Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge – 08

   DansaiBunri00012

Some people just can’t handle the bishounen sparkles

I’m slowly making my way through Utena finally. I can see a lot of Penguindrum in there (or maybe since Utena came first, I should be saying that I see the Utena in Penguindrum now). …But that has next to nothing to do with Dansai Bunri, so let’s talk about murderers now~

DansaiBunri00008DansaiBunri00007

Well, Gossip seems to be both better and worse than expected. On one hand, they’re not out to kill Iwai with their bare hands, but at the same time, their er, gossip isn’t doing wonders for Iwai’s self esteem. As she expected, she’s being treated as a freak again. It does seem like it’s the high class social club that it was said to be though, so I really wonder if they’re all there because they have far too much money and spare times on their hands, or if there’s some other profound reason why they all look forward to the murder of an underage girl. Sure, a lot of them seem to be there exactly because the novelty of Authors is exciting, but is that all Gossip exists for? And since some of the people at the party seemed new, who exactly runs the organization?

DansaiBunri00006

The play definitely seems like an important part to the plot, but I’m pretty sure they left a bit out in the anime. I remember the manga having more to it, and the queen (the bitchy one who was jealous of the girl’s hair) was actually cursed by the girl. What was the curse? The queen suddenly had beautiful hair that couldn’t be cut and all of her descendants inherited the hair too. There was also some note about the queen’s child dying in the womb due to being strangled by it’s own hair. Huh, sounds familiar (…the uncuttable hair, not the still birth and being strangled with your own hair). At the same time too, everyone tried to kill the girl with the beautiful hair. So after that, I want to believe that Iwai is related to the bitchy queen from the story and while Iwai herself is innocent, her ancestors might not be. …Or maybe she might be a descendant to the persecuted girl, since it was never specified if her hair was uncuttable or not (plus there’s the fact that everyone was trying to kill her for whatever reason), but having Iwai related to the queen would be a great twist in there. Maybe her ancestors really did have death coming to them. …Though the girl’s hair looked the most similar to Iwai’s. Anyways, an interesting look into the lore of the Hair Queen. …Whichever one she is. …If the story was even real. I figure they left out a lot of the story in the anime due to time constraints and also because they probably don’t intend on opening up questions that they can’t answer in the time this anime has left.

DansaiBunri00024DansaiBunri00025

Anyways, on to Seiji. …I’m still not entirely sure why he’s so hung up on Kiri when there’s an entire room of rich people who all like the idea of murder for fun to judge, but I assume this is what Kouzakura was talking about when she said Seiji was going to take things too far one day. He’s stuck on the idea that Kiri needs to be judged. Also, he also mentioned something about killing someone equal to him, so I’d imagine that Seiji’s obsession with that factors into things. The action scene here felt… really long for some reason though. Maybe because Kiri was being strangled for what seemed like 10 minutes while everyone just kind of sat there and watched. It felt like Kiri should have collapsed much sooner instead of struggling for however long he did. Though I guess it’s good that he didn’t go down without a fight.

Maybe Seiji was on to something though since even when Iwai said Kiri was okay because he was protecting her, Kiri himself never said so. Maybe he feels like Seiji’s words had some truth to them? He obviously doesn’t want to die, but it seems odd that he wouldn’t say something about his actions all being for Iwai. Maybe there is some guilt in there about the people Kiri injured. …Or maybe he was just preoccupied with the fact that he couldn’t breathe.

If you bothered watching after the ED credits, you’ll know that right after Kiri stopped struggling, someone attacked Seiji. Is Kiri actually dead? Was that enough to stop Seiji? Until next week I guess. (Though if you watched up until the next episode preview, it pretty much gives you the answer anyways, thus making the cliffhanger kind of pointless.)


Killing off the main character seems like a popular plot device this season. …Though it’s not really clear if Kiri is actually dead or not yet (plus… things happened in the other show that did this a couple weeks earlier), so maybe I should change that last sentence to: Making it look like the main character is killed off in a large cliffhanger ending seems like a popular plot device this season. So yeah, between a better look into Gossip and Kiri losing, things turned out interesting this episode. Though the play they had this episode felt so much more important in the manga and I didn’t expect the fight with Seiji and Kiri to take so long. I guess I really should have seen how great of  cliffhanger the set up would have made.It doesn’t get more exciting than killing the main character off (or at least leaving it up in the air whether the main character is dead or not). Oh well, I guess next week should be the part where the rest of the important things happen.

DansaiBunri00029

In any case, it involves Iwai getting herself together. …And going against a few things she said only a few episodes earlier.

About

University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.
Blinklist BlogMarks Delicious Digg Diigo FaceBook Google MySpace Netvibes Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Twitter

6 Responses to “Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge – 08”

  1. skylion says:

    I’m reminded of a technique that Neil Gaiman engaged in when he was writing the Sandman comic books. If a particular arc took seven issues to tell, he would take one issue, usually before the tale would come to a close, to do a self-contained, side story. But that side story would, in a way, contain the theme of the entire arc.

    The play of the Hair Queen in this episode reminded me of that. Now what the theme might be, I cannot even guess at this point, as it was unfinished; not self contained.

    The action scene here felt… really long for some reason though. Maybe because Kiri was being strangled for what seemed like 10 minutes while everyone just kind of sat there and watched. It felt like Kiri should have collapsed much sooner instead of struggling for however long he did. Though I guess it’s good that he didn’t go down without a fight.

    Glad I wasn’t the only one. It kills every good story doesn’t it? Lack of pacing.

    I don’t know if applying any sort of logic to Seiji’s actions; unless that fairy tale logic I allude to above has any worth. He’s the hunter, and Kiri is the Big Bad Wolf.

    • Karakuri says:

      Huh. There’s an interesting thought. Maybe they’ll finish the play’s story at a later date, when all of this stuff starts to come together and create a theme of sorts.

      Anyways, I thought it was just me, but I’m glad that I’m not alone in thinking that this wasn’t the best fight ever.

  2. Highway says:

    I thought this episode took forever as well, because they Kiri hung there for what seemed like 20 minutes. It really was not exciting, and even the fight that it turned into was pretty dull.

    I did like the little play thing, and thought it interesting that they’d put something symbolic in there. Unfortunately, I didn’t like what followed nearly as much, it just felt contrived making them follow some hotel guy around, put on ‘costumes’ and then Seigi’s act. He’s not my favorite character anyway, and it just seemed like it did the same thing over and over.

    • Karakuri says:

      It’s hard to make a fight exciting when one can just side step out of the way while the other struggles to breathe I guess.

      I do hope the story can go more into the Hair Queen story later. If not in the anime, then in the manga.

  3. BlackBriar says:

    If there are any real criminals around, it’s most likely these types who’d do just about anything because they’re bored even if it means destroying the lives of others they find insignificant. The whole party setup and play made me cringe.

    I’ve said it before: Seiji is the biggest hypocrite around. He wants to kills someone so he might as well say it and stop hiding behind a convenient and pathetic justification. There’s no honor in his methods especially what he tried to do with Ruka had things gone his way and he’s using Kiri’s shortcomings while protecting Iwai as a reason to go after him because he comes close to killing people and is beginning to enjoy it otherwise he’d probably feel without a purpose. In the end, it’s all about his ego which seems to be the case after Kiri called him a coward. He even said he and Kiri are the same.

    • Karakuri says:

      At this point, I think I liked Seiji mainly because he’s voiced by Ishida Akira. …His character doesn’t seem the best set up and he kind of got annoying after the first 5 minutes of the fight here.

      Kouzakura’s insight after all of this is kind of redeeming for his character though. (which should happen next episode)

Leave a Reply