Mekakucity Actors – 04
Someone in the public planning department was apparently incompetent
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Yeah, episode 5 is already out, but I’m going to post this anyways so there’s less catch up for Kyo and I later. We’ve both been kind of busy this week. …Or more like, Kyo’s been busy and I’ve been busy reading some really cliche shoujo manga. OTL |
There were a few more characters introduced this episode. Hibiya was kind of already introduced and Hiyori appears as a central figure in the ED, but Konoha was definitely new. …Though he’s not as important this episode as Hibiya and Hiyori are. I don’t know if the brief character interactions at the beginning of the episode was enough to make anyone even care about the two. Or even if what they showed justified some of the actions. They obviously showed that he had a thing for Hiyori and that she didn’t quite reciprocate, but they just sprung the death cycle on the viewer. Perhaps Hibiya was more sympathetic since he had a lot of interaction with Momo in episode 2, but I suppose that limited exposure is a downfall of having the storyline jump around episode to episode like this.
Maybe they’ll explain this in the next episode, but I’ll just hand you the answer here, since you probably might have already guessed it between the somewhat nonsensical animation and song lyrics. Hiyori keeps dying over and over again and Hibiya can’t really do anything because if she doesn’t die in one situation, something else comes along to kill her. But now that Hibiya died in her place, things are better, right? If you noticed the dialogue shift between Hiyori originally saying that she hated summer to not minding it and Hibiya going from not minding it to hating it, maybe not. They also gradually reversed most of the red and the blue as the sequence went on while Hiyori and Hibiya’s positions were switched too, which was an interesting effect.
Also, Shaft. Always Shaft.
I was wondering why some scenes were more Shaft than others, but this episode all made it make more sense. …Minus that bit with Hibiya trying to go to the city, being thrown outside multiple times, and all of that nonsense in between. Even I have no idea what all that was about. Perhaps it was some profound symbolism for Hibiya’s struggle, but it just came off as being rather silly. …Actually, that was probably the point.
Anyways, in regards to Shaft, I’m specifically talking about the traffic light-ish place at the end of the episode. Shaft’s surrealism actually plays a role in the plot it seems, as opposed to Shaft being Shaft for Shaft’s sake alone. Every encounter with the scarf wearing girl has taken place in a weird area, which could have just been taken as the animation trying to make the conversations seem more profound. With the second half of the episode though, things got weird pretty fast and nothing made sense. …Only, the Shaft will make sense later. Here, it served to make the whole sequence more dream-like, which is good planning due to reasons that won’t be explained just yet, and also good because that probably helps explain why the characters acted like they did. It’s not outside the norm for weird things to happen in dreams (or people acting strangely) and might explain why the characters sometimes felt like something was “calling” them. Also, people are more accepting of things that happen in dreams at the time.
I’m not exactly saying that this whole thing IS a dream, but the choices with Shaft’s animation helps the character’s acceptance of their situations make a bit more sense. If this took place in the normal city with the characters acting this way, things might be a little more questionable, since despite resisting and trying to avoid death, they’re not exactly making wise choices. Hibiya’s actions at the end were a bit more extreme, but a lot of the situations just involved running away.
If you couldn’t tell from my rambling above, I love what they did with the second part of the episode. They used the same kind of imagery that was in the original video (all of the traffic lights and the red/blue theme), and had the whole story seem so removed from how we saw Hibiya and Hiyori living their lives before. …It probably makes absolutely no sense to most of the people watching it, but hopefully they’ll be explaining it soon. Actually, I’m not entirely sure how this whole thing ends either. I only know about what happens afterwards and what this whole thing results in, so this should be interesting to see.
The next episode is titled “Kaien Panzermast”, which was an instrumental track on one of the CDs instead of a song on Nico like they’ve had so far. The versions I found (I don’t know if this was on the original CD) have some dialogue done by Ene’s seiyuu talking about finally meeting someone. …Which probably gives a hint to at least one of the character interactions that will happen (yaaay), but doesn’t really have much to do with Hibiya or Hiyori.
About Karakuri
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.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
I don’t know about anyone else, if you ask me, the fourth episode was a little incoherent. For the most part, the story lost me with the continuous death loops and it certainly felt like a dream sequence, only waking from one to the next.
Shaft being Shaft once more. The montages of traffic lights are definitely barrowed from one of the Monogatari installments. They sure are unique when it comes to choosing color. The ground below makes it seem Hibiya is standing on a sea of blood. Maybe it’s a certain pair of googles of mine that has me thinking like that.
These characters could have a hidden desire to escape reality. Given what happens, they retreat to their own world.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Ahahaha a “little” incoherent. Even I found this episode a bit confusing.
Er, the lights come from the original PV, unless you’re referring to a particular style of them. The song was released before Jin started animating his videos, so it was really just red, blue, a rather shocked looking Hibiya and random traffic symbols (because you know, the truck plays a big part).
Hmmm, maybe the characters don’t all want to escape reality, but someone in particular wants to… Kind of.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
My impression of the episode was that it was a recurring dream. I didn’t take it as Hibiya literally dying, or Hiyori actually dying over and over. Perhaps I was influenced by the dreamlike sense that it gave off: too hot, seemingly out of timeline in the middle of the night, strange colors and dialogue, repeatedly “waking up” in bed.
I could be wrong, but to me, it seemed far too surreal to be actual dying.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Like I said above, the deaths are going in continuous loops as if the individual is waking up from a dream every time something particular occurs. Enough to question whether or not it’s reality. A dream within a dream, so to speak. Very Inception style.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Oh, take that you damn cat, was so….it was a great work of Pyrrhic Victory.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
It’s surreal for a different reason, I’d say… though yeah, the end result might surprise some people since they made it so dream-like here.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
This is one of those episodes that had SHAFT at such high style. They work really well in a dream/nightmare setting. The landscape always reminded the lack of control. Until he had the only choice he could; control of his own life.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Yes, this is where all the Shaft came in handy~
POWUH: and Yaoi Fangirl~ with 2320 comments
I didn’t get this episode and it was bugging me for an entire week, so I watched the PV of the original song and… It was definitely different. That part about cat is important, but there is still one more scene after the cat that explains time loop Hibiya is having. Why SHAFT, why you no animate that part? I just hope that they explain the time loop in the last episode or something.
And it wasn’t mentioned in the anime, but I read that Hibiya went through the time loop for a decade or two? DAMN, that kid is tough as hell
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
The thing I wonder is, since the PV for Kagerou Days is a fanmade one how much of it is actually canon? Like the Dark Hibiya/Blue Hiyori thing being replaced into a cat in the anime.
POWUH: and Yaoi Fangirl~ with 2320 comments
The PV, however, explains the story of the song thoroughly. The creator covered the most important aspects of the song, and the story is relayed properly without cutting any scene. Here SHAFT literally cut out the most important part of the song, and the replacement of some characters with some random (though the cat is not random here) animal won’t help explaining the missing scene to non-PV/song fans. Unless SHAFT is planning to reveal it later at the end of the anime
Another theory I read is that the cat is Show ▼
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Jin left a lot of connecting points out of the manga/PVs/novels so far, I think. …Especially in regards to how everything is solved. Personally, I’ve heard theories that the cat is Show ▼
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
That animated PV for Kagerou was 100% a fan interpretation (though the same artist went on to animate the canon PVs), so maybe that just wasn’t Jin’s original plan for this…?
POWUH: and Yaoi Fangirl~ with 2320 comments
Ah, that makes sense. I keep forgetting that the PV is fanmade. It’s so good I keep remembering it as something canon
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Yeah, the more I think about it, Jin was heavily involved with writing the anime’s plot. If they left out anything, it’s because he didn’t want it in here for some reason.