Mekakucity Actors – 06

Death by twin-tails, coming soon in theatres near you.

I wouldn’t mind death by twintails, to be honest… Ugh, I reeeeeeally want to talk about Tateyama, but I can’t. OTL Though the reactions should be interesting. Seeing Kyo’s reactions to things every week certainly is. :3 Anyways, on to what is maybe one of my favourite stories of KagePro! …Though they seem to have maybe cut out the romance subplot, which in turn, cuts out some of the fun. (For me anyways.)

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Now that the KnK tag is back in full force, enjoy our posts a little bit faster. For the seiyuu fag in me, figuring things out became a lot easier in this episode. And there were lots and lots of hints; I guess after the first few episodes Shaft is taking a backseat on the mind convolution. I didn’t mind previously and I’m fine with the current pacing as well. Bring on some blood soon though!

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…Okay, I warned about cuteness, but they didn’t make Ene as obviously tsundere towards Haruka as she was in Yuukei Yesterday or the manga. Her crush there was so much more obvious than it was in this episode. Here, it looked more like they were just close friends, unless you were paying attention to the song lyrics near the end. Maybe they’re skipping right over that subplot, since there wasn’t exactly a direct mention of it. Plus, I don’t quite see how they’re going to put that part where she… becomes more honest with her feelings, because reasons. ARGH, that description I gave isn’t quite right, but as usual, there are spoilers involved in just about everything. I guess a better way of putting it is that I don’t think there’s quite enough time for Takane to have a decent conversation with Ayano. Anyways, yep. If you couldn’t tell from that poster, or the twin tails, or the Asumi Kana, Ene is actually Takane. How she got that way will be revealed later (hopefully), but it’s interesting how she changed from being perpetually irritated to being a genki girl.

It’s also funny how things developed. Obviously, Shintaro doesn’t seem to remember Takane giving the promise to call him “master” (either that, or he’s not connecting Ene to Takane), but she’s keeping good on the bet at least. In the manga, Takane also tells Haruka in a conversation once that it would be convenient to have a body that didn’t require food or sleep, so that’s worked out rather nicely as well. …And of course, Takane/Ene seems to be getting her revenge now for Shintaro’s attitude back in their high school days. …If you’re wondering about memory continuity, it’s already been revealed that Ene knows Ayano well, so I think it’s safe to confirm that Ene has her memories as Takane.

Time for a little dot connecting, with info that the anime left out. If you’re wondering where “Ene” came from, Takane based it on syllables from her name, Enemoto Takane. Likewise, Haruka decided to copy her naming scheme base and Konoha comes from Kokonose Haruka. I don’t think he ever drew up a picture of Konoha in the manga (though it’s obviously there in the PV above). The special prize Takane was talking about was sensei’s rare fish thing. She was pissed that he spent all of their money on it, and for reasons I don’t entirely remember, they had to offer up something as a prize. Though Takane knew she could win a game like this easily, so it was never in any real danger, Shintaro aside. Kido’s “cheating” was just her using her eye powers inside the game (because apparently she can do that). There’s not really a deeper meaning to it.

A totally-not-obvious alternate palette

If you’re wondering why they’re in a special class of two people, they both have accommodations for illnesses. Takane apparently falls asleep without warning and Haruka has some sort of illness that isn’t really explained, but it’s apparently pretty life threatening if he has an attack. Though that doesn’t really play a huge role in the story (as far as I’m aware) other than to have Takane and Haruka in the special class with Tateyama. Plus maybe Takane isn’t entirely aware of Haruka’s condition in this version, since he seemed to be having one at the end of the episode and Takane wasn’t really concerned (in the manga version, Takane had her headphones on at the time and didn’t notice what was happening). Though of course, something else entirely might be going on. They might have skipped over a few events… Especially since they specifically mentioned that it was August 15th.

Also, since they revealed that Ayano was related to Tateyama so easily, I might as well mention that Hiyori is also related to both of them. The specifics for that should be revealed soon enough. …As for the Headphone Actor part, I don’t even know what the PV is quite about, or how it relates to the situation. In the manga, it was more of an extended metaphor for something Takane goes through.

As I said, the moment Takane aka Ene and Haruka aka Konoha spoke, a siren started blaring in my head over the possibilities of character transformations into the previously met AI, Ene, and the meek sounding yet avant-garde fashionista, Konoha. But all the clues have already been provided in this arc of the story and let me deal with Haruka’s side of things. As I have watched some of the Kagerou Project videos, I know for a fact that Haruka will be going through a lot of transformations and Haruka to Konoha is not the only thing you will see from him at least. Remember my friends, Mamoru Miyano’s usual MO is not voicing cute little meek boys (well, not usually!), as he’s known for variations and interesting roles so keep a look out.

As well, everyone must be wondering what the hell happened to him, which led to his albino visage? As Kara has hinted previously on the importance of 15th August, it seems this is going to be a long foreshadowing on the same. Though, I got worried with him all head-down and sweating his ass off at the end of the episode. Ene should have been more aware of him rather than throwing a fit on dozing off. Isn’t she the one with that illness rather than vice versa? Anyways, fun fact, however much he might change externally, his monstrous appetite remained intact with him gobbling everything in sight; a fearful digestion system indeed! And look at me talking about Konoha’s eating habit because even after being halfway through the story, this is one of the only concrete things revealed about him. Not even Ene or Shintaro get this much of veiling but I have a feeling this is being done purposefully and we’ll soon find out his deal.

Let’s not forget the Mekakushi Dan because there has been enough foreshadowing on its founding members and now we can clearly peg them as Ayano, Shintaro, Ene and Konoha. This Shintaro was more of an asshole: an overconfident asshole, which is never good. Sure, he has family baggage with whatever we could figure out from Momo’s story but I’m glad his current personality has missed this trait but for how long? The jury is still out. I would compare him to Sora from No Game No Life for the perfect score but damn, even Sora is better than him. Notice that even. I guess Shintaro’s personality had previous dysfunctions but oh well, at least the lucky bastard got his bet’s worth by Ene calling him goshujin nonstop. Supposedly, there’s a heaven for gamers and Ene is the guidepost.

I’m not sure about Shuuya and Tsubomi’s cameo appearance but it seemed more of a blatant MCA fanservice. I’ve always found Shuuya to be a bit creepy whenever he goes all googly eyes on the audience. I guess that’s how his character is designed with a fun side along with creepiness. But seeing Tsubomi all flustered and at the brink of tears was surprising because she exudes a more tough aura. These differing character traits definitely make them seem more human, which is better than all of them being perfect. The more I watch this series, I’m more convinced about time displacement or virtual playing a huge role in the story conclusion. There are certain time gaps and things are still far from coming together but at least semblance has appeared with discoveries and plot progression.

Extra Head Tilts

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This was a slightly more straightforward episode than what we’ve had so far. LiSA singing here was awesome. I find that a lot of her music sounds the same, but I do like her voice …Actually, I think I might prefer these versions of the Kagerou Project songs to most of the originals, since these versions have different pitches that aren’t inhumanly high. The choices for singers is always nicely done too.

Though for once, I’m a bit disappointed. Not in Shaft in particular, since I know that Jin had a hand in writing this and it’s supposed to be slightly different from the novels and manga. However, what happened to all the tsundere?! It would be a shame if they skipped the slightly romantic subplot with Haruka and Takane, but they really didn’t seem to hint at Takane’s feelings. Here she just seemed… irritated. There was a lot more blushing and worrying about Haruka in the Headphone Actor arc I’m familiar with. (…The manga, obviously not the PV). Though the major part of that comes at the end of this story… Though if they’re jumping right into Konoha’s State of the World (as Shaft has been jumping from story to story thus far), they’re totally skipping over the ending to Headphone Actor, so yeah, maybe we’ll never get to see that. If they do skip over the ending for this arc, I can see why, since this prolongs the “mystery” a bit longer. However, they HAVE to show at least part of it eventually, since it explains how Ene and Konoha came to exist from Takane and Haruka. In any case, imagine that the next episode will be more convoluted than this episode was. Headphone Actor (again, the story, not the song) is one of the most straightforward of stories.

We are definitely figuring things out and as character histories overlap and more information is revealed. From this episode specifically, I want to know more about Tateyama. It’s a known fact that I have a thing for stubbled oldmen but really now, his programming skill is excellent (I’ll pay big bucks to get this guy in my team in RL), he’s Ayano’s father and an overall cool dude. Not to mention, he has an eye ability as hinted in the OP and being voiced by Keiji Fujiwara has its perks. With the antics he pulled in the glimpses shown in the last song (loved the blue monster man even when it was silly), he definitely seems a dedicated sensei taking care of his special students. Sure, he’s a bit wonky in the head for using club money for personal weird hobbies but hey, no one is perfect.

This makes me theorize on him being the mastermind behind Ene’s AI. Are they going to pull another Robotic;Notes on us with the real Ene sleeping in an incubator somewhere, while her AI version having her intellect? Coming to Ene, she was adorable with her tsundere package. Her crush on Konoha was surprising but not far-fetched because she did try to hide her gaming sojourns for not to sound lame. When you like someone, silly little things become big, so this worked. In the long run, her connection to Konoha will be important as well.

The pacing has definitely picked up with fast forward of Ene and Konoha becoming friends with Ayano and Shintaro. With how things are going, I hope we learn more about Konoha’s history and their connection with Hibiya and Hiyori, who were clearly featured on this week’s end card. Cherry on top is the red-eyed Tateyama, making me hope for good possibilities.

Next up: Konoha’s State of the World

About Tag Team

We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.