Tokyo ESP 05-06
You certainly didn’t see this in Kung Fu Panda…
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Negative Nancy here back for some more Tokyo ESP, so expect a little negativeness as I still can’t quite get into this show. Thankfully the main story has picked up, so I’m feeling slightly more interested, but of course there’s still a lot of elements that put me off… (Also, sorry for the text-filled screencaps!) |
So the leader of the esper group finally makes his appearance as the Professor, shows off his pretty sweet esp power right off the bat to treat us to some long awaited information. Immediately we find out about the glowing fish, who do indeed give out powers; Peggy, who’s actually known as ‘the collector’ who collects the fish and protects them; and the small piece of rock, which apparently comes from a very important tablet that awakens the special abilities within a person (or, as he said, living creature). Plus, we finally got more background on Kyotaro and his relationship with Minami and the Professor, who turns out to be his adopted father. Yet there still seems to be a lot more to the Professor and Kyotaro, as Kyotaro’s parents had come with the Professor on the archeological site, as seen in the photo. There, not only are Kyotaro’s parent still alive, but the Professor doesn’t have his scar and his wife is alive as well. In the present however, the parents and wife are indeed dead, and the Professor throughout the end of episode 5 keeps showing Kyotaro his deformed face (which could be an illusion, but who knows at this point), and calls it his ‘true form’. So what happened on that site? There was a brief image of the tablet shattering into pieces, so did this tablet shatter so powerfully that it killed Kyotaro’s parents and the Professor’s wife and deformed the Professor’s face? Or did something more happen? Then there’s Kyotaro telling Rinka that he feels his esp powers awakening, the death of his parents, and the civil war he got caught in the middle of was due to his parent’s and the Professor’s research (I assume) on the tablet. This tablet still has a ton of mystery to it, so that’s something promising to look forward to, though I’m not sure much the show will end up focusing on it.
Episode 6 meanwhile was the turning point in the story, where now that the immediate mystery of the flying fish is solved, we have the first significant destructive act of the Professor’s group, which despite being small has some very skillful members. As several innocent bystanders are killed in the incident, espers are instantly viewed as dangerous; even the rescuers at the scene couldn’t help but be wary of Rinka and her father as they used their esp powers to help people caught in the rubble, despite the fact they were helping them. I’m assuming the Professor’s plan is for espers to isolate themselves from humans, coaxing them into using and abusing their powers to do things against normal humans until they eventually join his little group to overthrow the government and humans in general. Normal people of course have only seen espers as people with dangerous powers that can cause horrific accidents like with the flying boat (and doing other criminal activities as the detective pointed out), and so they’ll immediately distrust and hate espers of any kind, creating the terrible cycle humans trying to get rid of espers and espers wanting to get rid of humans because of the treatment they receive (or because they just want to, I mean, if you got amazing powers and are angry at the world, why not?).
Despite the tragedy of the incident, the whole scene with the boat was probably my favorite part of Tokyo ESP thus far. For this moment I felt like the show finally got serious, finally got the story just right, and it was such a comforting feeling, but of course the training montage ruined the rest of the episode for me. I can’t even appreciate the quirky panda guy because he’s just a gross, old, cliché pervert. If he acted differently I probably would’ve taken it a lot more seriously, as with the other elements of this show that are supposed to be fun, but just aren’t for me.
These past two episodes were definitely a lot more enjoyable for me, but everything still feels very rushed and messy as a whole, like they’re trying to put too many elements at once into this and it just becomes too cluttered and cliche. We went from heros of justice to gangster family drama to depressing childhood flashbacks with a cult leader-like adopted father, to cheesy bits of Rinka liking Kyotaro, and finally back to the original story which was cut off for an unfortunate ‘You weren’t focused enough so let’s give you training with a perverted old master’ training montage. And then there’s this supposed crush Rinka has on Kyotaro, which unfortunately I can’t take serious at all because it literally just popped out of nowhere with all the blushy faces and constant denial of any feelings. For a while it even seemed like they kept pitting Rinka and Minami against each other because of him, which made me cringe at the thought of some sort of love triangle forming. However, this new training Rinka is taking seems to be her deciding to fight against the Professor’s group purely because she wants to do it to help people, and not just because of Kyotaro; at least, that’s what I’m hoping/assuming. Anyway, that’s it from me this week. Look forward to Karakuri for the next two episodes! Until next time then~
About Hoshi
A tired, over-dramatic 20 year old college student who likes manga and cheesy Korean boy bands. Prone to succumb to laziness and refuse to work for hours on end.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I love the weird origins of the group. I don’t know why they persist on calling the powers ESP…does manga/anime have a thing against calling them superpowers?
But Rinka’s decision to step up and take control was pretty darn awesome. She can’t wait for the man to do it, she has to, cause few else will.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
The Professor went Two-Face with his reveal. That burned side is like a mangled mess of charred meat.
Like you, Hoshi, I can’t get into the show completely. To be honest, its performance is lower than expected but it has aspects in the story that keep things interesting.
Minami is the one who catches my eye. Her motivation is easy to distinguish. She’s sick of how rotten to core the human society is and feels it necessary to have a reform. Unlike like Rinka, Minami is strong in her convictions from the get-go so she’s ready to do anything and everything.
POWUH: 800-899 and Flying Sage with 856 comments
I wouldn’t say that this has been my favorite show this season, but I do think the way they started out with a team, and then showed the team gradually assembling has been interesting. I feel I understand the work a lot better now. I had been thinking (after episode one) that I was uninterested in his show, because it was just a battle genre, but the back story on the characters has definitely drawn me in.