badger11’s take on anime

I guess it isn’t a good idea to listen to Lisa Gerrard’s The Mirror Pool before watching this episode. And Mozart’s Requiem. Wow, this was a painful episode to watch. Poor Nayuki, having the only person constant in her life suddenly removed, it’s not surprising that she pretty much just shuts down. And what a prefect time for Yuuichi to remember that he knocked the snow bunny down that she made for him. Even though she told him it was in the past when he apologized, it still isn’t, otherwise she wouldn’t have asked if the snow bunny she made at school reminded him of something. Of course, that’s a minor issue now that Akiko is in the hospital. I’m not really surprised that Akiko wound up injured. Sayuri was also a secondary character and she wound up being attacked. But it was a sudden development and more serious than I thought. I had thought that the illness she had a few episodes back was going to return in a stronger form. I just didn’t expect the car accident. Still, it was painful to watch Nayuki suffer, especially after becoming accustomed to her endearing sleepy and upbeat persona’s.

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Hey, wow, Taiko falls in love. Hard in love. The team gets lead to a plaza in Akihabara where a group calling itself Shuyuukai (Commitee of Concern for Akiba’s Future) and lead by Akada Shunichiro. Akada starts to deliver a speech concerning who being a withdrawn otaku is wrong. As he’s delivering his speech, an all-girl band interrupts his speech with their particular brand of emo death punk music. Akada tries to appeal to the band to let him finish. Kaira, the leader of the band ignores his please of gaining understanding through talking, Akada’s group is forced to back down. As the band plays, Taiko becomes attracted to Kaira as she sings.

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Ya know, every time I see Primula, I think of the tasty Norwegian cheese spread and the even tastier Norwegian mayonnaise that I grew up on.

I suppose its because this version of the show is more of clip job that we don’t see any new material. Too bad. Its like watching a Quentin Tarantino film on a television network. You know the network has edited down most of the interesting parts and yet they’re bragging about how they’re pushing the edge of broadcasting. And yet, Kaede the in psycho-emo mode was pretty interesting to say the least. The way this episode was edited makes it look like Asa collapsed from Kaede’s assault, but since its a clip show and we’ve seen that Asa had problems as a kid, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a returning issue that just happened to coincide with this episode.

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After a sad start to this episode, Akira uses her winnings from the cage match to rent a small office space in Akihabara. She convinces the team to start a business. Page gets the idea to have the Akihabara@DEEP company act as “troubleshooters”. They’ll help solve any problems they may have in Akihabara. Yui had told them that the reason why she helped others was that “In the process of saving others, we save ourselves“. With everyone on board with the idea, Akira, Box, Daruma, and Taiko head out to hand out flyers to advertise the company. Akira is the only one handing out flyers because any male that passes by the group ignores the guys. That is until a girl asks for a flyer from Box.

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Great montage music in this episode, but I’m surprised that in some ways this show does actually rely on the manic energy of Manabi. While I liked what I saw of Mikan and Mei getting closer as friends, I’d call this more of a filler episode. I enjoyed the music more than the actual story. I blame Nodame Cantabile.

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Apparently Nodame has a mean right jab as she cold-cocks Streseman. Because she convinces everyone to let Chiaki conduct, we get to see that, as a conductor, he is adept at the technical side of conducting. Despite the complaining, even Masumi notices that the orchestra is still not up to the task. Being technically accurate doesn’t substitute for experience and the tricks of getting the best performance out of the musicians. While both Chiaki and Streseman both have the ability and the respect for the music, its obvious that Streseman also has respect for the musicians, something that we will undoubtedly see Chiaki learn over the course of the show’s run.

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