Monday, October 22, 2018

Supernatural: The Anime Series Part 4 Episodes 13-16


At long last, John Winchester finally emerges from the shadows and reunites with his sons, Sam and Dean.  He comes bearing a gift: The Colt-a gun that can kill just about anything…including the Yellow Eye Demon who killed Mary Winchester.  In a battle decades in the making, the Winchesters square off with their lifelong enemy.  Facing a foe unlike anything they’ve ever faced before pushes Sam and Dean past their limits.  One thing is sadly certain, one Winchester will not walk away from this battle alive.

This week the Supernatural Anime took a look at one of the most important events of the TV Series, the Season 1 finale and the Season 2 premiere.  Here the series finally brought some pieces together and managed to deliver a battle that actually managed to improve on its TV Series counterpart in terms of scope while not sacrificing the emotion, cause there was still plenty of that to go around.

As expected, when the two generations of Winchester finally got together, stuff finally hit the fan.  It was a good primer to see Sam, Dean and John Winchester team up to take down a small batch of Lost Boys style Vampires (ok they weren’t bad boy bikers but they did give off that party hardy vibe).  John was in top form managing to take down most of them on his own.  This story even brought back Gayle and Ryan, the vampire father and son duo from earlier in the season.  At first I wondered why this was even necessary until it was revealed how Yellow Eyes had come into their lives…and that ended up setting up a very important plot point for later on.

And then it was time for the showdown and it felt appropriately big.  This is a good example of where having Supernatural as an Anime pays off.  The Season One finale kept things pretty contained to a cabin in the woods while the Anime goes for a larger stage, with the brothers battling Yellow Eyes and his servants in a New York building under construction.  It allowed for more visual flair with powers being used and everyone generally getting way more messed up.  But we never skimped on the human heart of the cast as Dean was forced to use a round from The Colt to kill Yellow Eyes’ servant in order to save Sam.  The animators did a good job showing the guilt running through the elder Winchesters eyes having taken out an innocent, albeit possessed, girl to save his younger brother.  But as Sam points out, the old Dean might not have shed that much of a tear over it, at least not in the open like that.  Both brothers have changed and it even impressed their father.

AND THEN the boys and their dad and the Impala got flung off the road and into a crumpled up pile.  While I did like the big battle in New York, it was the final chapter of this three part story that was my favorite.  Most of this fell to John Winchester, who was given an amazing send off.  He played the gruff façade that Sam and Dean both loved and disliked growing up but it was all leading to something, ever the planner that John Winchester.  John’s final farewell with the boys had a lot of heart and emotion to it.  Even if you didn’t know how this played out in the TV Series, you knew he had done something to seal his fate in order to save Dean from a Grim Reaper.  It’ll be interesting seeing where Sam and Dean go from here now that they’ve lost their father and the only weapon that can kill Yellow Eyes.  But still, no moment of Supernatural: The Anime Series hit the heart more heavily than John walking into a church, telling Yellow Eyes to “do it” and then cutting to a black screen with text indicating he had died along with the sound of a flatline…damn that was effective.

I would say this was cause to say it was a near perfect week…but it wasn’t totally.  The Monster in the Water story was a very boring pitstop before the big reunion of the Winchester clan.  Had this story been played for laughs like the Bad Luck Spirit, it could have been better.  Come on, how could Dean not laugh at the concept of hunting the Lockness Monster in rural America?  Unfortunately, things were made way more serious than needed to be and the story ended up as one of the more duller filler episodes you’d find in later seasons of the TV Series.  Also, it’s sad to see Gale get taken down by John but what about his son?  Do Sam and Dean just leave him be and hope for the best?  I get that this show moves fast with episodes being half and hour instead of an hour but it’s done a decent job of keeping things mostly tidy with its storytelling.

A trip down dullsville filler aside, this weeks Supernatural: The Anime Series delivered on what had been promised since the beginning.  We got a showdown of epic proportions and John Winchester going out not in a blaze of glory taking down his arch nemesis but instead sacrificing his life for what matters most: family.  Round 2 is going to be a big one, that’s for sure.  But we’ll get there in due time…maybe sooner than you think.  Carry on my Wayward Readers and I’ll see you all next week.

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