Only a month gone by, and I already have my eye on shows coming out in the Winter season. Barely a third of the way into this current season, and I’ve already put some future shows on the list. The Eminence in Shadow continues into next year, but with the way it’s playing out for me, I’m not even 100% sure if I want to continue. This won’t be the first time I’ve left a 2-cour show though for Otaku Theater though. Perhaps I just don’t have it in me anymore to keep up with those shows that go on for the long haul…or maybe I’ve just settled into this routine of 3 show picks a season but enough talks about the future, let’s come back to this season.
Bocchi the Rock! Episode 4
As I mentioned last week, we can see that each member of Kessoku Band stand out in their own individual way. Kita is the most photogenic and seems to be able to look cute in every picture; thus she is immediately promoted to social media head of the group. While I can’t really make my mind up about Nijika yet, we get to see a little of what both Hitori and Ryo are going through at the moment. They have both been charged with song writing; Hitori has the lyrics, while Ryo has the music.
And just as they are each individual characters, they still don’t really feel like a band yet; just four girls hanging out together. Nijika and Kita are the most upbeat and optimistic of them, and while Hitori is still struggling with actually leaving the house and having to speak to other people, it seems like Ryo is still feeling down about leaving her old band.
This week we find out that Ryo used to be a band a while back. Their song’s lyrics were pretty awful, but she still appreciated how they were written with passion. What Ryo didn’t appreciate though is how the band decided to go in a more commercial direction, concerned more about making money than writing music. This is something that I think she doesn’t want Hitori to do. I mean, as much as any one of the girls want to be loaded right now, Ryo sees Hitori struggle with writing a song that doesn’t completely reflect her gloomy and depressing look on life. These are songs that the photogenic and constantly happy Kita are going to be singing after all.
One thing I want to bring up this week is the art direction in Bocchi the Rock!. The show relies a lot on visual gags (all of them good ones), but every now and then, we get scenes that look like a lot more contemplative. I think we are still a little early in the show to see this band form as one; a lot of the shots we see right now are of them as four people, and not of one unit. It’s only really when more non-comical scenes come around where we get little glimpses (like the one below) where we can see Kessoku Band as one.
Raven of the Inner Palace Episode 5
I think that the writers of Raven of the Inner Palace are doing a good job at creating atmosphere here. Maybe I’m not so much in the best place to talk though considering this is really my first venture into anime set in ancient China.
We are getting into the real meat and potatoes of the story though, as Gaojin’s affliction becomes more and more apparent. It’s been long known for centuries that the palace is haunted, but Gaojin is being haunted in his sleep by two ghosts in particular; one of his mother, and the other of his former master Ding Lan. The ghosts do not harm him in his dreams, but he is growing weaker by the day, causing Wei Qing to take action of his own.
He has never liked Shouxue, and is at odds with his master at why he chooses to go and visit her so often. It’s still unknown though whether he knows that she is a member of the accursed Luan Dynasty though. But we also learn a little more about him this week. Turns out that he was a child born in the red light district, and became a male prostitute after both his parents died. Then after being rescued by a very young Gaojin, he changed his name and devoted himself to his new master’s efforts in exacting revenge on the Empress Dowager.
Even though the real story is getting started, there’s still so much we don’t know about the main characters we see every week, Shouxue in particular. It’s like every time we learn something about her, we find out there are a dozen more things we don’t. Are they building up for something massive? Does it emerge that she really can overthrow the emperor and bring the Luan Dynasty back (like the antagonist seems to want her to do) Or are Gaojin’s good looks going to crack her eventually?
The Eminence in Shadow Episode 4
Now for my current take on The Eminence in Shadow. There have been quite a few shows I’ve covered for Otaku Theater recently that have been real slow burns for me. This year alone had Slow Loop and When Will Ayumu Make His Move? take ages for me to warm to. So how can this show be any different? Well I’m afraid I don’t have a straight answer for that.
The truth is that I really want to love this show. I really wanted to get absorbed into the characters and the story from the very start. And so the fact that it didn’t really do that is probably what is causing my current malaise. Another reason could be that I could not find any merits in Cid whatsoever. He’s not even the kind of malicious character people really cheer for either.
This week’s episode picks up directly where last week left off, with Princess Alexia being kidnapped, and Cid being framed for it. But in all the time the real kidnappers are having their way with her, we realize that Shadow Garden have been keeping an eye on them the whole time. I did think that the other members of Shadow Garden were introduced in a very strange way, but now looks like the time where they will be permanent members of the show, instead of just being in the shadows constantly (no pun intended).
While the girls remain convinced that the cult is behind Alexia’s kidnapping, Cid thinks it’s just some hoodlums. Meanwhile, her real kidnapper wants her blood as he believes it can be used to summon a giant demon…a story that is scarily similar to that same book Cid made up for Shadow Garden.
I think that if I really want to enjoy The Eminence in Shadow as much as I want to, I need to look at it with some fresh eyes, and start from the beginning. Rewatching past episodes will likely give me a better look at the characters and the story, and hopefully it will get me to sympathize with them more. Maybe I will be able to see Cid as less of a douche and more of an anti-hero, and see Shadow Garden less like gullible idiots and more like a force to be reckoned with. I genuinely feel sorry for all of his harem.
Odd Taxi Episode 5
Episode 4 of Odd Taxi was a very awesome one that went on a semi-related tangent to the main story. We see Tanaka again only briefly in episode 5, but how and when is something I’m not totally sure of. But we’re pretty much brought back to the main story. Odokawa has been forced to cooperate with Dobu and provide any future information he gets about the missing girl, and it looks like Kakihana is being led down some rabbit hole by one of the members of the Mystery Kiss idol group, or the manager of it at least.
And while episode 4 acted as a scathing critique on gacha games, episode 5 veers more towards the idol industry in Japan. We already know that poor Kakihana is being played by this broke idol group who think he has a high-salary job, we get another proper look at the group themselves. Manager Yamamoto is no-nonsense and hands-on, and looks like the one who thought of this ‘get rich quick’ scheme that isn’t going the way they planned. Also, it’s very interesting how Yamamoto was so curious about the missing girl and the camera data. Mitsuya seems also to have another side to her too; she plants a tracking device in Odokawa’s taxi after Tanaka pays her to.
The main plot is branching off into several good sub-plots, with those sub-plots branching off into other ones too. Odd Taxi would normally have been seen as a very dull and boring show, but the fact that we still have no concrete idea on who is responsible for the missing girl, whilst being teased with other stories that are just as fascinating…I’m sad I missed out on this when it was airing. The culprit could be any one of them – even someone like poor Kakihana – and I really love this mystery of the unknown.
Rewatching The Eminence in Shadow might be something I will do, if I want to appreciate the show more and not think so much about whether I should forego the second half in the winter. I seem to be developing a habit of picking slow burn shows now. The Summer Curse™ has now officially been replaced by the Slow Burn Curse™.