Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
For the second time while writing this column, I feel the need to open this article with an apology. I have to level with you here. I genuinely mostly like Spy x Family, but this is, by my count, the fourth episode in a row that’s been basically pleasant and amusing but also of no consequence whatsoever. I’m aware that Spy x Family is not some immortal drama that seeks to resonate throughout the ages, but it’s not a particularly great sign when co-seasonals of such narrative heft as BOCCHI THE ROCK! and Do It Yourself!! have had more comparative forward plot momentum this cour than SpyFam has. It’s not that I’m demanding shootouts, character deaths, and commentaries on the nature of the human condition in every episode, here, but it really and truly feels like very little is happening. This is Spy x Family spinning its wheels; in a full water-treading mode that is perhaps the unintentional result of its heavily decompressed pace. It’s not even that these episodes are bad; they’re just difficult to write about.
The good news is that, for an episode that isn’t really about much of anything—save maybe some more light pair-the-toys energy between Anya and her perpetual frenemy Damian—it at least is still a pretty good one. (Again, nothing since “Yor’s Kitchen” has even sniffed actually being bad. There’s just not really a ton going on.)
Again, the episode is split between an A and a B plot. The A plot is another Anya segment, although the real focus is on new character George Glooman, a classmate of Anya and Damian’s who we haven’t seen until this point. Georgie here is under the impression that his company has been “crushed” by the Desmond Group (the very same owned by Damian’s family). To this end, he hired a spy to try to mess with Damian’s grades—that was the B plot of last week’s episode, which we skipped here on Magic Planet Anime because I wasn’t feeling very well. It also introduced us to a new counterpart for Loid, a bumbling novice spy who goes by the codename “Daybreak.”—and when that doesn’t work, he here resorts to trying to get him expelled. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that doesn’t work either; Anya might not like Damian as much as Damian clearly likes her, but she’s unwilling to let him get kicked out of school over nothing. It would foil her beloved papa’s mission, after all.
There’s also some stuff here about George exploiting the fact that everyone—even himself—thinks he’s leaving. He asks for drinks, for caviar(!), for mementos, etc. Only to then find out from his pa that the Glooman company is just being bought out and everything is pretty much fine. Whoops!
The B plot is a bit more interesting this time around. Mostly because it stars Yor, who gets her first real chance to show off at all here since the cour started. She runs a bundle of gym clothes to Eden Academy because she gets the impression that Anya’s forgotten them. Naturally, Spy x Family being what it is, she’s actually mistaken, and the entire segment’s punchline is that she did all this for no real reason at all.
But, along the way we get some very nice animation and some unusually zany directing for this series. Including a memorably bizarre cut where Yor kicks a falling flowerpot back up onto the windowsill it fell from, in full Looney Tunes fashion.
Maybe, in the end, that’s really how I should be thinking of this show. As a half-hour Chuck Jones or Tex Avery joint, a showcase for fun animation and wacky antics. But by its very nature of having an overarching story—Loid’s mission and Anya’s part in it, and the blooming family dynamic between Loid, Yor, and Anya—it more or less resists that classification. Thus, episode 19 ends like last few have: solid, but unsurprising. The next-episode preview once again teases a new proper story arc. Perhaps we’ll get something more substantial to chew on then.
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
Earlier today, I had a lengthy discussion with a good friend of mine in which we went over all sorts of very personal and heavy subjects. One of these was, essentially, dreams – aspirations. These things keep us pushing forward and pursuing them often defines our lives. I, for example, would like to formally study history someday. I have an interest in the subject and think it’s an important field.
But of course, different people have different sorts of dreams, which brings us to today’s Chainsaw Man serial. You see, at the start of episode five, Denji achieves one of his dreams.
To touch a boob.
Listen, I never said the man’s dreams were noble. Or terribly fulfilling. But hey! He has them! Respect his dreams! Or don’t! I’m not a cop.
Instead of being fulfilled, Denji finds himself spiraling. Power, in a bit of the manga’s trademark askew humor, was wearing breast pads the entire time for…reasons. Who knows why, really? They’re probably Fiend reasons. Very secret, you and I wouldn’t be privy to them. Denji thus finds his boob-touching experience to be largely unsatisfactory, which plunges him into a bout of existential ennui. If there is no truth and beauty to be gleaned from the titties of the world, where then, might it be gleaned?
Well, Denji gets an answer not long later. Whether or not it’s a useful answer is another question entirely.
It’s been a moment since we last spoke about Makima’s Problematic Power Dynamics Emporium on this blog. I don’t think I’m cutting the legs off of any kind of “twist” by pointing out that Makima does not exactly have Denji’s best interests in mind, but Denji himself of course does not know that, and as an emotionally shattered teenager whose spent most of his life not knowing even the feintest hint of human kindness, Makima’s practiced, razor-sharp manipulation seems entirely genuine. What might be read flags to an experienced viewer are, instead, to both Denji and I’m sure at least some of the demographic at whom Chainsaw Man is in fact aimed—it’s a shonen manga at the end of the day, recall—genuinely alluring. They’re also instructive; as warnings.
The little lecture that Makima gives Denji here is all about physical intimacy. She tells him that sexuality is best explored with someone you know very well. She has him fondle not just the obvious but also her ear. It is all extremely charged, and it’s supposed to be. But it’s also supposed to be a little unsettling. Take note of the many cuts back to Denji’s own eyes, which Makima stares phantasmal daggers into, intentionally or not. She also asks him if anyone’s ever bitten his finger before. The sort of request that scans as a little bizarre on paper, but could easily absolutely destroy the unprepared in the right circumstance.
Make no mistake; Denji is actively being manipulated here, in a way that is extremely transparent and wildly inappropriate, considering that Makima is pretty clearly at least a bit older than Denji and is also his boss. Guys; don’t rake me over the coals for this, but I think that this Makima character might not have our boy’s interests in mind!
And sure enough, before he really even knows it, Denji is agreeing to hunt the Gun Devil, a spectre of death that appeared in—where else?—the USA some number of years ago. (Why does he agree? Other than the fact that Denji would probably do nearly anything Makima asked at that point, it’s because she offers to grant him any “one wish.” You get two guesses what he plans on making his wish. First two don’t count.)
We get a flashback, eventually revealed as Aki’s, where the creature passes unseen over a remote home and completely obliterates it and everyone inside in microseconds. Except for Aki himself, waiting for his brother to go fetch a pair of gloves so the two of them can keep playing with snowballs. Naturally, Aki’s brother never comes back.
More exposition, brief but important; the Gun Devil sheds bits of flesh—casings, basically—wherever it goes. Stick enough together, and it acts like a giant magnet, pointing you toward the Gun Devil itself. This is all the context we need for part two of this episode, where we meet some new friends.
From left to right (and skipping Power, Denji, and Aki, who we obviously already know), that’s Arai (Taku Yashiro), Kobeni (Karin Takahashi), and Himeno (Mariya Ise). Respectively, they’re straightlaced and serious, a walking bundle of nerves in the vague shape of a human who jumps out of her own skin at anything and everything, and a bisexual whirlwind freewheeling spirit whose broad smile, perhaps unsurprisingly, holds a profound inner pain. They’re all pretty great. Much of this half of the episode is character dynamic, feeding us fun little hints about this other company of Devil Hunters (such as Himeno’s contract devil being the Devil of Ghosts) fun moments for the newly-expanded cast to interact in equal measure.
Anyway, not long after this, they discover that the hotel building they’re infiltrating is looping infinitely in every direction. The episode ends there, because cliffhangers are fun.
a line of infinite ends finite finishing the one remains oblique and pure – arching to the single point of consciousness – find yourself starting back
On that note, I’d like to talk briefly about this show’s pacing, as a closing note. I think some have been surprised at the relatively easy pace the series is adapting the manga’s chapters at. It’s only skipped a very few things and most of these small arcs at the start of the series have been given an episode and a half or so to sort themselves out. It’s a pacing that feels slightly unconventional in the modern TV anime landscape, but if it is a difference, it’s a welcome one, and it suits Chainsaw Man extremely well.
Bonus Power Screencap: Behold, the hall of 100 Powers! Tremble at their infinite variety and their varied facial expressions! At this rate I’ll be able to pick these out from the ED alone every week.
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All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.
This review was commissioned. That means I was paid to watch and review the series in question and give my honest thoughts on it. You can learn about my commission policies and how to buy commissions of your own here. This review was commissioned by Wynne. Thank you for your support.
“There must be a paradise waiting for us somewhere.”
The image of a vampire in a garden is a pleasant one. Consider it for a moment; the bloodsucking creature of folklore allowed to sit in peace, the Sun gently lighting her face in the way it does for the rest of us. Throughout Vampire in The Garden, we examine this visual metaphor, jewel-like as it is, from several angles. Some of these are surprisingly literal, others symbolic, but it’s clear from the outset, and throughout the miniseries, that the primary meaning is not that of a greenhouse or anything of the sort. It is of a garden of Eden. An imagined, perfect paradise beyond this world, in which there is no strife, violence, or hatred. In which two people who love each other can be together, even if they are from vastly different circumstances.
Even if the whole world is arrayed against them; arrows aimed at the throat.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Vampire in The Garden is yet another anime this year to focus on vampires and romance, following after the second part of The Case Study of Vanitas, but presaging summer seasonal hit Call of The Night. It has a bit in common with both of those, but its real roots lie much deeper; back in the era of 90-120 minute OVAs. Vampire is a little longer, the five-episode mini-series clocks in at about 2 hours, but it is very much a single, self-contained story. And what a story; this is easily one of the year’s best anime, no mean feat in 2022, which has been absolutely swamped with great shows. As for the production-side of things; it’s a Wit Studio project, helmed by director and series compositor Ryoutarou Makihara, his first time at the helm since the obscure Empire of Corpses.
There are two main things one must understand about Vampire in The Garden in order to properly appreciate it. 1: it is an intensely queer story. While it is true that the themes found within it could be generalized out to apply to other situations, there is a reason that both of its leads are women, and the story simply makes far less sense if you try to rationalize your way into believing that our protagonists, Fine (Yuu Kobayashi), and Momo (Megumi Han), aren’t in love. 2: it is a tragedy. Gay romances that end in heartbreak get a bad rep these days for understandable reasons, but such a thing should only truly be objectionable if it doesn’t have something to say, and Vampire in The Garden has plenty to say. Throughout, it demonstrates a keen eye for imagery and paints a very emotionally honest portrait of life as a queer person in a society that is not very accepting of those.
Consider our protagonists. On the one hand, we have
Momo; a hardworking factory girl with a talent for tinkering, who lives in a massive compound called the Tower, run by her authoritarian, abusive mother. She longs for an escape, and a flight of fancy—fixing a broken music box, forbidden, as all music and art are, in the Tower—spirals into a tragic adventure. Her close “friend” Milana is shot during a raid on the Tower by vampires, the eternal enemy of mankind in the bleak, frozen, post-apocalyptic world that Vampire takes place in. But, of course, if things were as simple as “humans vs. vampires”, we wouldn’t be here. In a combination of panic, confusion, and the urge to seize the chance to escape, she meets–
Fine; queen of the vampires. Flighty, constantly neglecting her duties by choice. She too longs for escape, and it’s a chance encounter with Momo that sets them off, together, on an adventure far from the Tower and far from Fine’s own ostensible demesne, ruled as it really is by her consort/vizier Allegro (Chiaki Kobayashi). Together, Momo and Fine are star-crossed lovers in the most classic mold possible; a Romeo & Juliet of the modern age. You already know how this story ends; amid a field of moon azaleas, somewhere deep within a cradle of earth, all graves, shed petals, and teardrops. But that doesn’t make it a journey not worth going on.
That journey sees Fine and Momo searching for that mythical paradise. Initially, they seek such a thing solely to escape the shackles of the human/vampire war itself, but before long, they’ve grown close enough that it’s clear that the promise of somewhere where humans and vampires can live together in peace, and thus where Fine and Momo can live together in peace, becomes their primary motivator. At the start of this story, Momo loses Milana, who she is clearly quite close to. We learn much later on that Fine lost someone she was quite close to, Aria, a long time ago. Momo and Fine’s relationship, as deeply upsetting as the circumstances it was born in are, is one that springs from mutual loss. They find comfort in each other in a way that feels truly human.
Their first stop is the catacomb-esque opulence of Fine’s manor, where Fine helps a wounded Momo recover. It’s here where they first start to trust each other and their relationship goes from something uncertain and tenuous to something very real and immediate. The good times are fleeting, of course, but they have meaning.
At one point, Momo stumbles into a cinema, and is so rattled by the film idly left playing—probably the first she’s ever seen, mind you—that Vampire itself dissolves into a nightmarish patchwork of loss and traumatic imagery, and it is Fine who must calm her down. For not the last time in the series, Vampire is astoundingly lyrical, a tapestry of images both in the forefront and background that imbue the world with tactility and meaning;
a bath, a record player, an opera singer whose voice, spilling out of the player laments the loss of those she loved
There’s a garden – a beautiful, green, lush, literal garden – where Fine grows all manner of plants, in defiance of the Sun itself. She teaches Momo to sing, to appreciate art and music. For this, she is rewarded by the pursuing humans of the Tower, and then, separately, the vampires, raiding her mansion. Both of our protagonists are pursued–
Momo by her mother’s forces.
Fine by her own subjects.
–and the mansion ends up in flames as they flee, starting a pattern that will repeat several times over the course of Vampire‘s five episodes. Momo and Fine arrive somewhere, settle there for a short time, and then are driven away by these twin forces independently pursuing them. It is worth noting that they never directly do anything we’d understand as wrong, it is simply that the very act of a human and a vampire living together is unconscionable to the people of this world.
Throughout, as these entwined swathes of fire pursue its protagonists, Vampire is able to capture a gripping, rare feeling. On the one hand, you can appreciate much of these more action-oriented scenes for what they are on a technical level, and say that Vampire, especially its first half, is a kickass action-post apoc-sci-fi-fantasy adventure. This is true, but on the other hand, it is also a near-hallucinatory torrent of love and loss; trauma, laughter, music, snow, iron, blood – mixed together, and adjoined end to uncomfortable end, a feeling evocative of memory itself. Much like the music box that serves as a leitmotif throughout the series.
Everywhere Fine and Momo go is a false promise, in a way. The manor, of stability. The segregated two-island vampire / human town they visit in episode three, of unity. The too-good-to-be-true village in the far north in episode four, of community. And finally, the blasted-out ruin of some long-forgotten metropolis in the final episode, an already-broken promise of civilization itself.
This extends somewhat to the supporting cast as well. Momo’s mother is portrayed as disturbingly, realistically abusive, swinging wildly from backhanding and berating her daughter and pleading for her forgiveness and asking for a hug. When Momo finally turns her away near the very end of the show, it’s hugely cathartic. Later in the story, we meet Elisha, the representative of the idyllic / winter horror village in episode four.
In addition to enabling the false promise of community and hospitality that the village itself represents, she’s also quick to attack Momo as a hypocrite when things go south. This is, of course, nonsense. There is a vast gulf between harming people accidentally, or in self-defense, and doing so as part of a convoluted scheme to live a life of privilege, which is what Elisha’s village is doing.
There’s also Momo’s uncle, who leads the human forces that seek to recapture her, and in the final episode it’s revealed that he too once fled from home with a vampire he loved in tow, only for that story to end on a harsh, bitter note. This recontextualizes his earlier actions; like Momo, he longed for an escape from the drudgery of a world defined by petty, pointless conflict. Unlike Momo, when that escape was ultimately denied to him, he turned his anger outward.
Which leads us to Vampire’s conclusion.
Just based on what kind of story this is, it will not surprise you that only one of our protagonists is fortunate enough to live through the ending. Fine’s death is a long, torturously slow process. At first, she seems to die rampaging amidst muzzle flash and rubble, but the truth of things isn’t that simple. A serum that turns vampires into berserk beasts—a plot point back from back in the first episode, and one which I should point out, basically causes them to transform into what humans think they are—can’t be countered so easily. She does save Momo, and her final confrontation with Momo’s uncle actually ends when she stops attacking him. What truly rattles the man is not the notion of vampires attacking him, it’s of them not doing so, because it means that there isn’t anything inherently stopping vampires and humans from living in harmony, it really is just all circumstance; grudges, old wounds, and unsolved problems.
Momo’s own last confrontation is the aforementioned rebuke of her mother, as she carries the still-dying Fine to her final resting place; a warm cave below the cold surface, where the queen of vampires finally dies, amidst a bed of porcelain-white flowers. The very last shot of the main body of the series is –
Momo, kneeling in front of Fine’s body, taking a sharp, deep breath; preparing to sing.
She herself lives on, and Fine is gone, but not forgotten.
The main reason that Fine and Momo don’t both survive is that, unfortunately, that is rarely the case for real queer couples in these kinds of situations either. But we shouldn’t take this to mean that Fine and Momo’s entire journey was pointless. Instead, it is the very fact that Fine and Momo did journey, and journeyed together, that is, itself, the true paradise they sought, however fleeting it may have been. There is a real, resonant beauty in that notion, even if it is a very sad and tragic sort. Something like;
“If we don’t have each other forever, at least we had each other today.”
The series offers a single post-credits scene; a sunlit garden, where Momo cradles a young vampire child in her arms. This scene’s nature—real or metaphysical, future or afterlife—is left ambiguous. A ray of uncertain hope that pierces the gray skies of an even less certain present.
I have to confess, Vampire in The Garden has proven very challenging to “review”, in as much as this even is a “review” of anything. This is a work of uncommon grace and elegance, as even its ideas which sound, on paper, inadequate, or like they’re trying too hard, are executed absolutely perfectly in the miniseries itself. There are several other axes I’ve barely even touched on; the visual beauty of most of the show’s backgrounds, for example. Part of me does feel that I haven’t entirely done Vampire justice, but perhaps that is simply a limitation of my medium. Some things must be seen to be felt.
And of course, all criticism is, in the end, but a reflective prism of the original. Here, for the first time in a long time, I have felt honored to be that reflection; I am but a mirror to moonlight.
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All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
What we have here today is a simpler and more straightforward episode of Chainsaw Man than the last few have been. It’s light on (although not absent of) more subtle characterization, and mostly serves to move us between a few key plot points. This is fine, though, because it looks great while doing it, and the fight scene that kicks off the episode proper might be the best-looking in the show to date. Manga-readers will of course be thrilled by the fact that, well, if they’re going this hard for material this early on, who knows what they’ll do later, but these basic visceral thrills are worth enjoying in their own right, too.
And they are visceral. After defeating the Bat Devil, Denji has to contend with his apparent main squeeze (or former main squeeze I suppose. It’s hard to have a gf if you’re dead), the Leech Devil. The Leech Devil is….pretty gross-looking, and the episode in general follows after that beat; it’s very bloody and gory, to an even greater extent than the past few.
Not obvious from this screencap is the fact that she has weirdly detailed udders. Why does she have udders? Leeches don’t have udders.
Denji puts in an impressive showing here, despite the fact that he’s lost so much blood that he’s really less Chainsaw Man at this point and more Man, With a Hint of Chainsaw. And hey, does it all while missing one of his arms, which really seems like it’d be a major plot point but, nope, he gets it back immediately afterward via a “blood transfusion,” somehow. A perk of being part-Devil, evidently.
It’s also worth noting that he doesn’t clinch the win all on his own; Aki, alongside Division 4, a group of characters very briefly introduced here who we’ll more properly meet next week, bail him out. This is notably also the first time we see that Aki is also contracted with a devil, mentioned here as being the norm for devil-hunters. His is the Fox Devil, whom he feeds pieces of his body in order to borrow her power.
Munch squad.
After this, Denji and Aki finally reach something of an accord. Mostly, Aki lets him off the hook in as much as he can because, true enough, Denji did actually save some people. And for not the last time in the series we do see a few members of the public remarking on how grateful they are….and the guy whose car Denji threw with him still inside it being pretty understandably pissed about that whole development. But, hey, nobody’s perfect.
Furthermore, in addition to housing Denji, Aki is now tasked with keeping an eye on Power, too. And he can’t exactly say no, because that’s an order from Makima, who puts in only a brief appearance in this episode but is as excellent and charismatic as ever. The report also contains a mysterious mention of “Gun flesh.” I’m sure we’ll find out what that is in due time.
Power is a predictably terrible roommate, and mention is made of the fact that she doesn’t really bathe, among other things. But, that ends up mattering little to Denji as soon as she offers to let him collect on the deal they made last week. The episode ends with Denji’s trembling hand reaching for Power’s chest, in a way that is truly, transcendentally dumb.
Down bad.
There will be better episodes of Chainsaw Man than this, and consequently this one does feel notably minor. But it is still pretty damn good. When you’re working on this high a level, you don’t really need to worry about hitting any snags. There aren’t any.
And now for the Bonus Power Screencap.
From today’s ED we have Super Shoutin’ Power. Use her to shut your enemies up, or just to cause general disruption in a place where things you don’t care about are happening.
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All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
Spy x Family returns to form this week after a rather poor showing last week. It helps that the show is here operating in one of its simplest and most effective modes; “Anya tries to galaxy brain a way into Damian’s good graces and fails spectacularly.”
The only real unfortunate thing is that this means that there isn’t terribly much to actually say about this episode. It’s funny, certainly, but there are only so many ways I can commend deft execution of simple jokes like “Anya makes a miscalculation in one of her little schemes and then makes a shocked face and says ‘Gong!’ out loud.” They are legitimately amusing, but at this point they’re fairly expected.
The more interesting material here comes from two specific characters; Damian himself, and Becky, Anya’s little friend whose parents are, if I remember properly, arms dealers? Something like that. In any case, Anya tries to pull this “oops, I dropped a cool picture” trick for the second time in as many cours, and instead what happens is that Becky sees the photo, and instead of being enamored with Bond, Anya’s big cool dog, she promptly falls head over tiny heels for Loid.
Becky reveals herself to have the same taste in men as about half of my Twitter mutuals.
The actual plot, about Anya trying to help Damian make a paper-mache griffin in an arts and crafts class so he can impress his dad, is basically just a vehicle for more gags and funny faces. It’s a decent vehicle, though, and on Damian’s part we get some further insight into just how detached his father actually is from his life. At one point, he fantasizes about his dad admiring the griffin and praising him for “honoring the family name.” Later, after school, he stands visibly apart from his classmates, talking to his butler Jeeves (really) on the phone. He asks his butler what his father thought of what went down during the initiation—you probably remember that episode—and Jeeves audibly struggles to come up with something. It doesn’t really work, because Damian knows full well that his father doesn’t think of him at all. It’s honestly pretty sad! It’s strange that Spy x Family handles this sort of “serious material” so much better than it does any other kind, but the series is pretty good at it, and I hope going back to this well several times means that some resolution is on the horizon somewhere.
After this plot runs its course, the episode again features a shorter B-segment. This is mostly about Sylvia Sherwood, Loid’s handler, and is mostly an exercise in some incredibly stone-faced humor. It’s a pretty fun one, so I’m glad it made it into the episode. The real punchline comes when Sylvia asks Loid for a report on his mission, and….she gets a different answer than what she probably expected.
There’s also an even shorter C-segment after the end credits, but it’s basically just a retread of last week’s Yor Food gags, and is thus not really worth discussing at any length. There’s a Yuri episode on the docket up next; we’ll see what the future holds then, anime fans.
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All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.
This review was commissioned. That means I was paid to watch and review the series in question and give my honest thoughts on it. You can learn about my commission policies and how to buy commissions of your own here. This review was commissioned by Roko Da Silva. Thank you for your support.
Of ’00s shonen fandom’s “Big Three”, I have to confess that Naruto is probably the one I have the least investment in. I don’t dislike the franchise by any means—I did watch it, though not nearly as religiously as some of my friends when I was younger—but most of my memories of Naruto are hazy and nonspecific. Single cool scenes, general feelings, vague memories of liking one character or another.
For this reason, I was a little wary when I was commissioned to watch Clash in the Land of Snow, worried I wouldn’t entirely know enough to properly evaluate the film. Thankfully, Clash is a very straightforward movie, an unchallenging but fun piece of genre fare of a sort that’s never really gone away, even as it underlines a handful of very meta points about the act of acting itself.
No complicated schemes or lore drops here; our plot is simply that Naruto (Junko Takeuchi), Sasuke (Noriaki Sugiyama), Sakura (Chie Nakamura), and their mentor Kakashi (Kazuhiko Inoue) must escort an actress, Yukie Fujikaze (Yuuko Kaida), on a trip as preparations are made for her next film.
She is very hot and very disinterested. 10/10 character.
There are several little twists here; Fujikaze doesn’t really want to keep acting, and in fact one of her first scenes of note involves her getting drunk out of her mind while complaining that all she does is act out “lies.” There’s the fact that all three of our ninja buddies here are big fans of her most well-known role, Princess Gale (Yukie Fujikaze) in a series of films of the same name. Oh yeah, there’s also the detail that she’s secretly the exiled princess of the titular Land of Snow, and that her evil older brother is trying to hunt her down so he can retrieve a magic crystal she keeps around her neck that is the key to an ancestral treasure he really, really wants to get his hands on.
More than its plot, Clash in the Land of Snow is a series of exercises in unfettered shonen movie goodness. There are excellent fight scenes with characters who almost certainly never showed up again after this, metaphors of mixed effect about determination and duty, the protagonist gritting his teeth to pull through and save the day, a lot of quite pretty background art, and a few jokes of dubious actual humor. The version I watched also had slightly-busted subtitles, for that authentic 2006 fansub experience.
It’s no surprise that the real highlights here are things that aim to deliver a pure head-rush of fun and not much of anything else. Perhaps the movie’s most famous scene is one where Naruto, carrying Yukie (by now, revealed to be an alias, her real name is Koyuki Kazahana) has to outrun a train on-foot when they encounter one in a tunnel. Not just notable for the fandom trivium that it’s the only train in the entire original series (this leads to Naruto rather hilariously asking what a train is), but for the sheer action of the scene; as swift and powerful as the train itself. Naruto and Koyuki escape just fine, but when a band of loyalist swordsmen rally to Koyuki’s reluctant cause, the train’s cars open up, revealing a battery of kunai-launching flak cannons; a scaled up, ninjafied, and very messy take on the Korean hwach’a, perhaps. Of course, they promptly shred the loyalists to pieces. Shrapnel is shrapnel, after all.
It’s worth honing in on that scene for another reason. Koyuki, despite in many ways serving a damsel in distress role for chunks of the film, is actually quite the well-done character. Her reluctance to accept the responsibilities placed on her head feels realistic and sympathetic (enough so that I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the film’s presentation of her eventual yielding to those responsibilities as a good thing). The death of her loyal assistant in the aforementioned scene hits particularly hard; she’s burned out enough by a life of running away that she can’t even cry, prompting a brilliant callback to an earlier (there, comedic) scene where she’s an incredible actor but can’t cry without tearing drops. Other highlight scenes include a chakra-sealed Naruto busting out of prison by filing away at his handcuffs with a file between his teeth (a fun trope in almost anything), and him laying a rainbow-colored rasengan down on the bad guy in the finale, only for the Land of Snow’s actual snow to start melting away as it turns out that the “secret treasure” that he was pursuing all along was, essentially, a magic weather machine that can warm the local climate.
The movie never gets as subtle as Koyuki’s lack of crying over her assistant’s death again, but it probably doesn’t really need to. This is pure popcorn stuff, and to a point I almost think that trying to be more ambitious would’ve actually hurt the film. There are obvious snags in its premise—the friend I was watching the film with pointed out that the Hidden Leaf Village are, by returning Koyuki to her homeland mostly against her own will, basically engaging in a proxy war—that are, of course, never addressed. But if these are problems at all, they’re minor ones. (I’ve actually heard that much later in the series, long after I stopped watching as a kid, Naruto does try to delve into some more political overtones, apparently to mixed results. But that’s a secondhand opinion, so take it with even more salt than you normally do when reading my site!) The film succeeds admirably at its main aim; to be, basically, a long episode of Naruto, and to be a good one.
All told, if it doesn’t seem like there’s much to Clash in the Land of Snow, that’s only because it doesn’t need to be much. Two hours of pure action movie anime entertainment is more than enough to make a film worthwhile. Fun is its own reward.
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
We don’t really use the term “antihero” too often anymore. I think perhaps, collectively, we were a bit burned out on it somewhere around the mid-2000s. But it describes Denji to a tee, so I hope you won’t mind if I pull it out here.
To wit; our boy’s primary motivation throughout this episode is, once again, to touch a boob. This time, Power’s, in exchange for helping her rescue her pet cat (a less easy task than it may sound, given that said cat is imprisoned by a powerful devil, but we’ll get back to that). It’s such an idiotically basic motive that the word “motive” itself almost seems too grandiose. But hey, after god knows how many years of anime protagonists who “want to be a hero” or other similarly abstract things, I at least appreciate a protagonist whose motives are understandable if not exactly noble.
The cat-hunting is more in the latter 2/3rds or so of the epsiode. Before that, the series goes some way toward establishing Denji and Power’s push-and-pull dynamic. Notably, right off the top, Power gets in trouble for killing the Sea Cucumber Devil at the tail end of last week’s episode, and her first instinct is to immediately—and badly—lie and try to pin the blame on Denji.
In general, Power is pretty interesting, and it’s worth pausing here to talk about why. One of the best ways to make a character distinct (South Park influence notwithstanding, go look that up if you’re curious), is to pile on enough small character tics that aren’t notable in isolation but add up to a peculiar whole. Power is rather slovenly, as conveyed by the hoodie that’s often half-hanging off of her shoulders. She’s incredibly violent and prone to lying. But she also intermittently speaks in a screwy, stilted dialect of Japanese that the sub track translates as spurts of weirdly archaic English. (Even in that screencap up there, note that she phrases it as “It was he who commanded me to kill” and not something like “He told me to do it” or what have you.) She also noticeably clams up around Makima, who she is comparatively deferential toward, and seems perhaps even afraid of. All of this sums up as a character who is really pretty unique in the current anime landscape, and, accordingly, she’s a lot of fun to just watch bounce around the screen.
She has one further quirk; a fondness toward cats. As mentioned, this episode’s main plot consists of Denji being convinced to help her rescue her pet cat Meowy. (Or Nyako. They mean basically the same thing.) Power, as a Fiend, is pretty broadly disdainful of humans and, really, most life in general. Cats though, she seems to have a fondness for. Later in the episode we get a flashback about her initially meeting Meowy and it’s genuinely very sweet despite the fact that Power spends the entirety of said sequence naked and covered in grime. (CSM is bizarrely good at putting emotional resonance into scenes that read as ridiculous on paper.)
Denji, ever the gentleman, is openly disdainful of this affection….until Power makes the aforementioned offer to let him touch her chest if he helps her recover Meowy. At which point, he’s suddenly fuming mad about “that fucking Devil” stealing poor little Meow-Meow. The soundtrack even revs up alongside him. It’s pretty funny.
Elsewhere, Makima gets a few spotlight scenes as well, which serve to add some further depth to her character. Also, they serve to sate my endless thirst for this show’s insanely good use of characters’ lines-of-sight as non-verbal tells about how they’re feeling. Aki, in his only real scene in this episode, questions Makima on the wisdom of having Denji in his squad. If you were only listening to the dialogue, you would take Makima’s response as fairly cool and natural. If you look, however, she visibly glares at him (from behind, so he can’t even see it) for a moment before replying. Somebody doesn’t like their authority questioned, is all I’m saying.
I think if someone who looked like this looked at me this way I’d die on the spot. But hey, I’d die happy.
Also of note; a meeting between Makima and her superiors is the first glimpse we get at the wider state of Chainsaw Man‘s world. This particular council of anonymous, vaguely military-types makes mention of “war hawks” over in America and The Soviet Union (!), and rumors of devils deployed for military purposes. How true any of this is, we don’t yet know. But it is worth making note of the fact that even this council refer to Makima’s underlings as “dogs,” in case you were wondering if the people she works for are any nicer than she is.
As for the whole cat rescue situation? Well, Power was lying. She had no actual intent to help Denji fight the Bat Devil or anything of the sort, instead offering him to the Bat Devil as a sacrifice, so that the larger devil might heal his wounds by drinking Denji’s blood. This ‘brilliant’ plan has several flaws.
Flaw 1: The Bat Devil is a dick.
As soon as Power shows up with a half-conscious Denji (who she’s whacked over the head with one of her bloodmallets), the Bat Devil collects his sacrifice and starts squeezing our boy dry in a decidedly unpleasant way. (Seriously, he vomits blood, and the Bat Devil drinks it. Chainsaw Man is not afraid to get nasty; remember this.)
Power demands Meowy back, but, surprise, the Bat Devil thinks Denji’s blood tastes terrible, and he takes out his frustration on Power by eating her cat in front of her. Then, while she’s having the flashback scene described above, he eats Power herself, too.
Flaw 2: There is no flaw 2. Flaw 1 got her eaten alive, what else do you want?
Anyway, this all makes Denji rather unhappy.
As far as battle cries go, it’s not exactly “you shall not pass,” but hey, whatever works.
The final act of the episode is a truly stunning fight scene; easily the best in the series so far. Denji and the Bat Devil tear a cityscape to pieces, ripping up chunks of concrete and twisted metal as they slug it out. And in what is arguably his first act of something vaguely like superheroics, Denji actually rescues a couple people. (He also throws a car at the Bat Devil with the driver still inside it, but, hey, nobody’s perfect.)
All told, this stands as probably the strongest single episode of CSM so far. It manages to keep a pretty noteworthy number of plates spinning, and it looks great while doing it. Here’s hoping to much more of that to come.
And now, making its grand debut, the Bonus Power Screencap, because I know what the fans like. This one is from this week’s ED. A simple Power, but strong, and bold.
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
I don’t like the term “mid.”
Not because things can’t be mediocre—they certainly can—but because I feel like it gets slapped down on the table as an all-purpose “I didn’t really like this and don’t feel like really explaining why” card. When most people say “mid” they can mean anything from “decent but not my thing” to “outright terrible.” Rarely will they bother to explain which they mean or why.
But, you know, I say all this, but sometimes the only adjective you can pull for something truly is “mid.” There were some good parts and some bad parts and the whole thing is kind of just not that great overall. It’s not terrible, certainly, but maybe it’s a sign of bad things to come. Or just an unusually weak spot in an otherwise fine show.
Thus, we have episode sixteen of Spy x Family, the first Yor-centric episode in quite a while and also, unfortunately, easily the least essential since the series came back from hiatus.
The episode’s basic plot is pretty simple, revolving around Yor secretly learning how to cook from her coworker Camille (remember her? She was first relevant way back in episode 2). What the episode wants to be about is the simple joy of home cooking, the knowledge that you’re preparing something for someone close to you and, in a very real way, putting your heart and soul into it.
This is all well and good, and when the episode hits its primary climax at about the 15 minute mark, it does hit well enough to feel roughly worth it. Yor ends up cooking a stew (topped with a fried egg!) of some kind for Anya and Loid, and it’s genuinely pretty cute.
But the problem is getting there. Between the start of the episode and this little story’s conclusion is a parade of iterations on what might be the most overdone joke in the entire shonen format; the classic “oh no, someone is bad at cooking and their food looks like unidentifiable purple gunk” gag.
“Twists” on the trope in this case include Yuri, Yor’s obnoxious younger brother, who of course co-stars in this episode, actually loving Yor’s terrible food because he grew up with it, and….well honestly that’s kind of it. There’s some other stuff where Yor has difficulty properly preparing ingredients because her assassin instincts kick in and she ends up essentially butchering them. It’s marginally more unique, but not really any funnier. A lot of this really just seems far too basic for something like Spy x Family, which has previously demonstrated both much stronger characterization than this and much stronger comedic chops. Why waste time on this?
Yor does, at least, get the jump on Loid in one important way here, in terms of character development. She is the first one to realize that her “fake” family now matters to her more than what it was originally a cover for, and her coming to terms with that is an easygoing kind of heartwarming that perhaps more of this episode should’ve aimed for.
So, we end up with a very weak series of gags leading up to an emotional beat that is nice but doesn’t entirely feel earned. Is that “worth” it? It’s hard to say.
But don’t worry, this is a double episode, because Yor isn’t allowed to be the protagonist of an entire 22-minute stretch of Spy x Family. That would be silly.
No, instead, the latter half of this episode is about Frankie.
Yeah.
Uncle Scruffy here spends his half of the episode trying to enlist Loid’s help in hooking up with a cigar shop employee with the mildly amusing name Monica McBride. Presumably her mother is named Molly McBride and she has two sisters named Matilda McBride and Mary McBride.
Loid’s help mostly consists of telling Frankie to be himself—he tries making a way-too-thorough conversational chart too, but, perhaps wisely, Frankie thinks using that would be weird. There are some decent gags here, like when the two are having a full-on shouting argument and a stage direction pops up onscreen to inform us that they’re actually whispering.
Also, Loid uses his disguise skills to turn into a spitting image of Monica herself. I have to say, holding this against the show is astoundingly unfair of me, but when I’m already a little cold on an episode, hitting me with the dysphoria pangs does not improve my assessment.
On the other hand, it proves that Loid Forger could have tgirl swag if he wanted to.
Naturally, Monica turns Frankie down. (Sidenote here; it would’ve been very funny for the joke instead to be that she likes little awkward fuzzballs, a sort of hairy version of an Android 18 / Krillin situation. But that would’ve put a win in Frankie’s column, which I suppose is unacceptable for some reason.) Loid then closes out the episode by making one of his little speeches about how “people like them” can’t afford to be emotionally attached to others. Sure, dude. Keep telling yourself that.
And that’s where we end for the week! Again, I don’t hate this episode or anything, but a lot of this is just not all that interesting. The more emotional moments are the highlights, but there aren’t really enough of them to bring it above mediocre. Thus, again we must turn to that dreaded descriptor; mid. This is a mid episode. If you put a gun to my head and made me score it out of ten, I’d give it an even 5.
But, hey, next week is an Anya episode, and it’s been a while since we’ve had any episodes taking place entirely at her school. Hopefully that will be fun.
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
Anime Orbit is an irregular column where I summarize a stop along my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week. Expect spoilers for covered material, where relevant.
What we’ve basically got here, in BOCCHI THE ROCK!‘s third episode, is an adorable little tale about how mistakes are rarely as big in reality as we make them in our minds, and how even people who really seem like they’ve “got it together” only occasionally actually do. Along the way, BOCCHI THE ROCK! continues to casually be one of the best-looking anime in a season that is not lacking for visual style. Witness the series go all-in on one-off gags by shifting art styles, waving around paper cut-outs on popsicle sticks or even weaving in tiny snippets of live action footage for additional effect.
Really though, none of that would be half as impressive without the character work on display here. As with any comedy, dissecting why Bocchi is funny kills the humor somewhat, but it is again worth circling back around to this idea of Hitori as the Ultimate Introvert. A constantly-fretting ball of anxiety who frequently blows things up beyond all reason in her own head, only to be taken aback when it turns out that no one is actually out to get her. It is, as I mentioned back in my writeup for the premiere, an immensely relatable feeling.
This episode centers around Ikuyo Kita (Ikumi Hasegawa), who Hitori is trying to recruit into her band as a second guitarist and vocalist. Her initial attempts go so poorly that she spends a memorable scene hiding in shame under the stairs at her high school, and laments her lack of social skills the only way she knows how; playing the guitar and singing while an imaginary music video plays in her mind.
Hitori from Bocchi the Rock 🤝 Eve from Birdie Wing causing random music videos wherever they go.
Kita is, in theory, Hitori’s total opposite; an irrepressible little firecracker of pure energy who gets along with just about everybody. But, as it turns out, she and Hitori have more in common than may first be obvious.
Like, a lot more.
“Kita is the guitarist who previously bailed on the band Hitori is now in” more.
As we find out, Kita cannot actually play the guitar. She lied about being able to, and joined the band to get closer to Ryo. And I want to be clear here; when I say she “joined to get closer to Ryo,” I mean she has a big-ass gay crush on Ryo and wanted literally any reason to be near her. This is not subtext.
Wow, a preppy girl falling for the slightly butch bass player. Surely this is a unique circumstance in history, never to be repeated.
We also learn that another reason Kita flaked out on being in the band is that, incredibly, she does not even own a guitar. She thought she did, and much is made of Hitori’s correct deduction that she’s been practicing this entire time just by feeling the calluses on her hands, but in one of the series’ comparatively more low-key gags, it turns out that she actually bought a six-string bass. Thankfully, at episode’s end, Ryo buys it off of her and she gets an actual guitar instead.
Which, yes, of course things resolve themselves cleanly. (Why wouldn’t they? If you want emotional devastation there are other shows airing this season for that.) Hitori spends some time worrying that Kita might replace her at the club, since she seems to be better at most of the club work than Hitori herself is, but that quickly dissolves when the aforementioned callus plot point rears its head. Hitori ends the episode as Kita’s new guitar teacher, and the band grows into a proper quartet, where it will likely stay for the rest of the series.
The rest of the girls take Kita’s deception in stride, and Nijika reasons that if she hadn’t done all that, she and Ryo wouldn’t have met Hitori. Forgiveness comes easy because, well, none of this was ever a huge deal in the first place. It was just mildly inconvenient. Bocchi the Rock! is developing a running subtheme, almost, about how these things seem so much more important in our own heads than they ever are to the people around us.
But in a more general sense, the series continues to be warm, personable, and full of charm. Here’s to looking forward to the rest of the season.
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
I didn’t point it out at the time, but last week, Denji’s then-boss described our hero thus; “the good thing about Denji is that he does what he’s told.”
Today, in the first part of its second episode, that point orbits around several times. With Makima, Denji has effectively traded one master he must unconditionally obey for another. One could argue it’s a slight upgrade, since, as we’ll see, Makima treats him materially much better than the old yakuza boss who ordered him around before this point, but his life still isn’t really his own.
He knows this, on some level. A very early scene here sees Makima describe Denji as her dog. This little smidgen of animal symbolism is probably Chainsaw Man‘s single most well-known thematic motif. Dogs, after all, generally do what they’re told as long as you take care of their needs. Denji is briefly angry about being treated like one, but upon Makima promising him a hot meal of whatever he likes, and offering him her coat to wear so he’s not walking around shirtless, his disaffection mostly evaporates. A few scenes later, and he is almost literally eating out of the palm of Makima’s hand.
It’s important to remember that Denji isn’t unique here. Most people will put up with a lot as long as their material needs are being met. Even given the line of work he’s being asked to take up, it is hard to imagine that many people, in his situation, would not do the same. (Some of you will say something like “RIP to him but I’m different” to that statement. We’ll get back to you as the show goes on.)
Not just an everyman, it’s important to remember that Denji is, too, a hormonal teenager. In addition to the obvious food and clothing benefits, Denji goes along with what happens here in part because he thinks Makima is hot. (Hot tip for the younger people who read my blog; you will never get with your boss.) Of course, Makima isn’t even remotely above picking up on and playing to that desire anyway, and it’s pretty obvious that she’s doing so.
Chainsaw Man is very good at subtle facial expressions as silent conveyors of intent. If you’ve already seen this episode and want to look for something neat on a rewatch, I would recommend going back through those early scenes and keeping an eye on Makima’s face specifically. She’s actually quite expressive and there are multiple points where you can almost see the gears turning in her head over various things.
In any case, as much as this episode is about Makima and Denji’s newfound working relationship, Denji doesn’t actually work directly under her. Instead, he’s assigned to one of Public Safety’s many devil hunting units. Specifically, an “experimental” one, lead by a ponytailed chain-smoker named Aki (Shougo Sakata).
King of Spades
Aki’s real introduction is one of the early manga’s most memorably goofy scenes, and for perhaps the first time, Chainsaw Man the anime actually sharpens the bent for crass humor in the original, rather than backing away from it.
The result? Well, Aki takes Denji for a walk, briefly interrogating his motives. What he gets out of this conversation is that Denji is basically only in this line of work to get with Makima. That’s not good enough for Aki, so he takes Denji to an anonymous back alley and slugs him across the face, expecting the ass-kicking to teach the punk a lesson. To hear him tell it, this is his version of kindness; he’s seen people die from getting into the business for weak reasons, and as much as he doesn’t really seem to like Denji, he doesn’t want that to happen to him.
Denji responds to this particularly physical brand of thoughtful consideration by kneeing Aki in the nuts.
Repeatedly.
While a “ding!” sound effect plays every time it happens.
Immature as hell? Yes. Extremely funny? Also yes. Chainsaw Man is rarely afraid to get a little juvenile in order to take the edge off things. Probably a good call, all things considered.
Soon after this, Makima compliments Aki and Denji on “hitting it off” upon hearing what happened (a very dry sense of humor on that one), and then, in the same breath, makes it very clear to Denji that if he is ever no longer useful to Public Safety for any reason, he’ll be killed.
Your last first day.
Denji and Aki’s first mission together, to exterminate a Fiend—a devil possessing a corpse—goes awkwardly. Denji’s able to dispatch the thing very easily, with a single swing of a Public Safety-provided hatchet, but Aki is annoyed at Denji for not using his devil powers, thinking of it as evidence that the younger hunter isn’t taking things seriously. Aki, it’s established, lost his life to a devil attack. So it is pretty understandable that he’d be miffed by Denji seemingly treating the entire thing as a game.
None of that really gets through to Denji though, who begins instead thinking very hard about boobs again.
He’s such a gentleman.
In fact, his entire sequence here plays as a stone-faced parody of the usual shonen-protagonist-hyping-themselves-up internal monologue, albeit an affectionate one. Indeed, in episode two of his series, Denji has truly found his noble calling, the righteous cause he must fight for.
This is, of course, supposed to be silly. But it’s worth again remembering that when you’re this age, one does think of trivial things like “scoring” with a girl (as CR’s subtitles so lovingly render it) as matters of life and death.
In any case, even with this particular goalpost set, Denji’s life gets more complicated one more time in the final few minutes of this episode, when a different girl walks into his life. Introduced by Makima as his “partner” within Aki’s unit.
You probably already know her, but if you don’t, I kind of envy you.
Because getting to meet Power for the first time is fun as hell.
Queen of Clubs
Yes, that wonderful idiot. A fiend, not unlike the man in the apartment that Denji just killed, but one who is—after a fashion—able to be reasoned with, but that doesn’t really make her rational. She’s introduced with a galumphing, ludicrous carnival music backdrop in the soundtrack, and there’s a reason for that.
Ai Farouz, her voice actor, stands out amongst Chainsaw Man’s cast by being a comparative veteran. She hasn’t been in the industry for terribly long—her first role of note was only in 2017—but she’s had a number of prominent roles. (Notable to me personally, she was Cure Summer in Tropical Rouge! Precure last year.) She plays Power perfectly, swinging from a low growl to a smug mid-range conversational tone, to a whooping screech when Power’s really excited. All of CSM’s VAs have been great so far, but Farouz might take first place. Perhaps it’s a case of limited reference pools here, but she really does play the character like a demonic Cure Summer. It works astoundingly well.
Certainly, Power herself steals what remains of the show from the second she appears. We get a small bit of exposition during her and Denji’s first patrol together (and also more of his leering thoughts about titties), but much more important is her catching the scent of devil blood on the wind and sprinting full-force towards the devil in question, fast enough that Denji can’t actually keep up. She literally hammers the target—the Sea Cucumber Devil—to pieces with a massive mallet made out of her own blood. The BGM erupts in an explosion of pulsating techno thump, and as she smashes the thing to smithereens, she positively howls in triumph. On that note, the episode ends.
And normally I’d cut the article here, but I do also want to take a moment to point out that one of my favorite bands, ZUTOMAYO, did the ED for this episode. It’s cool to see them finally getting exposure via an anime.
Until next time, anime fans.
(I haven’t said that in a while, have I? Well, there you go, a nice return to form.)
Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live.If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directoryto browse by category.
All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.
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