Kamui has made his choice and that choice has cost him
his dearest friends. Kotori is dead and
Fuma now stands with the Dragons of Earth, ready to lead the charge against
Kamui’s allies. The battle for Tokyo
begins and with Fuma at their side, thes Dragons of Earth seem
unstoppable. As the barriers fall and
the losses begin to mount, both sides find their own fears and destinies
becoming their enemies as well.
Throughout it all, Kamui swears he will being Fuma back…but is his best
friend too far gone to be saved?
So, the opening shots have been fired. Truth be told though, after the build up from
last week: Making Fuma the big bad of the DoE and his killing Saiki and
injuring Subaru, youd think more would have happened this week that really
mattered. Don’t get me wrong, some big
things did happen. But we had a lot of
time wasted on parts of this series that need no attention, because in all
honesty, they shouldn’t be here at all.
I’m, of course, talking about dedicating time to Aoki,
Karen and Nataku. The first two are
Dragons of Heaven who were introduced fairly late into the series. Nataku of the Dragons of Earth was seen
sooner but hasn’t really done much besides rest his head creepily in Fuma’s lap
(more on him later). The fact that we’re
supposed to care about these latecomers rather than focus on everyone else,
like Kamui’s development, rubs me the wrong way. Yeah, it sucks to see anyone file for divorce
like Aoki and I understand his reasons why…it’s just too little too late for
me. And Karen…well she hasn’t done much
of anything up until this week for her to matter to me much. While we did get some good action in their
episode, the forced developments solidifies my continued belief that both sides
should have had five members and not seven each. The series has done a good job on the DoH end
with Kamui, Sorata, Arashi, Subaru and even Yuzuriha and making us care about
them. Aoki and Karen just don’t work for
me in this regard…save for the fact that in the English Dub theyre voiced by
Steve Blum and Wendee Lee, aka Spike and Faye from Cowboy Bebop, and listening
to them speak romantically is always sweet.
Any screentime given to those two should have been given
to Sorata and Arashi, both of whom I think have been on the backburner for too
long. We’ve watched them grow quite a
bit on screen and I’ve grown to like them best amongst the cast. Hell, we got some flashbacks to Arashi’s past
and I didn’t even care that we weren’t getting some of her back story until
now. I stand by saying that getting rid
of Aoki and Karen and giving Sorata and Arashi more time to grow as a couple
would have been great. But seeing them
finally consummate their love was a big win for them. Even better, for dramatic purposes, Arashi
looks like she’s going to change sides.
Is this to protect Sorata in the wake of Fuma’s warning she might kill
him? Probably but I know those two will
find their way back to each other.
And, after thinking about it a bit, Yuzuriha gets points
this week too. I do have to say first
that have to detract from her cause she ran into Fuma…and thought he was
Kusinagi (Mr. GI Joe). WHAT?!! She’s
seen Fuma, hasn’t she? She knows he’s
the bad guy and red alerts should have gone off at will. I also think she’s being a bit premature
telling a much older guy like Kusinagi that she loves him…this isn’t a Disney
movie after all. Ok, that’s the end of
the negatives. Satsuki and Fuma both
tested Yuzuriha’s resolve and, despite losing Inuki, Yuzuriha didn’t quit and
was rewarded with a new Inuki puppy. I thought it might’ve been a cheat to give
her that kind of reward. But so far
Yuzuriha has been the one in need of the most development since she’s been too
cheerful for such a dark conflict. She
won big this week and I have to nod at that for coming out the other side of
that battle the better for it all.
We also got a clip show this week…which you can pretty
much skip all but the last five minutes of.
Episode 17 is basically around to see Kakyo narrarate a “So Far on X”
montage before Kamui gets a nice chance to say goodbye to Kotori properly. The poor guy has been through the ringer
losing Kotori, Saiki and watching Subaru get hurt to protect him (though Subaru
is ok and the first DoE, Seishiro, is dead).
So it’s rewards like this and an awesome meal with his friends that are
welcome in this otherwise dark battle.
The clip show preceeding it all…not so much. No one likes clip shows. If you’re coming in this late, 20 minutes of
recap might not get you up to speed on as much as youd like.
Lastly, one extra wrench has been thrown into the mix…Hinoto. After weeks of crying over her visions, it
looks like something more sinister has happened with her. She leads Kamui and Sorata on a wild goose
chase that ends with Sorata getting severly injured and she...smiles (?)
wickedly for a moment when she sends Subaru off to fight his former friend for
supposedly the last time. What does this
all mean? Is Hinoto secretly a spy for
the DoE who is playing her role better than we’d expect? In any case, Kamui knows something is up and
even baby Inuki was growling at her.
Maybe the pressure of her visions probably broke her. Whatever the case, it’s a good direction for
the character to head in and I hope it pays off.
Oh, Fuma’s technique of choice this week in his grab bag
of OP: he can look like anyone he damn well pleases…as long as their your
hearts desire. He managed to trick
Subaru and Yuzuriha in separate occasions and Nataku mentioned once that he
looks like his Dad I think. Ugh, Darth
Fuma has hardly lived up to the hype since he arrived. As much as I want Kamui to save his friend,
maybe killing Fuma wouldn’t be so bad so long as we don’t get to see him walk
around in his over powered trenchcoat of doom.
Seriously, the Imperial Anthem is playing in my head whenever I see him. He could clearly kill everyone right now…so
why doesn’t he, just to gloat?
So, the score stands now: Subaru’s lost his powers (I guess?)
Seishiro is dead. The DoE are down to 6
members and the DoH are at a shaky 7.
Did I mention there’s only four episodes left to go? Man I did not expect this series to wait til
the very end to start killing everybody off (if it goes the same route as the
movie.).
The series finale of X is next week and two weeks from
now, we kick off our last series of the year with Fate/Stay Night. See ya
then.
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