December 30th, 2004
Tsuna gets a job to investigate the recent stories of dead spirits infiltrating static snow on television - Hikaru’s interest stems from seeing her brother in the middle of the weather report. Hikaru explores the cemetary at the base of one of the Tower’s legs (I didn’t see that, although we didn’t exactly explore that carefully, it cost too much to go in!) before going up the tower and spying Raikou through a telescope. Both she and Kintarou (who tags along for the ride) end up dropping through a “gap in time” in Shiba Park, where Kintarou starts hitting on a little girl who fell through it aaaages ago (whose brother looked just like Kintarou). The brother ends up reunited with his sister, and all ends well.
Filler-tastic, but strangely interesting despite it all. In some ways the Tokyo arc’s strengths are the inverse of the Heian arc - the Tokyo arc has quite a good storyline in my opinion compared to the Heian arc’s predictability, but the writing and characterisation just isn’t as good - Hikaru, while far from being dull, isn’t quite as intriguingly complex as her Heian era counterpart, and Tsuna becomes more of a comic foil with each episode. Plus whatever happened to Urabe and Sadamitsu? Although the less we see of Sadamitsu in his pimp get-up the better, methinks. As I’ve said before I’m not as down on the Tokyo arc of Otogizoushi as most people seem to be, but I’m still reserving judgement for now.
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November 25th, 2004
Tsuna is unconvinced by the photos Hikaru found last episode, but she continues to rely on them for clues to Raikou’s whereabouts. She follows one to some homeless people who show her to an abandoned shrine in the subways beneath Shinjuku Park, but who should she meet but the mysterious red-haired man in a coat again, who is doing crazy things to the water levels. After he transports her to a mysterious shrine he uses Hikaru’s pendant to awaken some spirits around a statue of Genbu and leaves her to drown, but Tsuna comes to the rescue in the nick of time.
After my concerns about this arc from the first episode, I was rather pleasantly surprised this time round. I think I still preferred the old characterisations in some ways, particularly Urabe’s, but the mysteries and strange goings-on in Tokyo are quite intriguing, and generally the animation still looks pretty good. One does have to wonder whether tie in to the Heian arc, or if everything will stand alone but with similar characters. We shall have to wait and see.
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November 19th, 2004
OP2 - Ashita wa Kyou to Onaji Mirai (Gomez the Hitman) - cheesetastic alt-pop song with lip-synch animation and none of the immediate grab of the old visuals, but since it’s halfway through the series it doesn’t matter so much and it’s pleasant enough.
ED2 - Cry Baby (Chieko Kawabe) - wow, even cheesier angsty pop song from the same artists as the first ED, with some watercolours of Coat Man and Hikaru sporting miniscule heads and enormous bodies. Hurray for proportion!
Present-day Tokyo. Hikaru is a girl acting as the landlady of Minamoto Heights, an apartment block, wherein lives the mysterious Urabe, the young Kintarou, the reporter Tsuna and Sadamitsu (who just looks like some kind of male slut, unfortunately). Her brother Raikou went missing a year ago, and she wears a red pendant that glows when weird things happen. Whilst reporting on a “phantom train” on the Yamanote Line, she sees her brother riding in it, and decides to investigate further - but when she finally catches up with the train where it stops and sees her brother on board, she is stopped by a mysterious man in a trenchcoat - and the train tracks glow green in the wake of the phantom train, forming a yin-yang symbol around Tokyo.
Well, it’s a very different start to the second season of Otogizoushi, although it relies very much on our prior knowledge of the characters to give them some sort of character. I am extremely disturbed not only by Sadamitsu’s bizarre taste in outfits, but Tsuna’s blatant steroid abuse in the centuries since the Heian era! The first episode of the Tokyo arc is interesting, although not as gripping as the first episode of the Heian arc perhaps, and I think we can expect a much slower pace overall, but so far so promising.
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November 19th, 2004
Hikaru is face to face with “Seimei”, and she’s not too chuffed. He’s big on the whole “recreate the capital with my magical apocalypse” thing, which Hikaru surprisingly enough disagrees with, but all her efforts on the offensive are for naught as he continues to destroy the capital. There’s a whole lot of weeping and all appears lost until Hikaru comes up with one last trump card to appeal to Seimei’s emotional side which brings a tragic yet also happy end to his scheming, and we end the Heian arc with a cheese-tastic montage.
Forgive the flippancy of this recap, but I’ve thoroughly spoiled myself for this episode before now and, let’s face it, it’s very very cheesy. But nonetheless it’s a solid ending for what’s been a solid show up to this point. Let’s see if the Tokyo arc carries on the quality for another 13 episodes!
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November 19th, 2004
Hikaru’s band of merry men make their final charge to attempt to stop Seimei as he awakens more of the pillars. All (at least potentially) sacrifice themselves so that Hikaru can finally get close to Seimei - and guess who it really is…
Well, it’s bleeding obvious really. Cliffhanger time, everyone! See you in about half an hour once I’ve watched the last episode of the Heian arc…
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