Well, that was fun. Explosions, frilly dresses and Yuno, what more could anyone ask for?
The Ninth
She’s one of my favorite characters from the manga (next to Yuno). For those of you wondering (warning: spoilers), she will come back, better than ever! With an eyepatch!
But really, we haven’t seen much of Minene yet (and it was the same way in the manga). Right now she’s just a crazy terrorist who shoots smoke bombs out of her skirt and pulls a motorcycle from hammerspace, but she becomes much more interesting as the story progresses.
Yukiteru, and Why I Don’t Hate Him
I often complain about spineless male leads and how much I hate them. So let me clarify: I don’t hate pathetic characters. What I hate is indifferent characters. For example, take the typical harem protagonist. He is surrounded by beautiful girls, but treats them all equally and has no interest in taking anything further. He lives his life just walking around town and tripping into girls’ breasts. He is a “nice guy” who just accepts things as they are. If a character himself can’t be assed to care about his own life, then why should I?
Yukiteru is different. He’s pathetic, spends all his time on his phone, and has no friends. But he isn’t indifferent. He knows exactly how pathetic he is. He hates himself more than anyone else does, and wants to change.
This episode did well at showing how Yukiteru feels about himself. He is deathly afraid: first of getting blown to smithereens, and second of his newfound stalker, Yuno, in that order. He has to rely on Yuno to survive. And you can tell from his words, shaking and eyes just how much he hates having to depend on her. But he’s desperate. He even kisses her to get her to help him (although hey, I bet he liked it).
Which brings me to another point: in what other series are the lead characters, who just met, kissing by the second episode?
The Trouble with Adaptations
The trouble with an adaptation, especially of a manga that you loved, is that you’re constantly comparing it to the original. If you thought the original version was amazing, it’s hard for a second attempt to measure up.
So, in line with this pattern, I enjoyed this episode, although not as much as I enjoyed the same part of the manga. Three reasons I can think of: a) I already knew what was going to happen, so there was less of a thrill, b) it’s harder to get the pacing right in an anime, since the reader of a manga can skim through the pages as fast or slow as desired, or c) the anime simply was not as well presented. I’m leaning towards a combination of (a) and (b).
However, already knowing what’s going to happen doesn’t always lessen the excitement. I’ve been rewatching Code Geass (for the sixth time!) and have found it nearly as exciting as my first watch through. So we can’t entirely blame it on already knowing what’s going to happen.
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What more could you ask for? How about hair-pulling and exploding middle schoolers?
I’m loving this adaptation so far. It’s really captured Yukiteru’s paranoid panic at his newfound situation and it isn’t soft-selling the dark side of the manga.
Exactly. This show gives you everything you could ever ask for, and doubles it with things you didn’t even realize you wanted. 🙂
And yeah, the dark side is not being glossed over. The dart in the eye scene was especially disturbing. Going into slow motion was a nice way to make it gory without having to show the actual moment of impact. I don’t think I’d want them to go that far…
While I agree with the indifferent v. pathetic argument, I really don’t like pathetic characters either (the main character in Guilty Crown didn’t give a good first impression). I can’t place why I like Yukiteru exactly, but I think it’s because that his behavior is justified and he just has this certain edge to him. Of course, the fact that he’s killed and kissed in just two episodes certainly helps.
Yeah, there’s that too: he’s pathetic, but when pushed past the edge, he can actually get stuff done. I didn’t like the guy from Guilty Crown either, so yeah, there’s more to it than just that.
i have to agree with getting less thrill when you already know what’s going to happen but then i have to admit that this adaptation is by far pretty good..
Yeah, I don’t think that knowing what will happen will necessarily ruin things.
BTW the male lead is irritating already. I’m hoping for some character development there.
He does get better as the show continues, but reminds fairly whiny throughout.
I enjoyed the 2nd episode as well. Uryuu is here!!
Yeah, since we read the manga, the thrill is lessened. To me though, now the only real thrill is finding out if the anime is the same as the manga every episode. XD
I fortunately (or unfortunately) don’t have a very good memory, so I can’t really compare every detail to the manga. I guess that gives a bit of the thrill of not knowing what’s going to happen, and a little bit of the ability to compare.