January 14th, 2006
Ah, the joys of long shounen anime with filler episodes. There is nothing particularly interesting to say about this episode except that we get Sven in a dress and Kyouko develops a rather amusing crush on Train. And the Tao Yoghurt Drinking Freak of the Week is a giant man with an afro who bursts out of the ground in totally implausible ways, but hey, it’s brainless fun.
Someone recently pointed out that Black Cat doesn’t often show people talking in order to cut down on the animation budget, and now I keep noticing it! The first few minutes of this episode (post-OP) featured very little animation at all, but it still looked quite stylish so that didn’t exactly bother me that much.
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January 5th, 2006
Half a year has past, and Train has found himself a coat with donuts attached to it and turned scarily genki as he goes a-bounty hunting with Eve and Sven. Their current target - Igor Planetr. Guess what? He gardens! Oh ho ho, the puns do crack me up.
Anyway, Igor is the target of some mysterious Tao users force-feeding people magic drinks - sometimes they kill the consumer, other people cope just fine. Rinslet is enlisted by Chronos to track them down, and bumps into Train and co. Eve gets it into her head to confront Igor on her own, and it takes all four of them together to beat him when he turns out to be a little more psychotic than your average botanist and drinks the Tao drink.
The end of this episode was really odd. It just seemed to happen because they had to end the episode; the entire tension of the battle just seemed to whoosh away somehow. ’twas very odd. Furthermore, while I don’t object to Train being a standard shounen hero now (what with the chirpiness and insatiable appetite), it did come a little bit out of nowhere (aside from the OP), and I really think the Donut Coat is a bad move clothing-wise. Ah well, you can’t win ‘em all, can you?
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December 19th, 2005
Sven and Eve rescue Train from being burnt alive after his fight with Creed (which we don’t really get to see any of; methinks Something Fishy May Have Happened) and he convalesces in their hideout. His hostility towards his saviours is short-lived, however, as Eve comes into danger from Chronos once more as the playboy Kazuki-from-Getbackers-knockoff Jenos comes after her in Train’s stead.
Ah, cheesy non-TV-Tokyo-shounen adaptations, how do I love thee? I can’t think of anything even vaguely intelligent to say about this episode; it’s utterly cliche and yet still a lot of fun and well made enough that I don’t care. It’s got a very similar to vibe to Getbackers, really, except with less gay and a bit less comedy, and those are both absolutely fine by me!
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December 10th, 2005
If you’re spoiler sensitive and haven’t watched the first episode, do not read this entry.
So, the inevitable finally happens - Saya bites the big one in a rather stylishly done non-fight with Creed (may I re-iterate once more how much I love Black Cat’s direction?). She does save some children, though, and her sacrifice is obviously not in vain as it’s the final straw that breaks Train’s back as he prepares to go up against Creed, who is preparing some kind of strange agenda of his own against Chronos and the Numbers with the aid of a bug using friend of his (how very ROD). Meanwhile, Sven and co are on the move as people come looking for them, but they don’t really have much to do with anything really.
So long, then, Saya. You were only mildly annoying as far as overly perky anime women go, and you could at least hold your own in a fight. Plus you DID save some children, so that must count for something! I still don’t see quite how the anime’s going to handle the change from moody Train to perkier Train once all this angst and depression is dealt with given the tone of the manga, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
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November 17th, 2005
Again, another show I watched ages ago and just never got around to blogging. Train decides to stop working for Chronos this episode, but this pisses off his scarily gay partner Creed and his immediate superior, who is a woman with a sword whose name I really can’t remember. Meanwhile, Sven and co… sat around waiting for Sven to get better, basically. And Saya had DOOMED written all over her.
I love my fuzzy recollections, I really do. As usual, a good episode, obviously (even if the old guy that runs Chronos looks very much like Dornkirk…) but I really can’t think of anything to say about it. Sorry!
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