Tasogare Otome X Amnesia – 05

That awkward moment when you realize you’re being stalked by a naked man missing half of his skin

Well I’ve hit my one year mark at Metanorn! ….It really doesn’t feel like a year. Hell, I probably wouldn’t even have remembered that it’s been a year if Kyokai hadn’t told me. ANYWAYS, Tasogare has skipped over even more of the plot, so we’ve hit the cultural festival already.

It’s straight from summer into the school cultural festival for the school and the paranormal investigations club is holding a haunted house. …With a real ghost. Like she did with Momoe, people can see Yuuko if they’re put in a state of mind where they expect to see something, so she has the job of scaring people. As per usual, her and Niiya are off in their own world but Kirie however, is rather irritated this episode. She storms off dragging Momoe with her. …However what seems like 5 steps out of the clubroom, Kirie manages to get them lost.

They end up in front of the science lab and Momoe suddenly recalls a story about a heartless anatomy model. Apparently the model literally and figuratively lacks a heart and goes about killing humans that see it to replace it. They go in there anyways and Momoe actually finds an anatomy model without a heart. Think that she’s going to die, Momoe starts freaking out. Kirie’s solution of calming her down? YURI SOLVES EVERYTHING. …Okay, fine, she just hugs her, but still. Momoe comments on how calm Kirie is, but then Kirie shows her moe side by crying over a skeleton scaring her. In the end, the two become closer friends because of this and they decide to tour the cultural festival together… Anatomy model in tow since they plan on bringing it as a prop for the haunted house.

While Yuuko is busy scaring people, Kirie meets Momoe’s friends and gets roped into dressing like a cat maid and helping out at the imouto cafe that their class is holding. She does surprisingly well. However, when she looks in the mirror, she gets irritated again since with her wig, she looks a LOT like Yuuko. With that in mind, Kirie runs straight to the haunted house where Yuuko appears and confronts Kirie about how she wants to be like Yuuko. Kirie strongly denies this, but then Yuuko appears as Kirie and says that she’s just afraid of not being able to love herself.

Kirie runs out of the room and bumps into Niiya. Despite her looking a LOT like Yuuko, Niiya knows she’s Kirie right away and this just pisses her off. She goes on a rant about how she looks just like Yuuko and asks why he like a dead person so much when she looks alike and is still alive. His answer? Being alive or not doesn’t matter when it comes to love. Also, he’s more concerned about the fact that he has a view down Kirie’s dress. With the knowledge the Niiya is just a necrophiliac and he in fact DOES see her as a female, Kirie feels better and realizes that she was just seeing her worst fears inside the room. With that, she finally touches Yuuko (albeit by pushing her aside), her and Momoe are better friends and all is well again.

Even Kirie gets in on the Yuuko groping action

End Thoughts:

Well, uh wow they skipped a lot of the plot. To put this in perspective, this episode has already jumped to volume 5 of the manga. …There are only 7 volumes out right now with only one chapter coming out per month. Now I’m even more convinced that they’ll have an anime original ending (or maybe an ending of cut up pieces of the important stuff they missed). This episode cut out a bunch of details, but was a surprisingly faithful adaption to what happened in the manga. … Though maybe I’m just surprised at how faithful it was since I’m half expecting this to go waaaaay off track sometime in the future. Truth be told, they’ve been pretty good with following the manga pretty closely, but just cutting out a TON of details and subplots.

… I never thought I’d say this, but I think I ship Momoe and Kirie. I’m not even into yuri and I can’t deny the absolute adorableness of the two together this episode. From the manga, I’d say the closest these two were was just friends, but the anime added in those other scenes with them exploring the festival as well. This was the part in the manga where I stopped wanting to murder Momoe every time she appeared since she actually serves more of a purpose now. It’s great that Kirie has a friend now since maybe she’ll become a little less… tsun from now on. Kirie’s attraction to Niiya seems a bit out of the blue since it’s only been 2 episodes since they’ve met and there hasn’t really been that many romantic situations for those feelings to develop. Hell, even Momoe has a better reason for hanging around him since she has the whole admiration thing going on. …Though on the other hand, Kirie might have just been a bit possessive since Yuuko has clearly labelled Niiya as ‘hers’. Since Kirie had that whole inferiority complex going on, she might have just been trying to tear Niiya away from Yuuko to make herself feel better. Well, in any case, she has her inner problems solved for the most part, so hopefully her character becomes more likeable from this point. …Or at least hope that she gets along better with Yuuko.

Speaking of rushed developments, one could say that Niiya and Yuuko came on pretty fast. He confirmed his feelings for Yuuko for sure this episode, but there hasn’t been all that much between them. Sure, Yuuko is as clingy as ever, but really, I’d say the biggest development (on screen since it’s been like half a year since they met in anime time) was episode 3 where he accepted Yuuko for what she is. Ah, well. I imagine they’re trying to complete is entirely in one season since they keep rushing things forward at breakneck speed. What’s important here is that the two do like each other and one of them being dead isn’t that big of a deal for them.

… The effort put into the background still amazes me. The detailing of the flooring in the old school building was so… so… detailed. Again, I wonder how students are even allowed to roam around that place since it’s obviously a health hazard, but I don’t even think I’ve seen a teacher (or an adult for that matter) in this yet. There weren’t any wild coloured skies going on this episode, but the imagery they did with the anatomy model was fun. It was also a witty replacement instead of zooming in on Kirie’s er, assets (which is what any other show would have done). I’m amazed at how they turned a random object into a likeable character. Anyways, SILVER LINK played out some more of it’s strengths in animation this episode. Let’s see what else they have up their sleeves.

Preview: 

In case you’re wondering, yes that’s Niiya and yes, he’s in a skirt. Also, I’m 60% sure that these are cosplays. 

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.