The week-long delay for this post should hint at my feelings for it. On another note, I finally have an author blurb at the end of my posts~
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| It goes [Moloch >> Azazel = Beelzebub]. |
This batch contained the quite a few new characters (a demon, an angel, and a human, to be precise), and appearances from old ones (Undine!). As usual, I didn't find much of the scenes particularly gripping. At least the slapstick stayed consistent and all the characters stayed within their carefully crafted personalities.
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| This is what catfights are really like. |
Ep05 was about a man who came to the detective agency to flush out a spy within his company regarding their design entry for some Curry Mascot Competition of sorts. He wasn't looking for supernatural comeuppance, so Sakuma took care of him with minimal screen time from Akutabe. This part of the story was amusing; not only was the man (Fujisaki) a womanizing egoist, but he was also apparently a stupid drunk because he himself leaked the design everywhere (including the design agency that "stole" it). That was the only high point of this episode for me, ultimately.
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| Shoujo and Christianity both tell me angels = pretty boys. |
This episode introduced an angel and another demon. The angel, Sariel, is ironically not very angel-like at all, being holier-than-though but ultimately a coward (even though angels aren't supposed to interfere in everyday matters at all, he could stand to be less timid) and, from a shallow perspective, also looks like a lecherous stalker, at best. The demon introduced was Moloch of Violence, but he didn't do too much in this episode because the "story" rolled over onto the next.
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| Moloch imparts some wisdom. |
Ep06 picked up right where the previous episode ended, with Sariel showing up in the bar where Sakuma and her trio of demons were attempting to get their owed money out of Fujisaki. Ultimately, through some strange manoeuvring and stupidity on everyone's part, Sariel got his hands on Moloch's Grimoire (re: the book) and took it with him to heaven. (His small backpack contained some pretty magnificent wings...) This caused Moloch to die, which was pretty annoying considering I liked him as a character (along with Undine, he's one of my favourite demons). I do hope he ends up coming back; he's a part of the opening, after all. His power was never revealed; Azazel and Beelzebub just went to great lengths to keep him calm.
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| Spontaneous choreography, unlike in Loups=Garous. |
One of the jokes used in this episode was of shady business men singing pop songs in karaoke. It was mildly funny but, even more amusingly, I know it to be true. When Rho and I were visiting some family members in a rural-ish China, we got the chance to attend dinner with some police officers. They were pretty high up, including the daughter of the chief, and the men were mostly big and burly. After severe amounts of drinking, we went to karaoke. I'm sure the ending here writes itself.
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| So much blood... |
Ep07 was almost purely focused on Undine, who hasn't been seen for a few episodes. Her antics, portraying a crazed woman seeking love, made this episode for me. Otherwise, there was very little that happened. A new character - a young boy named Kotaro - was introduced, who made a contract with a demon in exchange for his memories of his grandfather. He seems to be an acquaintance of Akutabe's (or, rather, the grandchild of the acquaintance), and seems to also act much like him (plot point for later?). The episode centred around Undine taking Kotaro to school on his first day (for registration) and subsequently falling in love with the teacher Himoi.
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| The punks won the war?! |
Ep08 continued the story of Undine and Kotaro, as his first day at middle school commenced and she stuck around for Himoi, the pretty boy teacher/superstar with some seriously questionable ethics. In her classic nature, Undine secretly followed him around, cursing all the women that showed interest in him, and finally snapped to turn the school into a post-apocalyptic slavery scene. It was nice to see Kotaro exhibit behaviour becoming of Akutabe; despite realizing that he had messed up by taking away the memories of Himoi in a petty matter at the end of the previous episode, he made peace with his conscience immediately and Gusion (his monkey demon) ended up not only the memories of all those at school but also Himoi the Fish.
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| If only that was what she really said... |
I've become quite disappointed with the subs I've been using, WhyNot. It was already difficult to overlook several suspicious typos (like turning "Fujisaki" into "Figisaki" near the end of ep05 and "Undine" into "Anrai" in one line of ep08), but this really takes the cake. I don't know whether to blame attempts at localization (a concept that bothers me to begin with), but these subs hardly match what was actually said. I caught the nurse stating, "Ano toki [wo] mitai ni mucha kucha nishite," which I roughly translated to, "Let's do it like that day," or something of that nature. The most important part is that it referred to a previous time they did it, not what "mucha kucha nishite" means. How is the above line an acceptable translation? Sigh.
Disclaimer: My weak Japanese continues to grow weaker with each passing day. I'm not sure if I heard "wo" or not in that sentence, but I thought I was missing a participle.
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| The previously unseen and unheard of demon Anrai! |
In the end, this anime is really still not growing on me. There's nothing I specifically like about it, so it's hard to truly be interested in the episodes. At least I truly like Undine (and Moloch, but he seems dead), so some of the episodes (like eps07-08 in this batch) are more watchable. I'm trying to keep an open mind, but it's pretty hard to judge whether the jokes are funny or not when I don't like the anime as a package. At any rate, the episodes do seem to be getting stronger and stronger as the cast of characters is solidifying. I hope Moloch makes a mysterious comeback.
~Aaro
