Cinnamon Ass

Spoilers! Well, sort of. It is only the third episode, but I guess I wasn’t quite expecting this.

The actress Yui receives a death threat which is reported in the papers; her assistant Sayoko, an ex-resident of Ootomo, poses as Yui in the resultant tabloid frenzy, and secretly harbours dreams of acting on her own, quoting from Shakespeare’s Macbeth Act 1 Scene 1 - “Fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air” - as she longs to fly herself. Indeed, somewhat oddly, Maya (on another illicit visit to St Mary’s Church) tells Sayoko that she will, indeed, fly faster and farther than anyone.

Yui receives a ransom note after a performance that evening with a photograph of her and the man who helped her kill her brother, whom she apparently hated; however, her tormentor, who turns out to be the biker chick Rena, isn’t after her, but Sayoko. As Hayato grows ever more suspicious that Tatsuo Kagura is seeking vengeance, Sayoko transforms into a winged “monster” when Yui almost dies and wrenches her strange pendant away from her; Rena and her brother Tetsuro transform into the beasts we saw aiding the Skull Man, who is also present, and a massive battle ensues where the Skull Man is ultimately victorious. Kiriko, following a lead from the ransom note, manages to get a blurry photo of the Skull Man before Tetsurou knocks her out; Hayato rescues her from the building, but they leave Yui behind alive - although not for long, as the Skull Man shoots her while Sayoko’s blood drips from the ceiling onto her body.

I actually felt quite uncomfortable immediately after watching this. I don’t care if the Skull Man is an “anti-hero”; from the way he is presented thus far he’s basically an evil madman, and my sympathies certainly lie with Sayoko and Yui; I don’t know what she was supposed to have done to make her a target other than being a monster (as some have theorised based on the live-action prologue) but being a monster and being an evil monster are quite clearly two different things! It’s a damn sight more entertaining than Hayato and Kiriko bumbling around, that’s for sure, but I guess I felt a bit odd because I’d gained entertainment out of watching something really quite unpleasant. Fair most certainly is foul, is all I can say.

This is without doubt a good episode, and it slightly restores my faith in the way the show is being handled. I think once the story gathers a bit more pace and Hayato and Kiriko get closer to the truth the show will become more cohesive, but as it is the “investigative” portions of the show are a little mundane compared to even the more dramatic conversations between characters, let alone the tense action sequence we got here. All in good time, I suppose.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 13th, 2007 at 11:12 pm and is filed under The Skull Man. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.