Silly me, I didn't realize that they've split up what I thought was to be two-cour into a one-cour show this season, with the second half picking up in October.
The last two episodes of the season ends with Logos deciding to go for the remaining two Artifacts. They soundly beat all five guardians (again), and succeed in retrieving both Artifacts, therefore breaking the seal on the Onikirimaru, which is revealed definitively to be the sword. Eins goads Takuma into releasing his inner Oni, but Tamaki finally awakens her own powers to calm the Oni within him. Tamaki and the guardians are able to fend of Logos and protect the sword, and Logos retreats - for now.
My summary doesn't really do the two episodes justice, but I wanted to wrap it up quickly so that I have some time to talk about the ending. First off, they focused most of the two episodes on the fight between the guardians and Logos, and to be honest, it was fairly abrupt. I'm not really sure why the guardians thought they could win after being beaten twice already, but you have to give them credit for being tenacious. Second, I'm glad that Tamaki's powers finally awakened, and especially at such a critical time. However, the grandmother just pops up out of nowhere to finally help, and I can't let me suspicions go. After refusing to meet with Tamaki all season, she shows up (belatedly) and the sword is just handed over to her at the end. Which brings me to my last point: Ryou hints at betrayal. We're still waiting for that, and I'm still not sure if it'll come from Shinji or the grandmother. My bet is on the grandmother, so perhaps we'll see it in the second season.
Final Impressions
I'm sure it doesn't come as a huge surprise to anyone, but I wasn't a huge fan of this anime. I think a lot of the problems came from the pacing; it started slowly in the beginning to build up anticipation, accelerated with two of the artifacts being quickly taken, slowed down once more to almost a halt in the middle, and then two of the artifacts are stolen in the same episode. They introduced a lot of questions that were never answered, and threw in some foreshadowing that never went anywhere. The characters were fun, but they weren't enough for me. And what bothers me the most is that they obviously put a lot of time into character development and showing the bond between Tamaki and the guardians. However, no one actually develops more than past the initial impression. None of the guardians have grown in their powers, and it wasn't until the very end that Tamaki even discovered her own powers. Unfortunately, a lot of things bothered me about this anime, and the eye candy that was the guardians wasn't enough to make up for it. They have a lot of questions that need answering, and for that sole reason, I might watch the second season. I probably won't blog about it though, or if I do, it won't be as thorough as this season's.
No comments:
Post a Comment