Apologies for not keeping up regularly with the anime of these season. After three weeks, I’m back and ready to cover some notes and thoughts on the four seasonal anime that I chose. This will be divided into 2 posts. Here, we’ll cover weeks 6 and 7. Next time, I’ll cover weeks 8 and 9. Due to the large amount of content I am trying to cover, things will be brief. Let’s begin.

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Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou

Episodes 6-7

Episode 6 had a few new things like Keiichi trying the new sweets at Angel Mort and Shion being harrassed by the customer. But by and large, it was he same as previous renditions of Higurashi worlds focusing on Shion and Mion. By the end of the episode, Keiichi knows about the mysterious incidents and is pressured into joining Shion and Takano inside the “forbidden” tool shed. Shion is my favorite character in this series so it’s exciting to see her arc.

In episode 7, the chaos begins for the now doomed world of Hinamizawa. The mayor is missing and so are Tomitake and Takano. To make things worse, Rika has “snapped,” completely giving up hope for this world, and showing Keiichi her menacing adult “witch” side. This episode was pretty well done in my opinion.

For both episodes though, the voice acting is not optimal so far, since everyone seems to be over-playing their parts with distinct personalities that were a bit more subtle and natural in Higurashi (2006). That could have more to do with the voice directing than the abilities of these seiyuu. I’m still a fan of the whole cast.

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Majo no Tabitabi (The Journey Of Elaina)

Episodes 6-7

The sixth episode was a mostly humorous installment about a small country wherein people cannot lie. Saya from episode two reappears and is absolutely ecstatic to be reunited with the one she loves, Elaina. With Elaina’s help, Saya and the witch who hired her (Eihaima) confront the king. They undo the magic and make the country back to normal. It was an entertaining enough episode, but compared to something like Kino’s Journey, the themes were not flushed out well, and the content was not as thought-provoking.

As for episode 7, it was a bit of a letdown. The first half, the story of the wall and the two countries, was pretty boring and inane, besides, again, the humor inserted by Saya. The second half was about the villages with the grape festival. It was considerably more entertaining, but the humor seemed forced and over the top. Like with the first episode, there wasn’t really anything to make one stop and think.

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Kamisama ni Natte Hi (The Day I Became A God)

Episodes 5-6

Episode 5 was a relatively heavy episode focused on Izanami and her family. I thought it was sweet and pulled off pretty well. As usual, there was a lot of comedy. It got a few chuckles here and there from me. My favorite part was when Yota went out to sample foods with Izanami’s dad and all he ate wee cheese dishes. There are only eleven days until the supposed end of the world, but the series isn’t even halfway over yet. It makes me wonder where this is all going.

Yota, Hina, Sora, Ashura, Izanami, and Miss Tengan went to a summer festival in episode 6. Izanami and Yota got along well. But since they left Hina on her own, she ended up in trouble. The way they rescued her was exciting though requiring a bit of suspension of disbelief. It was nice to get some backstory about Ashura. There are now only nine days left until the end of the world. I suspect the anime is about to get very chaotic.

Random note: the seiyuu who voiced Elias in Mahoutsukai no Yome (Ryouta Takeuchi) appeard in episode 5 playing Mr. Izanami. It’s always great to hear him, especially doing some funny moments.

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Ikebukuro West Gate Park

Episodes 5-6

The focus of episode 5 rested on the subject of Chinese immigrants in Ikebukuro. This is the first episode of IGWP that I’ve been quite impressed with overall. Interesting issues were covered such as poverty in China, citizenship by adoption, and the privilege of relative wealth held by Makoto (and most viewers like myself, I would imagine). For only having Guo around for less than an episode, the show pulled off her character very well. It was moving when she was adopted.

In episode 6, a longer arc begins called “The G-Boys’ Winter War.” Long story short, a fearsome hitman named Shadow has been hired by someone to completely destroy the order of the boy gangs in Ikebukuro. It looks like it could be messy. I am not sure who is the orchestrator of all this. Makoto declared he wants to stop the gang war even if it puts him in serious danger, so King assigned him to find Shadow and his location. It was a fairly entertaining episode.

That’s all for today. Thanks so much for reading! I hope to have episode reviews for weeks 8 and 9 posted in a few days. Sayonara for now!

PATREON