Dantalian no Shoka – 10

Behold, the mighty violin.

….Starting to recover from my cold. Maybe. Yaaaay. By the way, what is with this show and blonde people dolls?

Today on Dantalian, we have a blonde woman waking up to a man playing piano in her room. He tells her that they’re going to the park because bitches love parks he wants her to understand happiness. She looks indifferent (or soulless; either one). Also, she looks like she has doll joints.

So in the park, Huey attempts to play a violin he just bought and Dalian throws a plate at him because he’s so terrible at it. Then, the woman from the beginning appears out of nowhere and asks to see it. Before he can hand it over, the piano man runs out from the bushes apologizing for Christabel (these names are becoming more and more ridiculous) bothering them.

The man asks if he can see Huey’s violin as well and while Huey is somewhat weirded out from everyone and their grandmother asking for his violin, he hands it over. The piano man (who happens to carry violin repair tools with him) figures out what’s wrong, fixes the sound bridge and hands the violin over to Christabel. All she does is make noise at first, but then plays pretty well. Dalian is so shocked, she almost chokes on bread that she wasn’t even eating. Christabel continues playing and draws a crowd.

Piano man tells Christabel that they should go before the crowd gets any bigger, but Christabel says that she’s in the middle of a song, so no. He asks if they can borrow the violin for a bit and introduces himself as Dallaglio (yes, these names are definitely getting more ridiculous. What is that even? Italian?). When Huey says that he can, Dallaglio runs off with Christabel saying that he promises to tune and return the instrument.

Later, they go the to the bookstore, where the owner very conveniently has a pamphlet of Christabel sitting around. Apparently she’s an amazing violinist who can play something by Guillermo Baldini. Who is that, you ask? He is explained to be a man who was SO GOOD at composing music, he could make people high off of it; even without having 6 fabulous bishies sing. Now THAT’S talent. Oh, but no one has ever heard his two violin pieces because apparently no one can play them and anyone who attempts to dies. With that much ridiculousness behind them, people decided to call the music Phantom Scores.

Back to Christabel, Huey is told that people spend ridiculous amounts of money to hear her play and has a theatre/performance place that was recently built for her. Dalian tells Huey that they’re going to London to see her.

…Where Dalian is caught by the police. Huey apologises and explains that they’re there to get back his violin, but since it’s the opening, the police were told not to let anyone in. Huey and Dalian are forced to give up and Dalian refuses to tell why she wants to see Christabel even though she seems like the proper owner of the Phantom Scores.

The two go down a shady alleyway because Huey saw Dallaglio go down there and they end up going into a basement. There they find the accompanist for the performance but instead of being human, it’s a doll. After they figure that out, Huey gets hit in the back of the head while protecting Dalian from an attacker.

When he comes to, him and Dalian are tied to a pillar. Also, Dalian is gagged because she probably verbally abused the crap out of whoever tied them there. Christabel appears on a platform from above and welcomes them. Huey is pretty calm despite having someone knock him unconscious before and asks about the doll pianist and if Christabel is going to play the Phantom Score. Christabel explains that the pianist is a friend Dallaglio made for her. She also asks if they like Dallaglio, and when Huey says he does (ish), Christabel starts playing.

Suddenly Dallaglio runs in asking wtf is going on. He goes to untie Huey and Dalian and asks them to take Christabel with them before she has a chance to perform. However, before he can do much, Kendrick (the director of the place) comes in and says that Christabel isn’t allowed to leave and that he won’t harm Huey and Dalian (even though he just had Huey bludgeoned in the head) because they’re important audience members.

He tells them that they are going to witness Christabel’s true performance and is surprised when Huey knows about the Phantom Score (oh please apparently everyone knows about these things). It turns out that Kendrick’s evil plan is to get everyone addicted to Christabel’s music (since the Baldini score is like a drug or something, only more classy) and achieve world/country domination that way since people will do anything to listen to it.

Oh and Christabel is a robot-doll thing purposely created to play the Phantom Score, thus explaining the vacant expression and the fact that she has a suspicious ring around her neck. Dallaglio starts arguing that Christabel is more than a machine he made but then he’s shot by one of Kendrick’s henchmen. Dalian has to explain to Christabel that Dallaglio ‘broke down’ and that he can’t be ‘fixed’, but she doesn’t seem to have a reaction to her creator dying.

Kendrick tells her to perform and she agrees. He also leaves Huey and Dalian because he downside to his plan is that he himself can’t listen to his music. Christabel rises to a clapping audience, who apparently don’t care about the gunshot earlier.

Busy being bound to a chair, Huey can’t exactly go help Dallaglio who is dying on the floor. Huey realizes that Dallaglio is the true owner of the score and Dallaglio explains that he created Christabel the play because he wanted to restore his father’s name, but in the end he stopped caring about that because he just wanted Christabel, who had progressed and become more human, to be happy. After saying that, he cuts through Huey’s ropes, but of course we can’t have a non-blonde person in this show, so he dies.

Christabel starts playing, but right away the building starts falling apart. Instead of playing the song that makes people high, Dalian notes that Christabel is playing Baldini’s other violin score that makes people despair (and also apparently destroys the structural integrity of buildings). Then either in an attempt to save on the animation budget, or an artistic style, there’s a bunch of still frames of violin playing, the building falling apart, and Huey and Dalian running away.

All of the audience members survive due to a warning Christabel sent through her violin playing at the beginning, but those who could not hear it (aka Kendrick and his men in their soundproof room) died in the building. Dalian gets mad over losing the Phantom Score forever (why the can’t just go digging through the building ruins is beyond me). Huey wonders why Christabel chose to play that song and Dalian answers that she could have learned it since Dallaglio was her master. OR maybe that she chose to play it from her own free will. Take your pick.

…Huey never did get his violin back

After the credits, we have Albino Dalian and Little Huey again. Huey goes on about all the stuff he wants to take her to see, but when he says that he’ll never leave her, she stops him. She explains that he’ll grow old someday and that only the library lasts forever. As Huey disappears in a cloud of sparkles, Albino Dalian says goodbye to him and calls him her dream.

End Thoughts: Well, this has to be the most unrealistic set up for Dantalian yet and this show is about MAGICAL BOOKS. Ahaha well I think I read something once about listening to music does something with endorphins in your brain, so I guess it’s not that off, but some of the stuff they came up with here was hilarious. Dying after failing to play music? I’ve heard some people fail pretty hard (lol mostly myself) at the violin before, but never THAT badly. I’ve never seen someone destroy a building with a violin (or any instrument for that matter) either. Though if any of you have that ability and want to prove me wrong, I totally want to see it.

Poor Dallaglio though. Not only did he not get to say goodbye to Christabel, but there wasn’t even enough time for Huey and Dalian to magical book revive him. Yeah, sure they could probably unbury his body from the rubble and probably find the Phantom Score while they were at it, but this was supposed to end as a tragedy all around I guess. Not even Christabel survived.  As characters, Dallaglio and Christabel were both pretty flat, but I couldn’t help but liking them. I don’t even know why, but I did. Christabel’s eyes looked pretty cool. They did something with the colouring that I really liked, but I can’t quite place what it was.

I’ll definitely miss this show when it finishes in a couple of weeks. Huey is just such a great character and Ono’s voice fits him perfectly (though if I had to chose, I’d say that the crow from Nichijou is Ono’s best role ever). How many other guys do you know that are that calm after waking up tied to a pillar? I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of very many. Huey is great because he analyses things in such a rational matter. Also, you kind of have to respect him for putting up with Dalian’s constant abuse. Little Huey is adorable too. Though I wonder how this is all going to wrap up. Maybe they’ll leave it open ended? The novels haven’t finished either and this doesn’t really have a linear storyline, so randomly putting in an anime original ending wouldn’t make very much sense. ….Unless they bring all of the libraries and key keepers into one episode. That would be awesome.

Preview:!!!! Rasiel finally makes her appearance. It’s about damn time.