Cinnamon Ass

We visit the planet Lolo, where Vanilla plans to take Chroniko to a newly opened theme park which not only features theme park rides but allows its visitors to use the clusters of memory eggs around the planet to call up the spirits of those long dead. However, Kaiba himself is distracted by the appearance of a mysterious, ham-fisted man named Gel, to whom he is strangely drawn, and the two bond further once Kaiba finds out that there is a woman inside Gel (who also seems to know who Warp is…). After eating dinner with a kindly old man and his wife, a travelling singer, the two of them grow even closer and almost act on their mutual attraction - however, a legendary Kaiba plant appears and devours the old woman’s memories, regurgitating the fact that she’s been having an affair behind her husband’s back. The old man and his now comatose wife leave Lolo, and Gel departs too - and turns out to be someone very familiar. And need I mention that the police force are tracking Vanilla’s somewhat unorthodox activities - and aren’t very happy about them?

I went to work this morning thinking about Kaiba. I spent part of my lunch break mulling over what exactly could be going on. I’ve been trying to think constructively how to write this entry without going on and on and on. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I think with this episode Kaiba really hits a high point - it’s the perfect blend of the somewhat simplistic morality tales that have driven the show for a couple of episodes with hints about the rather intriguing overarching plot, all wrapped up in delicious animation goodness. Yum.

Speaking of animation, I suspect it’s just my brain retroactively trying to find something to comment about but I felt that this episode came across more “Western” than some of the previous ones. I know that the animation was directed by an American, Jamie Vickers, and I’m not sure whether I’m just trying to look for things that aren’t there, but the movement (particularly of Vanilla) in this episode felt very much more “cartoon-like” than, say, episode 5’s clearly Oriental style. As I say, though, I’m probably making stuff up to fit the facts.

I’ll have more to talk about once I write up the next episode (which is a real doozy).

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 10:50 pm and is filed under Kaiba. 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.