Tokyo Ravens – 06
Dat egg physics.
I’m going to be absolutely gushing in this post, so let me get the bad out of the way right now. Harutora is again demoted to Bakatora because we have confirmation that he actually didn’t realize Natsume was Hokuto. Alas.
Like It Or Not
Just having a good time.
I’m sure this episode will be quite polarizing. In case we didn’t watch the same show, here’s basically what happened: Tokyo Ravens sinks into a complete high school romcom stupor. So I can see people responding to this in one of two ways. They’ll either hate it for becoming generic, average, and boring, or they’ll love it because it’s absolutely hilarious. You know, kind of like what Kyoukai no Kanata did last week with its shounen and idol parodies. If you can’t tell, I am of the latter category. And to those in the former, I say “crawl back into whatever dark, pretentious, elitist hole you crawled out of”. If you’ve gotten to the point where you can’t appreciate some good comedy because you’re too blinded by how well-used the tropes are, then you should stop watching anime because it’s not the stuff for you. It’s high time people accepted that anime is memetic in nature, as are most other human constructs. It might turn out everyone else loved this episode as much as I did, and I’m just yelling into an empty room at nobody in particular. But I’m dead certain that somewhere in the world wide webs, someone, if not more than one person, is cringing at this episode. And we should be cringing at this person.
Homoerotic Comedy
Nothing to see here…
So yeah, this episode is full of laughs. All of which revolve around the complications of Natsume pretending to be a guy. Fujoshi dorm supervisors rejoice (seriously who hired them), as our very own Bakatora and Natsume get caught up in a series of exploitable and questionable circumstances. And it all starts with Natsume creating a familiar modeled as a male version of herself to go into the baths and thus nip any potential suspicions that she is actually female in the bud. A sound idea in theory, but I don’t know why she thought it would work well in execution. Anyway, it didn’t work and now everyone thinks the two are a gay couple. I could discourse on the usual insensitive humor with which anime treats same sex relationships (unless the work is full-blown yuri or yaoi), but that’s beating the dead horse and besides the point. We all know that anime can be and has been politically incorrect, but we can live with it because honestly there is worse bigotry in other parts of the world.
Kon: Would you rather I kept quiet about it? Bakatora: Please stop talking.
I’m getting sidetracked, so let me return to Tokyo Ravens. Fast forward a little bit and a love hotel later, and now everyone thinks Bakatora uses Kon for his own personal pleasure. As usual, the fox spirit has a knack for giving people the wrong impression at the expense of our unfortunate hero. But this is for the best, as all questions of (male) Natsume’s and Bakatora’s sexuality are completely forgotten. Or perhaps only momentarily, knowing those two dorm supervisors and the squeeling flock of fangirls. But regardless of whatever the running gag is (and it might be both Bakatora taking advantage of Kon as well as Bakatora and Natsume being bed buddies), it’ll be sure to amuse us.
Plots
This guy’s got plans.
Now that we’ve gotten the romcom out of the way, it’s time for some real plot. It’s skillfully slipped in with the appearance of Jin as he supposedly aids the search party in their quest to catch Bakatora and Natsume in the act prevent two students from making a mistake. Turns out the highly trained professional also manages to track down the Yakou fanatic from last time on the side, and the mook is captured without incident. You know what this means. It’s time to reveal the mastermind. And the mastermind this time is an old guy with red shades who fancies riding in limos and is accompanied by the real Kakugyouki. Apparently the guy has plans for Bakatora and has a history with both Jin and Kyouko’s grandmother (specifically him being the cause for Jin’s lost leg). Which is good, because I don’t think I can take another weaksauce Yakou fanatic who’s more delusional than sapient. It’s easier to take a guy seriously when he’s intent on outsmarting someone who can allegedly predict his every move.
Before I trail off again, I will cut myself off by repeating that this episode was genuinely entertaining. In fact, it might not be an exaggeration to say that this is the best episode of Tokyo Ravens yet. Sure, it’s a little light on the plot side of things, bit this sort of brief respite can be very enjoyable if done right. To see it done completely wrong, go watch IS2. I don’t even know where to begin with that show. Anyway, with this diversion out of the way I’m sure Tokyo Ravens will return to more training and Yakou fanatic dealings.
About Sumairii
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Apparently the 2 dorm supervisors this ep were voiced by 2 voice actresses from Sailor Moon.
http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=4906666&postcount=459
So is Kakugyouki working with the sinister old man, Douman? Or is he just an acquaintance, observing but remaining uninvolved?
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 139 comments
The dialogue suggested more causal acquaintances than anything. Not exactly friends, but not enemies either. It’s also interesting how surprising unconcerned Kakugyouki is with return of his former master and friend. But then again, that might be a ruse to fool Douman who isn’t exactly “Mr. Trustworthy” here. XD
Well we will see how far he holds up his statement of “non-inference” in the future.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Three cheers for that shout, Sum! Sick and tired of elitist nonsense.
So, was the teacher more concerned that Bakatora was engaged with a familiar, or with an underage? Or both?
Dirty girls are everywhere!
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 139 comments
Agree wholeheartedly on loving the episode and seems like a lot of other people in various places really like it too. This definitely a great example on to do these type of fluff pieces while skillfully tying things back to main plot making them relevant. I also like how the comedy didn’t need make the any of characters act OoC to be funny it, played of their traits and chemistry together very naturally which is sadly rarer writing skill nowadays. As manga reader, kudos to 8 bit on adaptation the source material really well this time and some ways making it better.
I hope they continue similarly for vol 3 next week and not condense everything as heavily this time.
Though anime does give a general gist of what happened, the story in this episode is actually continuation of an earlier sidestory that went further into detailed of how this fiasco came about. There is also 3rd sidestory that connects to this too, but it’s unlike be animated due to time-constraints, and limited TV slots (8bit is supposedly doing all 9 LN vols after all) much like the first one.
I assume that the studio put them and other future sidestory as OVAs, which should work well.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
The Metanorn spam filter is somewhat legendary in its aggressiveness (hence my title), so there will be times that legitimate comments get caught for approval. We go through several times a day (sometimes several times an hour) to save comments, so if one seems to not appear, that’s likely where your comment went, and you don’t have to retype / submit it. If you submit the comment and the page refreshes with a comment number URL, but at the top of the page, it’s gotten caught. Sorry for the inconvenience, but just letting you know that it’s there and it’ll get saved without retyping. 🙂
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 139 comments
Thanks for clarifying the issue. I honestly I was more worried by annoying with my double posts really. hahaha
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Nope, they’re not annoying, just not needed. Also, for you and everyone else, it’s a *lot* easier to find your posts to save them if you have a gravatar. None of the spambots do, so it really stands out to see that avatar there.
You can have an avatar that sticks with your posts here and at a lot of other sites by going to http://www.gravatar.com
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Tokyo Ravens might have bouncy proteins (who would want to eat eggs that bounce that much?), but Arpeggio of Blue Steel wins for magically appearing carrots. In the first shot of Haruna, Kirishima, and Makie around the dinner table together, there’s no carrots on the plates, but then they become a major issue.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Is that even edible? In place of an egg, it looks more like a chunk of yellow rubber.
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
I don’t think I want to eat something tht looks this plastic-y. XD
Lol nice catch.
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
Crap this is meant to be a reply to Highway post >_>
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
I hate it when that happens as well, misplacing a reply. Well, accidents do happen.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Comparisons between ep 6’s love hotel street vs real life love hotel street:
http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=4906867&postcount=463
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
Wow, those are some kyoani level of IRL -> anime replication.
POWUH: Occasional (51-75) with 63 comments
Last time I did that with my eggroll it just plopped on the plate and lay still.
UNREALISTC!
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
You’ve got to ask what method they were using as the egg was being prepared. Something’s not right here.
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
China made eggs? 😛 I remember reading abt the fake egg scandal some time ago IIRC.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Ooh, did I feel a huge amount of pity for Harutora. That’s got to be the worst kind of hell especially with crazed fujoshi stalking him and Natsume’s every move. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s now been branded a lolicon. The guy has my condolences.
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
Finally caught up on TR and I have to say…… Kakugyouki is tripping my switch because of his voice. Dat voice *o*
Also, I ROFL through the opening scenes. Apparently this is based on a side story and LN readers says the author can write some pretty fun SS so I shall go hunt them down later.