Shounen Onmyouji Episode 2 - The Palace Burns at Twilight
Masahiro and Mokkun travel with Masahiro’s father to the palace of Fujiwara no Michinaga (the de facto ruler of Japan for much of the Heian era) concerning Masahiro commencing training as a proper onmyouji to combat the ayakashi. Whilst wandering the expansive gardens and wibbling on irrelevantly about their comraderie, Masahiro and Mokkun meet a noble woman who, somehow, can see Mokkun - rabu rabu-zura commences almost immediately, and she’s a bit wet but we’ll see how she turns out.
Mokkun makes an idiot of himself in front of Fujiwara no Yukinari (noted calligrapher!) before Masahiro starts his training; whilst fed up with the lame jobs he gets lumped with, his work is interrupted when the palace catches fire (funny, that). The fire weakens a kekkai,/i> that Abe no Seimei placed in the palace gardens, freeing an ayakashi he had trapped there; it heads straight for the love interest, whose name is Akiko; a rather nicely done action sequence ensues, and all is well once more, even if Mokkun and Masahiro are squabbling over Akiko.
I don’t know why I like this show. It’s nothing special at all, aside from the decent animation and direction, but there’s pretty much nothing to recommend it over any of the many other period fantasies this season. All of them have their own little niches, though; Ayakashi Ayashi is glacially slow but intriguing nonetheless, Irohanihoheto impenetrable but flashy, but Shounen Onmyouji is just pleasantly well done thus far. So I’ll tentatively be following this for a little while.
(also, I’ve had the OP stuck in my head for days now and it’s really pissing me off…)
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