Another new writer has been spawned here at T.H.A.T., and this would be my first official blog post. I’m pretty much an anime junkie and I’ve been so for quite awhile. I’m watching several shows this season and I am planning on blogging a couple of them here on this site. Hopefully I can bring to light some shows that not everyone and their mother already watch that the readers here might pick up and enjoy with me. If you can get past the piles of romance and moeblob out there (don’t get me wrong, some of it is good), I think this season has a lot of great shows to watch. For now, I’ll be blogging on a couple of shows, trying things out and generally seeing what is the most interesting stuff to throw at you. That being said, here’s a summary and some thoughts on one of this season’s gems, Night Wizard Episode 4.

The episode begins with a prologue describing the ancient Chinese goddess of the moon Chang’O, who is shown holding a rabbit in a painting. After the OP the gang is having a meeting in their base regarding the next jewel they are looking for, which they suspect is currently on the moon. Anzelotte proceeds to whip out her vintage reel player to play back the last words of their recon team as they are attacked by white devils not named Nanoha. They resolve to travel to the moon to investigate and recover the jewel using the convenience of Anzelotte’s space shuttle that apparently doesn’t require space suits. They blast off to the moon while Anzelotte dons her finest oba-san glasses.

On the shuttle everyone except Renji begins to do some studying, including some material on Chang’O. Renji seems more interested in taking a nap at first, and Kureha fondly remembers the previous time she took the shuttle when he came to save her. Kureha embarrassingly recovers and convinces Renji to study under threat to reveal his embarrassing secret. After a short clip of some hot and evil Yuko Goto (Bell Zephyr) scheming Renji notices some ears in the window. Apparently the aforementioned white devils were crazed and violent rabbits, and they beat the crap out of the shuttle using their hammers, causing it to explode. The team manages to escape by an escape pod of sorts, although they end up separated on the surface of the moon (again without space suits, I guess they don’t require oxygen). Elis wakes up and senses the jewel nearby, but runs into more of the neighborhood rabbit population.

She runs and eventually finds herself at the edge of a cliff, trapped by the rabbits. Thankfully she is saved by a middle school aged boy who whisks her off to safety and throws out some disparaging remarks regarding her friends. After he walks off, Elis is found by Akari and they go on to try and find the jewel. The scene shifts to Renji and Kureha fighting off some more rabbits. Kureha goes and digs up a broom and Renji jumps on as they fly away toward the same ruins we find Akari and Elis at. The two run into Chang’O atop a building, who wields a sword that holds the jewel they are looking for. Chang’O easily deflects Akari’s attacks, knocks out Elis, and takes her inside a growing, gigantic figure of a woman indicating she plans to sacrifice her.

Kureha, Renji, and Akari plan out their attack and Renji breaks through to try and save Elis. While he begins to fight Chang’O, Elis enters one blue eye mode and snatches the jewel from Chang’O, reducing her power. As a result, Renji is able to use his sword and end her irritating laughter. In the aftermath everyone gathers happily, only to be interrupted by the annoying kid (who reveals his name to be Kirihito) from earlier who informs them of their inadequacies. Elis runs over and thanks him for saving her earlier, and he walks off. The team notices that he has the uniform of the middle school section of their school, and wonder whether or not he is a wizard.

Next Episode:

The preview shows a new character, a old wizard who protects the fourth jewel. It appears that he uses a similar demon sword to Renji, and suggests that there will have some sort of conflict between them.

Impressions:

Overall it was a good episode; it didn’t have too much chatter and had a high level of action. The animation quality was decent in the fights, and there wasn’t too much cheating with still shots and panning. They had a healthy dose of actual, animated sword action, including some bloody slicing of the evil rabbits. Akari continues to be the bad ass quiet type, she didn’t get as much action as some previous episodes, and she wasn’t very successful in the time she was there, getting her bullets slashed to pieces. Kureha was also pretty useless, but that seems like a common theme, she has to always be saved by Renji.

However, not much humor overall, as the episode was devoid of Anzellote’s usual antics which I enjoy. Her trademark “Answer the question with either ‘hai’ or ‘yes’” cracks me up every time. And the way in which she finds and picks up Renji at her whim serve as the comic relief foundation for the show, hopefully she gets more air time next week. The white devil rabbits armed with hammers were pretty funny though, reminding me of Puchuus, everyone’s favorite cute and destructive animals from Excel Saga. The new character introduced, Kirihito, as you have probably figured out, irritates the hell out of me. He brings up too many Nagi (Mai-Hime) vibes for my tastes, I wanted to punch him through the internet. The mysterious boy who talks smack but apparently knows everything was never one of my favorite character archetypes, in fact it’s one of my most hated. Kirihito is not listed on ANN’s encyclopedia of characters for the show, so hopefully we won’t have to see too much of him. We wouldn’t want to disturb Renji’s harem after all with his moves on Elis.

After four episodes I find myself looking forward to Night Wizard each week, it has certainly grown on me. You don’t see much anime where the characters are given strong powers and they don’t take a few episodes to be emo about it. Elis especially seems pretty gung ho about her role, even if she does act the damsel in distress a bit. The characters introduced so far have shown distinct personalities, and are capable of being serious and humorous, depending on what’s appropriate at the time. It’s not a show to watch with intense mental scrutiny (no spacesuits on the moon for example), however it delivers what it intends to deliver. The voice work continues to be solid, highlighted by Naoki Yanagi’s strong and assertive performance as Renji, a confident character he portrays well. The other highlight is Yuko Goto’s evil hotness as Bell Zephyr. Ever since her stint on Lucky Star as Gotouza-sama I’ve yearned to hear her portray a stonger, villanous character. While Bell Zephyr isn’t exactly the strong and rough type, I am really enjoying how she is voiced so far. Yuko Goto has far too long been relegated to soft moeblob in slice of life or renai adaptations (Lamune, Hidamari Sketch, Haruhi, etc.), it’s good to see this less often heard side of her.

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