Zetsuen no Tempest – 05
What happens when two trees battle? …Magic, apparently.
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…Halloween passes and suddenly the whole marketing industry is full into Christmas. It’s depressing. Hell, one place I work for had Christmas displays up since June. Next thing you know, we’ll be setting them up in February. Then we’ll just never take them down. …Retail is a scary place. But I digress, you’re here to talk about a show about a dead girl and a two angsty teens. I should move on to that. |
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than what is dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Finally, a new Shakespeare line! Though since it was basically Aika just telling Yoshino that there are things beyond understanding, I don’t think that there’s anything too deep behind it. It was originally Hamlet’s line too, so maybe that’s why Yoshino wasn’t too taken with her using the phrase. Maybe it wasn’t a conscious acknowledgement with him thinking “that’s Mahiro’s character base!”, but he might have felt something off. …Somehow. As for the meaning of the rest of the conversation, it’s almost as if Aika knew she was going to die. There was a huge coincidence between Hakaze’s talisman and the aquarium gift shop item Yoshino and Aika looked at. To add to all of this, we still don’t even know the reasons behind why someone from Hakaze’s clan killed Aika in the first place. Both of the female protagonists have a ton of mysteries surrounding them.
So while the flashbacks of Mahiro and Yoshino explained a bit, Hakaze’s pre island flashbacks… didn’t really explain anything. We know so much more about how the clan works, and we know why they have magic, but hell if we still have absolutely no idea why the Tree of Genesis favours Hakaze in particular. Is there a reason? Is she just lucky? What? I have to agree with Tesuma here that Hakaze being favoured simply makes no sense at the moment.
…Though that being said, that kind of makes what Samon is doing a little more questionable (in a good way). If he’s really out to destroy logic at it’s source, then why would the logic loving Tetsuma join him? Also, from that one flashback, it looked like he was being perfectly reasonable with Hakaze. In fact, she looked like the one who was at fault in the conversation because she just seemed too arrogant to listen to whatever Samon was trying to say. Maybe her imprisonment was brought on by her own pride, since she definitely wasn’t afraid to abuse her power. …Though who knows.
“The plan is to rip out logic at it’s roots. Get it? ROOTS? HAHAHAHA…ha”
They made it a point this episode that logic loves Hakaze. I don’t know what point of her using a tiny ring to take out an entire mountainside is logical (or perhaps I should take that as a point that it sides with her), but there you have it. I can understand why Samon would ship her off to an island like that now, after that extremely impressive display of power. Hakaze is definitely a threat. She’s still a threat, even after death (maybe. If she really is dead).
Now the show also dropped a bomb on us by telling us that Hakaze is already dead. Now unless this is an extremely convoluted misunderstanding and she’s still alive, logic must REALLY love Hakaze if it lets her communicate between the past and the present like that. I can see that being within her range of power, but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the whole thing. Despite her still talking to Mahiro and Yoshino, there’s a large chance that she has died, since Samon seems to have her skull and barrel with him. If so though, how is she communicating with Mahiro and Yoshino? When did the past connect with the present? How did that even happen? ….How long has Hakaze been dead for? Hakaze said Samon has only been at this for a portion of the year. When did he find time to go back and collect her skull (or maybe Junichiro did it)?
Also, if she is dead, I wonder why that would be. She seemed self sufficient enough to survive on the island for 131 days. I don’t think that this show has a huge history of trolling and they’ve always told us things as how they were, so I’m just going to assume that what they said about Hakaze is true. She was also the one who said that bringing back the dead is impossible though and if we’re to believe that too, then Hakaze is really dead for good. …Unless she was able to bend logic and prevent her death or something. Talking to the male protagonists through time is pretty out there in bending logic, who knows what else she can do. Maybe she can come up with something to stop her death now that she knows? Maybe she dies on purpose to stop Samon from being able to control Exodus?
Being a female character on this show is suffering.
Of course, this opens up a whole new question with this series. Can the present change the past? Is Hakaze destined to die, or can she survive and change the future? I don’t know how set in stone ‘fate’ is in this series (though if we’re to believe Aika, then it’s pretty unescapable), but if Hakaze did change her actions, I wonder how much of the future would be changed. Maybe that’s how they stop Samon. Maybe she can do whatever saves her with Aika, so both female characters can avoid their crappy fates. …Of course, assuming that Hakaze is actually dead.
I feel like the majority of this post was talking about Hakaze, but it’s the first huge conundrum that Zetsuen no Tempest has really ever thrown at us. …Mostly because it bends the logic Hakaze is trying so hard to protect and makes no sense. I’m sure they’ll provide some kind of explanation for us in the future (since they always have thus far), but at the moment, there is a lot of contradictory things going on plot-wise. I guess I could have said more about Junichiro as well since he’s the first mage that Mahiro and Yoshino have met that hasn’t tried to kick their faces in (or maybe I should word that the other way around). Though he didn’t really have that big of a role this episode. Maybe he’ll play a bigger part in the future.
In any case, this episode felt like business as usual for the plot (aside from another of the characters probably being dead). Yoshino and Mahiro actually have a goal now, so I’m sure the plot will head off in that direction with Hakaze’s death as a plot distraction so we don’t get bored watching two guys wander around the country. I feel better about this anime ending in another 7 or so episodes now that I know that Hakaze does have a way to stop Samon without physically being there herself. It would have been such a waste of time if the two male protagonists had gotten to the tree and had no way to stop it.
Alas, poor Hakaze, I- …I already used that line episode 1 OTL
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: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
My idea is that the Hakaze corpse is Aika, and for whatever reason those two were linked. I haven’t decided or learned whether it’s the formerly Hakaze’s skeleton in the barrel that Samon has and Hakaze’s consciousness was somehow put into Aika’s reanimated corpse, or (more likely) the body is Aika’s used to convince people that she’s dead, as Hakaze got sent to the island. That fits in better with Hakaze’s hypothesis of Samon covering his possible failure.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
If the corpse turns out to be Aika and Samon is the one responsible for her death, it’s just another excuse for Mahiro to be more ballistic than he already is. Killing someone is one thing, using their body as a distraction is like saying you have a death wish.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Well, we know that *someone* from the Kusirabe clan is responsible for Aika’s death. And we can guess that it’s not Hakaze. So either it’s Samon, or it’s someone else, who is likely acting on order of Samon. The only other possibility is that it’s someone that just did it, and Samon doesn’t have anything to do with it. But that’s not really the way anime works, is it?
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Ahahaha yeah, I’d bet anything it was under Samon’s orders. …Unless a third party sudden appears and reveals that Samon was actually manipulated by them the whole time. It happens often enough.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Not to mention that Mahiro is revenge driven to begin with. As if the kid needs any more reasons to kill people.
POWUH: Meta Team and Ringleader Extraordinaire~ with 6433 comments
Dude, what is going on?! Though, I am liking the curve ball they have thrown at us… DAT SKULL.
POWUH: 500-599 with 543 comments
Curve ball only gets better! 😀
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
YES DAT SKULL. WTF IS GOING ON.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
It’s terrifying how the Black Iron Syndrome doesn’t discriminate on anything it comes into contact with. First people, then birds and now marine life in the aquarium. I wonder if the victims really die when they start turning or if they are just put into a prolonged metallic state of sleep.
The episode being mostly about Hakaze is a good thing so we can learn a lot more about her as Mahiro and Yoshino have already had one about them. She certainly is the high born type: Arrogant, narcissistic and selfish. Being the strongest mage in her clan has also put her on a power trip.
Samon is actually pretty smart coming up with that fake story and corpse for Hakaze. At first, I thought of the same possibility as Highway that the corpse could be Aika but it doesn’t fit. Aika has been dead for a full year and Hakaze has been stranded on the island for a total of 131 days which is less than 6 months. If it could have been Hakaze, the body would still have to have signs of decay but skull of the corpse that is supposed to be the stand-in has nothing left. They would need a body that would more fit the time frame.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I don’t know if I quite understand the objection. I concede that we don’t know the condition of the corpse when Junichi saw it, but that it’s a bare skull now doesn’t really mean anything. If it was the other way around, as in there was still flesh and soft tissue around, then that might be an argument for time frame, but it’s relatively easy to strip all the flesh off a skeleton. There’s no time frame that can be assumed based on that fact, I think.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
That’s what I was wondering. I mean, it’s not like the bodies were destroyed or anything, why couldn’t they just be… de-iron-sydromed. …Yeah.
Ahahaha Hakaze is awesome, arrogant or not. Though for an episode about her, …we didn’t really learn much about her.
…I’m going to agree with Highway here, since it’s easy enough to remove muscles from a corpse. Though I’m going to disagree with him over it being Aika’s body. Why? …Because.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I would say that the act of converting living tissue to iron (and for a show that bases magical effects on consistent logic and rules, Black Iron Syndrome falls apart really fast when it only affects animals, not other living tissue like trees) will completely remove the life from a body. It’s not like freezing Han Solo and encasing him in carbonite. It’s converting all the tissue to a different element. How could you convert all of that back to the different tissues they were? For all intents and purposes, the bodies are destroyed, and only the shapes remain.
This was an episode about Hakaze? I didn’t really think it was doing much besides telling one story about her.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Oh okay, I had interpreted it more like flash freezing or something, where the victims could be thawed out to some effect as long as it was done just as instantly. They haven’t really gone into how or why the Black Iron Syndrome does what it does, so I’ll just go by your explanation here. …I’m confused at it not going after plants as well. I originally attributed that to the disease only going after people (since they’re the centre of the whole civilization deal), but then the iron chickens showed up a while back.
I wouldn’t consider this to be an episode about Hakaze as directly as the previous episode was about Yoshino and Mahiro, but I do believe that the episode was heavily involving her. The focus was on her mostly (her ‘death’, her flashback with Samon, her role with the two trees, etc.), so I would call this her episode for now until something more informative comes up.
POWUH: 500-599 with 543 comments
I will be keeping my mouth shut about Hakaze, having read the manga and therefore knowing what exactly went down.
The curve ball of the skull only gets better. The author did a really good job with this seemingly awkward working of the skull and Hakaze and the logic. All of the timing, the skull, Hakaze on the island, Samon’s actions, ect., everything comes together. There was one little hiccup in the entire thing. And that was it.
I’m just hoping it doesn’t take 7 episodes, as the manga had spent 7 chapters, full of dialogue. There’s one line I’ll be waiting for, since it’s very important. (It’s not as good as you think it to be.)
But if you think being a female character is suffering, just wait for what happens after Hakaze’s situation is figured out and we move on to some other people…
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
…I kind of spoiled myself on Show ▼
, but I don’t want that knowledge to ruin my speculation here, so I’m trying to ignore that. …It doesn’t even make that much sense from how I read it, so if you say it connects, then I’ll believe you. That’s all I know though, so I’m looking forward to the things you’re hinting at~
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Oh and I guess I should also mention Show ▼
POWUH: 500-599 with 543 comments
The first one is on track to what happens.
As for the second, I haven’t seen that yet, although I may be behind somewhere. I’m about to read chapter 20 here. I have heard something about what exactly gets revealed
Show ▼
But so far in translations, the manga is behind by about 2 volumes I think.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Oh okay, I’m trying hard not to read the manga to avoid more spoilers. I don’t know if I’ll make it or not though. In your opinion, is the manga close to ending, or will the anime have one of those open ended ones?
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
Since I am late to the party so I will keep it simple:
WT* skull, just WT* skull and all the touching.
Oh, and those poor fishes T.T