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• Chiko has been on the run, out on her own for the past 3 days, believing that she has to persevere on her own and not bring anyone else into the mess she’s in.
• While out in the rain, Chiko faints, but Akechi catches her. Chiko, for a moment thinks that Akechi looks a lot like Twenty Faces, but blows it off, and she runs off, saying that she’ll find Twenty Faces before he does. Akechi later passes Ken, who tells Akechi that he’ll look over Chiko, and also notes that Akechi reminds him of Twenty Faces.
• In the meantime, Akine is out in the rain, still hypnotized and having nightmares about losing his younger sister, Chieko in a crowd in a war-torn town. He sees Chiko in a crowed and thinks it’s Chieko and grabs her, but Chiko is able to run away. Akechi then shows up and easily breaks the hypnosis spell which is on Akine.
• Having escaped Akechi, a boy gives Chiko a note from “a white haired woman” telling Chiko that she has Tome “on the island of his memory.” Chiko decides that she has to rescue Tome, with Akechi and Akine on her trail, and Ken on their trail.
• Once Chiko arrives, the mysterious woman displays a stone-looking Tome, who the girl pushes off a crane. The head of the statue comes off and starts bleeding. Believing that the woman has killed Tome, Chiko becomes enraged and attacks the woman.
• After mostly outfighting Chiko, the woman then uses Shunka to attack Chiko, whom Chiko is able to knock out pretty fast. The woman then uses Chiko’s despair over hurting Shunka and Tome’s apparent death to hypnotize Chiko.
• Akechi and Akine then arrive, where Akechi tells the woman that she used to be a part of him, but now she’s nothing more than a monster. It is then revealed that Akechi is in fact Twenty Faces in disguise. Akine (who is shocked by the revelation) nevertheless, fetches the hypnotized Chiko and brings her behind Twenty Faces.
• The woman then continues, telling Twenty Faces that he should be full of hate for “all the things we did” and she asks what his goal is, but Twenty Faces wont answer. Ken, who has arrived by now, overhears their conversation and realizes that Akechi is Twenty Faces as well. The woman then silently tells Chiko to stab Twenty Faces in the back, which she does.
• However, this brings her back to her senses where she is suddenly delighted to see Twenty Faces, and then horrified to find that she’s stabbed him. Twenty Faces collapses in pain after a few moments, and the woman lunges at him. Ken then throws a smoke bomb and there is chaos for a while.
• After the smoke clears, Twenty Faces and Ken are no where to be seen, the woman has escaped with an unconscious Chiko, and Akine is left behind to find a very aline Tome still inside the statue…

Well, this episode definitely wasn’t what I was expecting, and Twenty Faces throws me off once again. Now we have three groups: the woman and Chiko, Twenty Faces and Ken, and Akina, Tome, and presumably Shunka.

I’m still not sure what the woman wants to use Chiko for, but obviously she wants her for something. We now also have the fact that Twenty Faces did something in the past, which as a result caused him to do what he does. However, we still don’t know the what and the whys of it. Speaking of Twenty Faces, I wasn’t expecting to see him again this quickly.

Well, I was right about one thing: the school arc seems to be done. However, I have no clue where this is going from now on, and I’m not even sure I’m going to try to guess. It’s certainly keeping me interested though.

P.S. Whoever decided to add sound effects to the OP should be drug out into the street and, well, punished severely in some fashion.

Go Straight to the Screenshots | Go Straight to the Review

• Okazaki and Sakagami are dating, with Sakagami continuing to wake Okazaki up in the morning, etc. It’s the day the student council election results are announced, and Sakagami ends up winning. However, Sakagami’s friendship with Okazaki and Sunohara has created a stir within the school. Sakagami also starts slacking like skipping classes and using the intercom for personal uses, and she ends up being chewed out by a teacher.
• Soon, preparation for the school festival makes Sakagami sparse, and Okazaki largely spends his time hanging out with Sunohara. However, one day, Sakagami is able to get away and spend some time with Okazaki. However, they are interrupted by the Vice President, who tells Sakagami that she’s needed. He then tells Okazaki that Okazaki has tons of potential, but that he’s dragging her down. A teacher at the school also pulls Okazaki aside and tells him the same thing.
• One day, Okazaki is waiting for Sakagami at the school gate, but she shows up and tells him that she’ll be late since she has to clear something up. The Vice President then shows up again, telling Okazaki that the problem is his fault, since Sakagami got in trouble for being seen leaving his house in the morning. He then tells Okazaki again that he’s a bad person for dragging Sakagami down.
• That afternoon, Okazaki tells Sakagami that they should break up, since he’s dragging her down, but Sakagami won’t have it, saying that Okazaki will go back to being a delinquent if the break up. However, Okazaki tells her that he can’t keep relying on her, and that the feeling he had wasn’t love. Sakagami then walks away, crushed, while Okazaki remains there, also crushed.
• Despite Sakagami not helping him anymore, Okazaki does his best to go to school and keep up with his school work. Meanwhile, Sakagami continues her work to save the Cherry trees.
• Soon it’s time to look for jobs, and Okazaki doesn’t have much luck due to a poor recommendation from his school. He soon finds a job within a city, but not as close to the school as he’d like.
• Then on graduation day, on his way back home, Okazaki runs into Sakagami. Sakagami tells him that she won the fight to save the cherry trees. She tells Okazaki that she still loves him, and that she’s happy that Okazaki has been able to do well, even without her help. However, Okazaki tells her that he’s stuck where he is now, and that he’s sure she’ll go and and do whatever she wants to do, but Sakagami tells him that she’ll stay there with him. Okazaki gets mad since she would be giving up on her future, but Sakagami tells him that he’s the future that she wants most of all. The two then embrace in tears, having reaffirmed their affection for each other…

Well, I’m not sure what there is to say about this, since it’s an alternate ending and thus doesn’t fit into the story at large. It’s hard to get all excited and emotional over an episode which has a conclusion which we never led up to to start with.

I guess by itself it’s a good enough episode for a one-shot, though I was kind of sad that we didn’t see anyone else, even as a cameo. Personally I’d rather have had the Kyou-Okazaki ending if we had an alternate ending, but oh well.

Friday, August 8th
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM: Lantis / JAM Project Q&A (Panel 3)
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM: FUNimation Q&A (Panel 2)
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM: Media Blasters Q&A (Panel 2)
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM: Kappei Yamaguchi Q&A #1 (Panel 4)

Wow, not a lot of panels on Friday that I’m interested in, at least that are listed yet.  Friday – especially the morning and evening – may be spent checking out the anime viewing rooms.  I may either skip the 1PM panel or leave early so that I can make sure I can get into the FUNimation panel.  I’m not sure what the policy is as far as attending two panels in the same room back-to-back (do you have to leave and get back in line, or not?) but last year it seemed that people didn’t care if one just hung out in the room.  Of course, I wasn’t necessarily attending packed panels either when I did that.

I also intend to visit the Dealers room as early as I can so I can grab up any remaining ADV titles which aren’t with ADV anymore which I may want to buy.  Again, not sure when it opens, but if it opens before 1PM, then you can bet that’s one thing I’ll be doing.

Saturday, August 9th
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM: Laura Bailey Q&A (Panel 3)
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Bandai (Panel 2)
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM: Kadokawa Pictures USA Premieres Panel (Panel 2)
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM: Media Blasters Premieres Panel (Panel 2)
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM: AMVs: From Concept to Planning (Panel 1)
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM: Fansubber and Industry Discussion (Panel 4)
9:00 PM – 10:00 PM: Bandai Surprise (Panel 2)

Again, based on how well attended the Industry Panels on Friday are, I may or may not skip or pop-out of the Laura Bailey panel early so I can hit Bandai.  Also, I have some nice breaks built into this schedule.  I can get lunch in the 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM break and grab dinner in the 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM break

Sunday, August 10th
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: State of the Industry (Panel 4)
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM: ADV Announcements (Panel 1)
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM: Closing Ceremonies (Panel 4)
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM: Con Feedback Panel (Panel 4)

I’ll probably go straight from leaving the State of the Industry panel to stand in line for the ADV panel since that is a absolutely-must-attend panel for me.

Just another note, if they show The Girl Who Leapt Through Time or the new Evangelion movie, then that may impact things, depending on what they conflict with.  I would tend to prioritize them over the non-industry panels, but I would tend to put the industry panels over watching the movies.

Also, I’m just wondering why Otakon always tends to have panels like “Basic Photoshop” or “Basic Flash.”  I found that odd last year too, but I guess it’s a way to learn something new if there isn’t anything else interesting to you going on at the time being.

Name: Ballad of a Shinigami, Momo the girl god of death
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Episodes: 6
Released: March 2, 2006 – April 6, 2006
Based On: Shinigami no Ballad light novels by K-Ske Hasegawa
Director: Tomomi Mochizuki
Produced By: Pony Canyon, Group TAC, Ginga-ya
US Distribution By: N/A

Major Japanese Cast

Momo: Akiko Kobayashi
Daniel: Ai Shimizu
Kōta Seto: Akiyo Kanada
Mai Makihara: Chiwa Saito
Mitsuki Asano: Yuki Kaida
Yutaka Fujishima: Kana Ueda
Kantaro Ichihara: Toshiyuki Toyonaga
Tomato Fujiwara: Kanako Mitsuhashi
Chiaki Kazama: Tomoko Sadohara
Fuyuki Kazama: Ryoko Shiraishi
Eko Miyazaki: Fuyuka Oura
Sakura Kosakai: Nobuyuki Kobushi

Major English Cast

N/A

Scores

Animation: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Story: 9/10 (x 4 = 36 pts)
Music: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Coherence/Story Arc: N/A
English Dubs: N/A
Gut Score: 8/10 (x 5 = 40 pts)

Total: 140/170 (82.4%)

Review

Ballad of a Shinigami is about Momo, a Shinigami – basically the Japanese version of the grim reaper except cuter in this case – and her cat companion Daniel. The series addresses six different stories which deal with death in one way or another, with Momo playing a critical role each time.

These stories range from a young girl eventually succumbing to an illness, to pushing someone to live his life to the fullest since “you’ll eventually die someday,” to not being able to say “sorry” for things you said to a love one just before they died.

I think each of the six stories are interesting in their own right, and I like how each of the six stories were able to address the issue of death in unique ways. Of course the main negative to having six stories in six episodes is that none of the stories necessarily have time to really stand out or leave a lasting impression, but I’m not sure how important this is with a series this short (there is a reason why I have a minimum episode count before I give a coherence score, after all).

I’d say if you’re interested in a well written set of stories about an unusual topic (how many series deal with the issue of death this head on), I’d recommend Ballad of a Shinigami, especially since it is easy to watch in a single sitting.

First Watched: July 2008
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: Yes

Go Straight to the Screenshots | Go Straight to the Review

• Midorikawa goes out surfing in the morning, but gets yelled at by Saori for going out without permission. Meanwhile, Hara takes Sora to his office where she meets his assistant, Fuune.
• At his office, Hara tells Sora about her first magical assignment: to unlock a safe for a middle-aged woman. However, one curious thing about this woman is that she’s asked for this many times, as she doesn’t have the key to unlock the safe. However, she still wants to keep certain items locked in it, so she calls for magic whenever she wants to open it.
• In the meantime, we learn that Midorikawa has only just recently learned that he is of mage heritage, but he’s never used magic before.
• Midorikawa and Sora then head off to school where Sora is about to tell her friend Hiori about her job when the instructor comes in and chides her, since jobs are supposed to be confidential. She also tells the class that using magic before getting trained and without an official request is illegal.
• After class, Hara and Sora head off to do Sora’s job. Sora opens the safe, but then she grabs the books inside and runs off into the garden outside the house. Sora says she just wanted the lady to come outside, bu Hara tells Sora that it’s not her place to do that. However, when the lady tries to lock the safe again, it’s revealed that Sora destroyed the lock on the safe instead of just unlocking it.
• The lady gets mad at Sora, but Sora tells her that she can’t just keep clinging to what it’s the safe and that she has to live her own life. This seems to open the lady up, and she and Sora look through the books, which contain pictures of the lady and her late husband.
• Meanwhile, Gouta runs away from Saori, having obviously failing at his assignment. However, Saori asks him if he’s going to run away “just like his father.”

Wow this series is really slow and laid back. Nevertheless, we probably had more going on in this episode than in either of the last two. We learn that Midorikawa has never done magic and despite his best efforts, still can’t do it – something which greatly frustrates him.

Meanwhile, with Sora we have our standard Someday’s Dreamers storyline of the mages sticking their nose in people’s lives beyond just doing the magic their assigned to do.

And that’s largely it in this episode. As I said, slow. I don’t necessarily mind slow series, but if a series makes something like Sketchbook seem fast paced, you know they may be going a little overboard in that department.