November 25, 2004
Fantastic Children Episode 5 - Kokkuri Island
Thoma brings Chit and Helga to his "secret" island, Kokkuri, where he's made provision for hiding out. However, he grows increasingly fed up with Helga's total lethargy and general incapability, plus Chit's continual mollycoddling of her. When Chit runs off into the forests to get fruits for her, Helga is completely absorbed in her painting and fails to notice entirely, so Thoma ends up running into the forest after him, Helga following behind despite Thoma's repeated insistence that she'll just get in the way.
Meanwhile, on the mainland, Cooks continues to investigate the Children. The old man from the end of the last episode is brought to the police station but dies soon after, and is IDed as a man named Glass who went missing several years ago presumed dead. Video footage of him in custody shows his dead mother sitting beside him until she suddenly vanishes, which puzzles Cooks no end. A detective from the main branch, Alice Hollingsworth, turns up to get a report on his investigations, but there is none forthcoming - and someone appearing to be a grown-up Duma has raided Cooks' apartment looking for his research into a mysterious organisation named GED whose symbol was on the jumpsuit Glass was wearing.
And after all that I still don't think I've covered everything from this episode. If you've read any translations of the official website's blurb on the series you may well think you've been spoiled for the majority of the series (it tells you a lot about the nature of the Children and Helga), but it really appears as if there are even more things to be discovered. I'm also quite impressed with how they're playing out the relationship between Thoma, Chit and Helga at the moment - personally I'm just as fed up with Helga's typical quiet-girl schtick as Thoma and will be glad to see her grow some backbone if the end of this episode leads in the direction I hope it will. Maybe she'll even speak a bit!
I'm unbelievably enraptured by Fantastic Children at this point - I keep telling myself between episodes that it's not that great really, but each time I watch a new episode I grow more and more impressed. I just hope it doesn't all fall flat at some point.
Posted by BluWacky at November 25, 2004 12:02 AM | TrackBackNoooo~
This short of show, you don't need to be psyched into thinking it's good because it IS good!
It looks as if it has shitty production values but it's the details, plus the absolutely quality storyboarding. Oh the storyboarding...