation, continuing their rather silly ordering.
I find it rather easy to like every female more than Haruhi XD
The latest episode though was sort of quiet and muted; but it did do something to raise the my rating of Haruhi a little.
Still though when you see who she's competing with (Mikuru is a goddess, and Nagato...well you'll see), she still comes off as the most annoying of the three.
(Mumble mumble needs more Tsuruya also.)

Higurashi no naku koro ni up to 8:
Flat out craziness.
I'm left scrambling for theories to attempt to explain what is going on; evidentally arc three is where it all comes crashing down (as if it hasn't already).
Episode 7 is a horrible joke by Korean animators using animated gifs however, when Mion flips it's IMPOSSIBLE to take it seriously as it is so poorly animated as it made me bust out laughing.
Episode 8 is just screwed up shit.
Lol poor drm is emo over Shion still; granted I liked her too...Mion has to die.
Theory time:
1. Oyashiro is real. Highly likely. There is SOME sort of posession going on. Considering Rena from the first arc (prone to switching, bat shit evil) and Rena from the second arc (no switch inside her, a rather comforting presence for Keichi who has to face the new bitch queen, maybe clairvoyent though?), one has to say that something definitely happened to Rena in the first one.

2. Everyone is hopped up on drugs. I assume the syringe in the first arc is what made Keichi claw his own throat out, and the same with the photographer. The problem is if you start viewing everything as a hallucination, you're back to where you started (trust nothing, get nothing). For the sake of argument I'm going to assume that whenever Keichi sees a girl go crazy, it is happening. (One could argue that it's a hallucination, but who knows.)

So what are you left with? You are left with an entity called Oyashiro that seems to be able to posess the dead, posess a variety of people, and just generally protective of its secrets and evil or a demon or something.

You are also left with Mion, who is usually the main force behind a lot of the murders each arc and has the mafia on her side, who probably is half demon herself and has a demon side that is however still infused with Mion.
Meaning that yes, Mion can seem posessed without Oyashiro (When she gets very angry, but still it's just an evil Mion, still has feelings), and that yes, Oyashiro can posess Mion (Forgets everything even evil Mion cares about and is 10 times nuttier)

Fate Stay Night up to 21:
I agree with Allan here, episode 20 is pretty blah.
But when I look at how much I enjoyed 21, I can't say episode 20 didn't serve a purpose, and that was to set up 21.
I wonder if they(animators) will let Saber stay now, cause wow 21 was dramatic.
Shirou has theoretically died 4000000 times or something by now XD
Spoiler: Gilgamesh was pretty cool when he was young (Fate Hollow Atarxia)...wonder why he became such an asshole when he got older.

Ouran High School Host Club up to 8:
Wow, episode 8 was a real change of tone with the fight.
"You won't get any merits out of sleeping with me."
I have to really wonder about Kyouya-senpai in this episode...I still think he's awesome though.
Tamaki is the king of misunderstood dorks as always (lol this blindfold means you won't see it and earplugs mean you won't hear it!)

Thursday, June 01, 2006

I am...Jack's personality test.

Saw this on Mikare's, then on John's, decided to post my own.