First Blood

Ohhhhh…such a scary episode title. Going against the warnings of my fellow bloggers, I’ve decided to give this series a shot. The opening trailer caught my attention but only allowed the animators to flex their muscles, as I failed to find such animation anywhere in the first episode. The plot premise follows the life of a tormented boy, named Kusaka Yu, who loses the will to live after the death of one of his dearest friends. However, a mysterious girl, named Yoake Eimu, appears in Yu’s life one day and from that moment on, his life is forever changed.

WARNING: SUMMARY IS RIDICULOUSLY LONG, FEEL FREE TO SKIP TO IMPRESSIONS/THOUGHTS

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Episode Summary

The series begins in the past, introducing us to younger versions of three of the main characters. All three of them are gazing into the sky when suddenly, the pink haired girl, Hime Yakushiji, claps her hands together surprising the boy, Yu Kusaka, who then asks her what she is doing. Hime responds by saying that ‘if you wish on a star three times, then the wish will come true’. Yu calls her stupid, saying that she is thinking of a shooting star, not the comet that had just passed. The purple haired girl speaks for the first time, assuring Hime, that even if the star is a comet, her wish will still come true. Hime then wishes for cake, much to Yu’s amusement. He claims that if you are to wish for something, it should be something bigger (Maybe some pie on the side as well, eh Hime). The purple haired girl, who is named Izumi Makihara, then asks what he would wish for and after some thought, he shouts to the sky that he wishes to be on the side of justice and that he wants to defend the weak! Ah yes…the joys of a generic shounen hero character. Yu then promises that he will protect Izumi, and after much prodding, Hime as well.

The anime fast forwards twelve years, and we see a much older Yu walking near a construction site. For the first time, my favorite little blue-haired girl shows up, tailing him closely. Abruptly, there is an explosion on the site, and we see the girl surrounded by flames and dead bodies, perhaps killed by her. There is one wounded survivor who pleads to her that he won’t harm her if she lets him go but as she soon as she turns her back to him, he attempts to kill her with his Ayakashi, but his attack is blocked by her own Ayakashi. She then proceeds to pulverize the guy into the ground, splattering his blood onto her face. How lovely.

The scene switches to a high school class, where the teacher is talking about parasitic life. The teacher notices Yu sleeping despite Hime’s attempts to wake him, and begins tapping on Yu’s head with a pointer. Yu wakes up, but ignores the teacher, leading him to tap Yu once more. However, this time, the pointer breaks in two, much to the teacher’s surprise and Hime’s disapproval.

The scenes fades into an argument between Hime and Yu about how Yu should be more careful about how he uses his “power”. Apparently, the teacher didn’t hit Yu that hard as Yu caused the stick to break. Hime is then assaulted by a glasses wearing girl named Nori who proceeds to rub her cheek against Hime’s for a “recharge”. What Nori-chan is recharging, I have no clue. While the two girls are talking, Yu is called over to another classroom by a student who wants Yu to use his power to make money. Yu instantly refuses but when the classmate whispers to him some “important news”, Yu finally gives in. Yu then leaves the classroom and straightaway runs into some bullies beating up an underclassman. Yu turns back the way he came but is called out by the leader of the bullies, Sanada. Sanada seems to know about Yu’s power, as he whips out a cutting knife and challenges Yu to a fight.

Unfortunately, before anything remotely interesting happens, Yu is saved by a tall student named Kajiwara. The bullies seem to know and fear Kajiwara, as they back down immediately once Kajiwara approaches them. However, the motive for saving Yu appears to be that Kajiwara bears a crush on Hime, who Yu claims has no interest in ol’ Kaji-chan. Bummmmeeeerrrrr. Yu leaves Kaji, but as he walks down the stairs, he clenches his fists, saying to himself that the bullying has nothing to do with him. Suddenly he hears a voice asking him if that really is true and glances behind him to see the mysterious blue-haired girl looking down at him. However, their fated meeting is interrupted by the classmate from before, who I still have no idea what his name is and will hereby refer to as The Prick. The Prick then begins to lead Yu to a classroom with three students, all awaiting Yu’s performance.

After the commercial break, Yu begins his show by bending a spoon (lol Matrix), much to the disappointment of the audience. However, Yu then proceeds to bend and mutilate the remaining spoons, which provokes one of the onlookers to try and touch one of the spoons to see if it is real. Yu yells out not to touch it, which causes the spoon to break in two and cut the poor guy’s finger. As Yu sees the blood drip out, we’re shown a flashback to a scene of Izumi sleeping, or maybe dead, by a sakura tree. However, Yu is brought back to reality by the The Prick, who asks Yu to do “the other trick”. Yu declines but The Prick prods Yu to perform, as he wants to impress one of the girls in the audience. However, before Yu can begin, they are interrupted by an angry Hime. Too bad Prick, better luck next time.

The scene fades out and into Yu and Hime walking out of the school. However, before they reach the school gate, Yu is confronted by two of Sanada’s subordinates, who won’t let Yu leave until he shows Sanada his “trick”. Yu pretends to go along with the two, but then grabs Hime’s hand and they run into a train, leaving the thugs behind. After they get off, Hime blames Yu for what happened and how it’s because he keeps using his powers carelessly. Yu says that he is sorry but Hime argues that he isn’t truly sorry, otherwise he wouldn’t he keep using his power for show. Yu says that his power can do a lot more harm to a person than a mere spoon and begins to stare at a pedestrian walking across a bridge. Yu’s moment of cool is interrupted when Hime bashes him across the head with her field hockey stick. Yu claims that he was only joking but Hime retorts by saying that there are some things that he just can’t joke about. Yu apologizes to Hime but Hime says that it isn’t only her that he should apologize to but also Izumi. Apparently, the sakura tree that they are walking by is the same tree shown in the earlier flashback. What a coinkidink.

Yu and Hime’s little bicker is cut short by the appearance of Sanada, who challenges Yu to a battle once again. However, their confrontation is halted by a sunglasses wearing man tough guy, who challenges Sanada to a fight with 300 bucks at stake. The thug takes out a knife, which provokes Sanada to laugh, saying that once a knife has been drawn, he can’t back down. Sanada whips out his cutter and then pokes the air with it, sending a spiritual entity that cuts off the blade of the other man’s knife. The spirit then proceeds to cleave off the guy’s nose, dropping him to the ground in agony. This scene caused me to laugh for like ten minutes because of how the nose just plopped off like something found on Mr. Potato Head. Sanada jumps onto the poor guy and impales his eye with the cutter, much to the horror of Hime and Yu. Finished with his challenger, Sanada turns his attention to a terrified Yu and tells him to use his power. Yu is frozen with fear and can only watch as Sanada sends the spiritual entity towards him. However, right before the spirit lops of Yu’s nose or arm or his egg roll and dumplings, it is is blocked by none other than blue-haired chan. Cue the theme music and sakura petals as the scene turns to a white haired scientist woman, who is looking at the aftermath of the earlier construction site explosion.

After the fade out, we get our first glimpse of perhaps the main antagonist of the series, who gets a report from the white haired scientist, who is named Akino. She claims that even if challenges the “five users” by himself, it will be hard for him to win. Evidently, from the wreckage she found at the site, she came to this conclusion. The man then asks whether she wants to meet them, and answers his own question saying that he does.

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Final Thoughts:

As a first episode, I thought it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t breathtaking either. The opening theme, “Cloudier Sky” by Ayane, is nothing special, but succeeds in bringing a mystical and fantastical element to the series. The animation isn’t the greatest, but Yu hasn’t turned into berserker mode yet, so thats to be expected. The attempt at a “unique” character design is worth noting, but despite a valiant effort, the only design I like is of the short, blue-haired girl dressed in…uh…blue. Ah, the joys of originality. The giant Ayakashi look somewhat like Heihachi of the Tekken series to me, with their ears pricked up. When Yu is in powered up mode, the way his arm transforms resembles Allen Walker from D. Gray Man. The fact that Allen’s Innocence is a “rare, parasite-type Innocence that shares a symbiotic relationship with Allen’s body” (Wikied it) makes Yu an even more generic character. His power to bend things also reminds me a bit of Emiya Shirou from Fate/Stay Night, in how he has some inner power that will only expand once the series continues.

I found it funny how Yu, Izumi, Hime, and blue-haired chan were the only characters shown with a different hair color than the generic brown, blond, and black. Although they’re the main characters, it feels like they’re out of place at the school, because there is little attempt to make any of the supporting cast look interesting. The supporting characters shown so far are a bit generic and boring, as they did very little to move the story along aside from the whole magic trick issue. Even Sanada isn’t as evil as he could be, as poking the air with a cutting knife doesn’t exactly send shivers down your spine.

From seeing some of the scenes in the opening theme, I believe that the mysterious blue-haired girl is Yoake Eimu. However, what I’m interested in is the relationship between Eimu and Izumi, rather than between Eimu and Yu. Eimu is most likely a reincarnated form of Izumi, who is probably the Yu’s dear friend that died. However, how Yu reacts if and when he finds out the relationship between the two is what intrigues me. Yu probably had feelings for Izumi, and those feelings may transfer to Eimu. I can already begin to sense a love triangle between Eimu, Yu, and Hime, who seems to adore Yu despite how indifferently he treats her. If you also put in Kajiwara, who likes Hime, the anime could turn out to be more like a sappy afternoon soap opera rather than a supernatural series.

Lastly, what was up with Yu’s psychotic killer face right before Sanada appeared near the end. Unfortunately, Hime killed the mood by whacking him with her stick, but it appears that Yu isn’t as righteous as most protagonists. His character may turn out like Light Yagami from Death Note, who initially started out as trying to be virtuous by ridding the world of criminals, but ended up corrupt and evil. I think that the man seen at the end of the episode will eventually try and bring out Yu’s inner darkness, which could be one of the highlights of the series, seeing Yu struggle with his inner turmoil.

Sorry about the long summary. First episodes are my weak point summary wise because of all the introductions and settings that are introduced. Hopefully my other entries won’t be this long and tedious as this took about five hours to write and edit with images and junk. Oh yeah, MAD PROPZ TO SUBARU FOR FORMATTING THE IMAGES!

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