Today is July 7, which means it’s Hitagi Senjougahara’s birthday and also Tanabata in Japan, both of which the Bakemonogatari.com official site is celebrating. Besides offering a happy birthday picture for Hitagi, Shaft offers us what each of the main characters wished for on their tanzakus this Tanabata. I thought it would be neat to share them with you all.

Koyomi Araragi

To be pitied.

To be pitied!? That’s not much of a wish now, is it? Why would you wish for that?

Hitagi Senjougahara

To get a wonderful boyfriend

Oh. Well, Koyomi certainly deserves our pity (as well as jealousy) for having a girlfriend like Hitagi.

Mayoi Hachikuji

To live for a long time

Oh, poor, poor Mayoi. Surely she deserves our pity. ;_;

Suruga Kanbaru

World peace. Also, something lewd

I would expect nothing less from my favorite spats wearing lesbian pervert.

Nadeko Sengoku

Koyomi-onii-ch... No, nothing

I’m sure Koyomi would be more than willing to oblige, especially if Hitagi’s wish comes true.

Tsubasa Hanekawa

To be friends with everyone forever

How sweet. Let’s just hope that she doesn’t kill all of them first.

Karen & Tsukihi Araragi, aka The Fire Sisters

Nisemonogatari* Anime

Girls after my own heart. That’s exactly what I would wish for!

*Nisemonogatari is the 2nd sequel to Bakemonogatari in the original light novel series. It features 2 stories, Karen Bee and Tsukihi Phoenix, presumably starring Koyomi’s younger sisters. Here’s to hoping that Shaft is working on making their wish come true!

All images came from Bakemonogatari.com front page. Credit for original Japanese to Korean translations go to Kyou of Sub by Kyou.

Note

• Here‘s a nice little Tanabata-themed MAD featuring Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari, the Bakemonogatari ending theme by supercell. (via mangajet.com)

This is it. It’s finally here. The wait is over. On Friday, 6/25/2010, the final episode of Bakemonogatari was released as a streaming video on Shaft’s website. The 15 episode series took just 1 week shy of a full year to complete. The final episode was released 122 days, or just over 1/3 of a year, after the previous one.

Let us bask in this moment just a little more.

It's finally the last episode!

Okay, that’s enough. Part of the big deal of having a new episode released is that there new content to watch, after all. And as the finale to perhaps the most popular series in the last year, there was plenty to look forward to. The conflict between Tsubasa’s Cat and Koyomi finally came to a head, creating some excellent tension-filled moments that were finally released by Shinobu’s triumphant return. And the denouement following provided a hopeful conclusion to this cynical series, a conclusion that I found to be both touching and enjoyable.

The conversation in the 1st part of the episode between the Cat and Koyomi was the real “meat” of the episode, with it providing us with the climax and conclusion of the Tsubasa Cat story arc. If you’ve watched this far, you know that there’s far more to these character interactions than just the conversation, and this one was no different, filled with the visual treats that have pretty much defined what Bakemonogatari is. I especially loved the shift to the more malicious facial expressions by the Cat, which helped to shift the mood in a much darker and more serious direction. The typical Shinbo/Shaft cinematography was used very well here, with the zoomed out shots and the contrast between light and shadow also adding to the more stark atmosphere.

We get to see a bit deeper into how Tsubasa truly feels.

In terms of the content, the conversation picked up right where it ended the last episode, with the Cat repeating her line that Tsubasa was in love with Koyomi and that if he fell in love with her, she could disappear. It immediately darkened the mood, seeming to send a shock to Koyomi. It came to no surprise to me that he tried so strongly to deny this, first laughing it off as a joke, and then trying to pass it off as a misunderstanding before finally facing the fact. Koyomi’s inability or unwillingness to accept the stark, cynical facts about others had been in full display in the Suruga Monkey arc, after all.

And like in that arc, we got a heroine who felt malice towards Koyomi, actively wanted to hurt him. I loved seeing the Cat play around with Koyomi, trying to manipulate his feelings by putting doubts in his mind about why he was with Hitagi. And the imagery of the real Tsubasa going to gently caress Koyomi during some of it was a nice touch.

I also liked the return of the paper cutout art.

It was satisfying to see Koyomi start to push back against the Cat. That’s the episode became just as much about Hitagi as Tsubasa. One of the oddities about the Tsubasa Cat arc was that Part 2 had felt completely out of place in the sequence, being purely about Hitagi. I had excused it with the reasoning that they wanted to put an ending into the last TV released episode, but this episode brought it back, with the repeat of Koyomi’s line about liking Hitagi (“All of it. There is nothing about [her] that I don’t like.”). It was great that this was one of the 1st things that came to his mind when confronted by the Cat regarding his feelings for her. Tsubasa Cat Part 2 had been an excellent episode and ending to the TV run by itself, but it was made all the better by being put into the proper context by this episode.

And there was something fitting about the intermixing of the cuts of Hitagi back at the school, preparing for the culture festival – in Tsubasa’s place. I guess it was seeing her involved in and taking care of what was ostensibly something that belonged to Tsubasa, a metaphor for Koyomi and the Tsubasa Cat episodes in general.

Remember this? It was in the 1st episode, almost a year ago!

I loved the call back to that scene in the beginning of the 1st episode, in which Tsubasa and Koyomi were working on the culture festival together. Even as the argumentative dialogue continued – syncing up to the characters’ mouths in the flashback – it brought back memories of a seemingly more innocent time, before we knew of this intense conflict brewing within Tsubasa, before even Hitagi had entered the picture. It served as a reminder that the Cat was just one aspect of this kind girl who was very good friends with our hero.

The Cat was that jealous, selfish side of Tsubasa, and she decided that if she couldn’t have Koyomi, no one could; i.e. to kill him. I had pretty much forgotten the violent, problematic part of the Cat when she latched onto Koyomi and sucked his energy in a flash of lightning. In a way, the Cat’s actions felt more cruel than Suruga’s, despite the fight being less violent (though there was plenty of gore this time around as well). In Suruga’s case, at least she wanted to kill Koyomi out of self interest, but in the Cat’s case, it was purely out of spite.

Yes, the Cat was the antagonist from the beginning, after all.

Suruga Monkey had had a pretty clever ending, with Hitagi coming to save Koyomi and to negate Suruga’s incentive for killing Koyomi. I found it interesting that, at the moment of truth, Koyomi once again thought of Hitagi’s promise to kill whomever killed him, and that was what convinced him that he wanted to live. And this time, it was Shinobu who came to save him.

What an entrance! And what a twist; she was there all along, lurking literally in the shadows, just waiting for Koyomi to call out to her for help. Because we didn’t get to see the beginning of this story – i.e. the events of Golden Week that had Koyomi turn into a vampire – we were left in the dark as to why or how Shinobu is in Koyomi’s shadow and why she came out only when he called her. There were more allusions to the Koyomi Vamp story, including showing pieces of the flashback montage that opened the show, but not enough to shed any light on these issues. Still, it was great to see Shinobu come back and to reach some sort of understanding with Koyomi, even if I had no idea what it was.

And she never spoke! I’m not sure if she even had any groans or other such non-verbal noises. It seems like it was just a troll to have Aya Hirano listed as Shinobu’s voice actor from the beginning.

I didn't notice that band aid until I went back to take this screen shot. Fanservice to the very end.

The conclusion of the Tsubasa Cat story did feel a bit incomplete. The Cat was dispatched, but the source of Tsubasa’s stress – her unrequited love for Koyomi – was not taken care of and remains a possible problem. Then again, none of the other stories had neat or tidy little endings. Koyomi’s wondering of how much Tsubasa knows about the incident and acknowledging that she needs time to organize her thoughts was as much as was needed.

How much does she know, really? As long as things are back to normal, she has all the time she needs to answer that.

The Tsubasa Cat ending – with the Fire Sisters morning wake up sequence – flowed right into the series ending. After the beautiful ending to the TV broadcast run provided by Tsubasa Cat Part 2, I wondered what the “true ending” to the series would be like.

Well, it wasn’t quite as beautiful and certainly not as romantic, but it was a proper and satisfying conclusion to the whole series. Perhaps Shinbo went a little overboard with his trademark shots here, but the final montage was just a joy to watch. I don’t know, just seeing the 4 main high schoolers of this show – Koyomi, Hitagi, Tsubasa, and Suruga – exploring Oshino’s empty home together was pretty cool. The music was excellent as well, working with the imagery of that empty school building to give us the feeling of a breath of fresh air, or of the dawn after a dark night. And even though it all felt a bit bittersweet with Oshino’s leaving, the overarching feeling was one of hope for the future, of moving on. When the 4 gathered to talk one last time about Oshino being a good person, they were laughing and smiling, celebrating his memory instead of mourning their loss.

They looked awesome together at the end. This may be the first time the 4 were in the same shot.

That sense of hope was perfectly represented by the final scene, of Koyomi taking Hitagi out on their 2nd date, her riding on the back of his bike. It was the image of 2 young lovers just starting on their journey, much like the TV ending in Tsubasa Cat Part 2. And Koyomi got to give us a final bit of narration:

I’ll probably run into more oddities in the future. But that’s okay. I know the truth. There are dark areas in this world, and there are people living in those places. For example, there’s even someone living inside my shadow. Tomorrow is the culture festival. Our class’s project is… the haunted house.

When you get down to it, the most significant part of Bakemonogatari's story was the budding relationship between these 2. This is just the beginning to their story.

I feel that it summed up the series well. It was about acknowledging the dark, ugly side of everyone that they try to hide from others. As sad or as cynical as these things may be, the person holding these things is still a person. There is still hope in that darkness, like the all-white, pure image of Shinobu living inside the shadow of Koyomi. It was a line that represented the theme that tied together all 5 different stories in this series, and a wonderful way to close it out.

Note Koyomi, Hitagi, and Tsubasa at the right, in their uniforms from the drama CD cover.

Series End

So, after 15 episodes and 358 days, Bakemonogatari is over. So what was Bakemonogatari? Was it worth the time? To be honest, I’m a little sad to see it end, partly because now it means I have no excuse to avoid answering these questions. Due to having such a big gap between watching the last 2 episodes, I feel like I need to watch it again with less time between episodes before I can have anything to say about the series as a whole. I don’t feel like I can add anything right now to what I already wrote in this post. That is, it is a series of 5 fantastical stories that Koyomi Araragi experiences in the span of just a few months, each with its own heroine, tied together by the common theme of the darkness that people hide from others.

But the show was certainly much more than that. There was something about it that resonated with viewers, including me. I’m not sure yet what that is. At the very least, it was a unique ride, filled with stunning visuals and excellent music. It provided a couple of the most touching and heartfelt scenes I’ve seen in anime while still remaining true to its cynical theme. And even if that was all it was, it was enough to make the series my favorite in recent memory.

Notes

• The online stream’s video quality was rather low, which is why the screenshots look so crappy. The Blu-ray release is on July 28.
• As most of you know, Bakemonogatari is based off of a novel by the same name. There are 2 more novels that follow it in the series: Kizumonogatari, which contains the Koyomi Vamp story, the prequel that explains the events of Golden Week; and Nisemonogatari, which contains 2 sequels, Karen Bee and Tsukihi Phoenix, presumably about Koyomi’s little sisters. According to the article on Wikipedia (with no citations), 2 more sequels are in the works.
• The Blu-ray and DVD releases had audio commentary by the voice actors, in character. Each release had 2 of the heroines speaking to each other through the episodes (e.g. Volume 1 featured Hitagi and Tsubasa, Volume 2 featured Mayoi and Tsubasa, Volume 3 featured Suruga and Hitagi). Unfortunately, no one has subbed these in English yet, as far as I know.
• At 15 episodes in 358 days, the series had a mean of about 25.6 days between episodes. I’m guessing that that’s some sort of record.
• With its sudden release on the 25th, Bakemonogatari’s finale joins the finale of 4 other series ending in the 4 day period between 6/24 and 6/27 that have Hideki Hiroshi Kamiya playing starring roles (update 7/1/2010 0843: Thank you Son Gohan for pointing out the mistake – Bayonetta must’ve been on my mind). The others are: Durarara!! (Izaya Orihara), Angel Beats! (Yuzuru Otonashi), Working!! (Hiroomi Souma), and Arakawa Under the Bridge (Kou “Recruit” Ichinomiya). Of those 5, Bakemonogatari, Angel Beats!, and Arakawa Under the Bridge had him playing the main protagonist.

That’s right. The final episode of Dance in the Vampire Bund is titled Dance in the Vampire Bund, and (spoilers!) it ends with a dance in the Vampire Bund. Story-wise, this episode had to explain a lot, and it managed to accomplish that, tying the series together nicely, even while introducing new plot points that remain as mysteries to the viewer.

Finally, some dancing!

To quote M. Night Shyamalan on Robot Chicken, “What a twist!” I didn’t see that one coming. The true vampires’ inheritance being that there are multiple Minas? I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around this. It was nice to finally have that gap in Akira’s memories filled. I enjoyed the grotesque imagery in the scene when all the Minas were being burned. The music in that scene reminded me too much of the underworld theme from Super Mario Brothers, though.

But even though Akira and Mina are the protagonists, Meiren really stole the spotlight this climactic episode.

Finally, we see her transformed form in full

As joker76 had theorized, Meiren was indeed the 3rd assassin, and beyond that, she’s also a part of Telomere. That explains why she stopped Mina’s final strike in episode 7, and how she was on the other end of the phone in episode 9.

"To be in love with someone means to be crazy for them, right? That's right, you and me both, we're crazy. As butterflies in love with flowers, we don't regret for a moment sacrificing our bodies, our minds, or even our very last droplet of blood!"

She explains to Akira pretty much everything. She was a slave who was given freedom and a purpose by that other Mina from the first scene of the episode. And she wants that Mina to be the queen of the world. That’s why she joined Telomere, that’s why she was undercover this whole time until all the vampire heads were gathered under one roof, and that’s why she now has the same kind of bomb inside her as was featured in episodes 8 and 9.

"Hey Akira, why couldn't have our two princesses been one and the same person?"

But of course, Akira doesn’t see things the same way. Their fight had its moments, but it was overall underwhelming. Mostly just bright flashes of light flying around the city. The best moments were those before and after the fight, when the tension between Akira and Meiren builds and builds, and when it is all finally released. Meiren had some very poignant things to say in these scenes, which made her into a tragic character, a real foil to Akira, instead of a simple villain.

Most of the fight looked like this.

"You won. But still, I'm a little happy. To get to die while being held in someone's arms, I never dreamed that it would happe..."

But she still was the villain, and Mina was the heroine. She had her moment as well. When Akira was clearly overmatched by Meiren and down for the count, and Yuki was already beginning to mourn his coming death, it was Mina who sat with confidence. She firmly believed that Akira would keep his promise to return to her, against all odds and evidence. And in the moment of truth, he does defeat Meiren, even though he loses his arm in the process.

Once the action began to die down, Mina was great as she put the clan heads in their place. I loved the call-back to episode 10, where Mina had seemingly joked to Yuki that they could fill any room in that building with sunlight. Turns out she wasn’t lying. Thanks to the magic of fiber optics. And she was adorable when she was walking away from the meeting room and couldn’t help herself from breaking into a run to meet Akira.

The denouement was fitting, though it felt somewhat rushed. It was nice to see Mina and Akira honoring Meiren’s death, as she had proved to be a great and very likable character in these last few episodes. In the end, the story came back around to end with another promise, as Yuki’s narration had alluded to throughout the show. I didn’t like how they conveniently had Akira’s arm reattached. I wanted Akira really to lose something, to put a greater permanence and sacrifice to the battle he fought. I like it when the hero has to lose something in his journey to success, like, for example, Mikiya and his left eye in Kara no Kyoukai (or, on the subject of eyes, Snake and his right eye in Metal Gear Solid 3).

That other Mina doesn't seem particularly perturbed.

There’s still the unaddressed issue of the second Mina. There was just a quick little scene showing her at the end, so even though the current story had wrapped up neatly, there is still a thread open for a possible sequel.

A new promise, to be kept by Mina this time.

And I think I’d like that. I can’t honestly say the show was great. The first half was aimless and, to be frank, pretty boring at times. Though the show got very strong in the second half, the ending didn’t blow me away. Which is pretty much what it needed to do given the first half. But the whole build up to the ending was so strong, and it got me so interested in the story enough that I’d like to see more. And the way Meiren’s character and story were handled was brilliant throughout.

This show leaves me with mixed feelings. Being an action/thriller, it was a very big departure from Shaft’s recent works, which have either been talk-heavy comedies or romance dramas. I was a little skeptical about how they would handle the action, and I was right to be skeptical; though the action exceeded my expectations and was even great at times, it was inconsistent and the climactic action scene wasn’t directed very well at all. And I’ve already gone on too much about how the story was weak until the second half.

At the same time, there were parts of the show that Shaft handled very well. When the action was good, it was GOOD. The stories of the main characters, including those of Yuzuru with Nanami and of Meiren were excellent and left me feeling… something when each of their stories ended. And Shaft tied the overall story together very well in the last 2 episodes, neatly wrapping up something that seemed to be in complete disarray halfway through.

I can’t heartily recommend this show to everyone, but if you’ve got the patience to sit through the whole thing, I think you’ll see those flashes of brilliance that made the show enjoyable. Here’s to hoping for a second season, in which Shaft has a better budget and has learned from what worked and didn’t in this season.

Anyway, this series is now over, and I’ll be moving on to Shaft’s Arakawa Under the Bridge in this coming season. The first episode actually airs today (don’t know the exact time, so it may have already), so look for impressions on that soon.

There was more talk and less action in this episode than I expected, but I found that to be alright, because the talk brought back that very important issue that had been ignored for the last many episodes: Akira’s continued amnesia. And it ties it together with Telomere; what Akira still doesn’t remember is what Telomere wants. And Telomere comes back in this episode to get it from him. With just 1 more episode left, all the loose story ends have come together, for one last Dance… in the Vampire Bund (sorry, hate me if you want to for that).

The plot thickens! It seems that the 1st assassin was with Telomere, which means that one of the 3 clans, or all of them, are in bed with Telomere. It did put her in an awkward position, as it was her job to kill Akira for her master, but she also needed to get information out of him before doing so (explains why she didn’t kill Akira outright when she ambushed him at the border to the Bund). It really saved Akira’s butt a few times, as he got repeatedly stabbed due to his inability to transform. That was a nice little plot point, as it showed how much he really loved and was in love with Mina, despite him being in denial about it.

Speaking of impossible love and saving Akira’s butt, Meiren was pretty phenomenal in this episode. I found it humorous that she came in with a shotgun, and it had predictably little effect on the 2nd Assassin, managing just to knock him away for a little bit. But she took care of him using melee in the end, which gave us a chance to see that she was a wolfman – or rather, wolfwoman – as well. Her confessing to Akira – for serious this time instead of her usual playful flirting – was very sweet. I wonder how much of her emotions were driven by the fact that she’s supposedly the last of her kind, though. She’ll have to come to terms with her feelings just like Yuki did halfway into the show.

This had me d'aaawwwwwing

I enjoyed most of the action, seeing the 1st assassin’s true powers, her ability to shapeshift to really insane proportions. She was really the star of the episode, and I liked how some of her personality shone through, through her speech, her facial expressions, and her choice of attacks, making her a more complete character than just another enemy. Which is kinda what the 2nd assassin ended up being. Given his awesome weapons from the previous episode (naginata and claws), I was hoping for some good fight scenes involving him, but he was taken out very quickly by Meiren. Pretty disappointing, though it did emphasize what a badass Meiren is.

Without Transforming, Akira doesn't stand a chance

Both of the 1st 2 assassins were dispatched in this episode, which leaves the 3rd as the only obstacle lying between Akira and a happy ending. I wonder if Meiren is indeed the 3rd assassin, as joker76 posited in his comment on my post on the previous episode. Would make for a very interesting fight, especially with Akira finally having regained the ability to transform due to his anger at seeing Mina’s image dirtied by the 1st assassin.

But once he does... watch out!

And Mina has put everything on the line now. It puts an even greater weight to the outcome of the finale, but at the same time, it pretty much puts the nail in the coffin of whatever doubt you might have had that Akira wouldn’t pull through. I mean, I think it was pretty clear from the previous episode, but they won’t really have Mina lose everything in one fell swoop at the end… will they?

As for the creepiness factor, they showed again the final scene of the previous episode, and also some short clips from the actual verification ceremony itself. We also learn that Mina knew Akira since his birth 17 years ago, which puts a whole new twist in the creepiness factor of their relationship. She’s the one who’s “robbing the cradle” – almost literally. It reminded me a lot of the very unhealthy relationship between Buster and Lucille 2 in Arrested Development (“She changed him as a baby!”).

I’m looking forward to seeing what Akira’s still hidden memory is, and why Telomere wants it so badly. There were some hints that he was starting to regain this memory towards the end, but I found the flashbacks to be confusing. They brought back imagery from the nightmare at the beginning of the previous episode, and the flashbacks did seem to imply that Mina might be dead or something. And what Alphonse said to Akira implies that this was a piece of information that could change Akira’s behavior drastically, to the point of making him an enemy. It would be great if Akira’s remembrance forces him to make a Sophie’s choice in the next episode. But at this point, I just have no idea, and my approach is just to let it come to me, let the director tell me the story without theorizing needlessly. And so it’s with great anticipation that I await the finale of this show. There’s a lot that has to happen, but this show’s pacing has proven to me that 23 minutes is more than enough.

An aside:

I went to Pax East today for the final day. There wasn’t much in terms of cosplay, but I’ve added what I took to the Picasa album. I attended a panel by members of OverClocked ReMix, a site in which people upload their own remixes of video game music. I was a big fan of the remix “Save Me,” a remix of the save-point theme from Ico (the only parts in the game that actually had background music), which is why I attended. But that whole community reminded me of the microcultures that were mentioned in the Memes talk yesterday.

Speaking of which, I also saw Alex Leavitt, the researcher from that Memes talk, cosplaying as Ash from Pokemon attending a panel on geeks. He also made a comment on my post from yesterday!

Besides the panels, I spent a lot of time on the show floor. I got to play The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile and talked with its sole developer. Turns out he was a big fan of DMC3 and Bayonetta, which I figured from playing his game. I also got to play some DeathSmiles for the XBox360, and that game just might get me into shmups like Touhou.

After getting 3 consecutive action-heavy episodes, we get one that is slower paced and more subdued. We learn a bit more about Meiren’s past and the clans that make up the vampire world. The episode also brings to the forefront the impossibility of the relationship between Mina and Akira in this class-based world and clearly sets up the conflict that will be the focus of the last 2 episodes.
The episode starts with Akira having a nightmare that Mina is killed, a silver stake through her heart. The silhouette of someone who appears to be Meiren appears and says, “I’ll kill you!” before he is awakened by Mina who is watching him sleep. Now that things have settled down and the railway in the Bund has started going up, she invites him to hang out that weekend. Unfortuantely, Akira has another appointment and must refuse. It turns out he had promised Meiren that they’d meet.

So the first half shows the main characters enjoying some down time. Mina, Vera, her maids (including Nanami, who became one after last episode), Yuzuru, and Yuki play around in an indoor pool, while Akira takes a long walk with Meiren. This gives us a chance to earn a bit more about the past of Akira, Mina, and Meiren, though we still don’t get anything concrete.

He gets to do this for all eternity.

In the opening scene, according to Mina, the flowers that keep showing up in the flashbacks are apparently cleome. When Meiren and Akira are talking, Meiren mentions the flower and tells him an old story regarding the flower: because the flower looked so much like a butterfly, a butterfly fell in love with it and flew around it constantly, trying to mate with it, until it finally died from exhaustion. She alludes to how Akira’s relationship with Mina is very similar to this story. Meiren also mentions how the cleome is the favorite flower of the person most precious to her, and we are shown a flashback that suggests that she may have been saved by Mina in the past.

Everyone is enjoying their relaxation when they’re interrupted by the visit of the “3 clans.” Mina explains to Yuki how besides her own royal bloodline, there are 3 clans that serve as subordinates to her own, though she calls them simultaneously her “blood relatives, vassals, and old enemies.” They’re named Li, Ivanovic, and Rozenmann.

Mina in her battle uniform.

Mina gets into a very princess-ly dress (which she calls her “battle uniform”) and meets with the heads of each of the houses (these are the same 3 who were talking over video at the end of the previous episode). It’s immediately clear that these 3 don’t have much respect for her authority. They quickly turn the subject to the fact that according to ancient orders, it is their duty to continue the pure vampire bloodline, and the only ones qualified to do that are the 4 present in the meeting, with Mina being the only female. They grew tired of waiting for her to pick one of them, so the 3 came that night with a contest: they each brought over their best assassin, and whichever one kills Akira wins its master the right to marry Mina.

Meanwhile, Akira, who was informed by Yuki that Mina needed him, is ambushed as he tries to re-enter the Bund, by one of the assassins (who looks very similar to Lady from Devil May Cry 3). He runs away, but each of the other 2 assassins comes at him. And because it matters which of them kills him, the assassins fight one another as well, which gives Akira enough of an opening to run away and back towards headquarters.

The 3 assassins, in order of appearance.

Obviously Mina is very upset over this situation, but she can’t fight back, because as the vampire princess, she can’t admit that her romantic interests lie with a wolfman like Akira and that she likely has no plans of choosing any of the 3. The episode closes on a pretty wicked note: an old lady enters with a chair with restraints at the wrists and ankles while saying that she must perform the verification of Mina’s virginity. The last thing we see is Mina voluntarily having her “battle uniform” ripped off her by a couple of guards.

Mina will have her virginity verified in this. Yeah...

So, one thing that’s clear is that I was mistaken in the last episode; I had assumed that the man with the eye patch was using the royal “we” when he called Mina “our” fiance, but he was actually talking about all 3 of them. The turn of events regarding them should make for a nice way to close out the show. The issue raised by the difference between Mina’s and Akira’s statuses in society had been in the back burner for most of the show, but they’re dealing with it head-on now. One way or another, it’s going to be resolved before it’s over, and I’m excited to find out how.

I’m not sure where Meiren sits in all this, but I’m glad we got to learn more of her past. The nightmare at the beginning seemed to suggest that she might be someone against Mina, but her flashback and the way she talked with Akira suggests that she’s on their side. I wish Akira had been more inquisitive in their conversation. I wonder if, like some other characters in this show, Meiren has responsibilities that go against her personal wishes: i.e. that she wants to help Mina, but whoever she’s working for has its own separate agenda.

The amount of action was minimal, and the quality of what was there was okay . Knowing what Shaft did in the last few episodes, I’m greatly looking forward to seeing the action unfold in the next 2. I think they’re setting up for a series of one-on-one showdowns, as it was just the 3rd assassin who was shown ominously watching over Akira at the end of this one. I’m sure Meiren will get involved as well. Each of the assassins fights a little differently, with the first one using what appear to be wind-based projectiles, the second one using a naginata and claws, and the third one just fighting without weapons. A lot of potential for good eye candy there.

I’m finding myself enjoying the creepiness factor that this show just keeps up. It was bad enough that we have 3 fully grown men discussing mating with a loli while alone in a darkened room, but the show took it over the top with the bit with the chair and the virginity at the end. Instead of letting it be just a shock factor, the show exploits Mina’s perceived age to create a real feeling of discomfort and unease that add to its already high tension scenes.

This episode, like the last, starts with some very NSFW stuff, this time between Nanami and Hysterica. I don’t think I can post any screenshots of that here. Instead, have Yuzuru and Nanami close to the end of the episode:

*Nice*

Mina sends out a message to Hysterica by broadcasting herself on TV to the Japanese populace while speaking ancient Sumerian, but with false Japanese subtitles. She issues a challenge, asking her to meet at an agreed upon location that night.

Researching the contents of the vial found in one of Hysterica’s underlings reveals that it is a chemical that turns vampires’ blood into a powerful explosive. Mina briefs the Beowulf Elite Eight, theorizes that Hysterica is planning a mass suicide bombing in the subways, as there is a high concentration of people there, and it’s away from the sun. It will be their job to track down the vampires hiding in plain sight and kill them before they can blow themselves up.

There’s a brief but important scene that shows Yuzuru still in Mina’s office, being taken care of by Vera for now. He’s curious as to how/why she became a vampire, and she explains that it was because of her love for Mina’s mother, Lucretia, who was the former princess before she died. Vera wanted to protect her forever. She tells him that she has not once regretted the decision.

That night, Hysterica does come, along with Nanami and a small posse of the undead vampires, via a couple helicopters, to meet Mina on the roof of some skyscraper in the Bund. She says that she has no intention of fighting Mina. Rather, she tries to coerce her to get onto one of the helicopters with her with the threat of the aforementioned suicide bombing vampires distributed throughout the subway. But in a surprise attack, Vera shoots down the helicopters and sets off a chaff explosive on the roof, sending all of them falling down to the bottom of the building. Mina explains that the building has also been thickly lined with radio shielding material and hooked with multiple jamming devices. All the exits have been sealed, so the only way out is back through the roof, which Mina and Vera are ready to protect.

The situation doesn’t phase Hysterica much, as she still has her suicide bombing vampires to take on Mina. She orders Nanami, who fell on a walkway a little above them, to head to the roof and trigger the suicide bombers in the subway, while she and Vera fight it out. On her way up, Nanami runs into Yuzuru, who had been briefed by Mina that he, as Nanami’s obsession, would serve as their last line of defense against her. The strategy works, as Nanami drops her cell phone and can only obsessively clutch on to Yuzuru.

Meanwhile, Akira and the Beowulf Elite are doing just fine killing the suicide bombers, until Akira realizes that one of them is his classmate, Hiko (I don’t recall seeing this character before – he may have been the kid who always got bullied and turned into a vampire to turn things around on the bullies). He hesitates, letting him get away into a leaving subway car. Akira transforms into wolf form to chase down the car and to jump into it, before catching up with Hiko at the very front car. Hiko is visibly distressed and conflicted about his role, and Akira tries to talk him down, telling him that it’s not too late.

I’ll stop the summary here, because I don’t want to spoil the events in the rest of the episode. I’ll say that it does end with Mina and Vera defeating Hysterica, and the story between Yuzuru and Nanami does close out. It’s just that it’s worth watching just how it all goes down. Meiren (I’ve decided to use that name, as both Anime News Network and My Anime List call her that, although Wikipedia lists her as Mei Ran) plays a key role yet again at a critical, almost climactic moment of the episode, just like in episode 7.

The episode closes out ominously, showing a man in an eye patch talking via video to 2 others (whose faces are obscured), calling the Bund a toy castle and commenting on how it has been troublesome of late. The man in the eye patch asks one of them to pay his “fiance” a visit.

He and Akira are gonna get along so well...

This was my favorite episode by far. I said in my post about the last episode that I didn’t expect the show to have too much action, but I am glad to have been wrong. With just enough setup, the action started almost right away, and it was GOOD. Even though the action has been good up to now, none of Shaft’s recent works had nearly as much action as this one, so it continues to impress me. Then again, Akiyuki Shinbo, the director, was also the director of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which I’ve heard has some decent action (haven’t seen it, though).

Starting with the fight for the cell phone between Mina and Hysterica in free-fall, continuing with the battle between Mina and the vampires at the bottom of the building, the encounter between Yuzuru and Nanami on the walkway, and ending with Hysterica’s defeat, the action never let up the intensity. The direction, cinematography, and timing were just spot-on. Having the camera move around so much – unusual for anime – made things look weird early in the show, but it works very well for the action scenes. The return of Mina’s adult form was a surprise, and she appropriately dominated the scene. And the subway sequences reminded me of some episodes of 24, including the really cheesy part when Akira is trying to save his classmate.

Beyond the action, the story had me d’awwwwing. Yuzuru appeared for the first time only in episode 8, and Nanami’s character was almost ignored until then, but their story and the way it closed out at the end had a real effect on me. Even if it was rather creepy in that shotacon sort of way. His conversation with Vera at the beginning about why she became a vampire not only served to fill in more of Vera’s back story, but also was integral in making the way this episode ended feel so genuine and heartfelt.

Meiren’s appearance keeps building up the mystery surrounding her character. I’m still waiting for the payoff, to see what her motivations are, though. Despite her helping Akira and Mina consistently along the way, I wonder if her motivations might not align fully with theirs. And, of course, there’s the mysterious man with the eye patch at the end, who seems to be the true antagonist in this final arc. Being the apparent fiance to Mina, he will obviously not see eye-to-eye with Akira.

Just a great episode overall. I had been a little down on this show in the first half, but if the final 3 episodes end up being as good as the previous 3, Dance in the Vampire Bund could become one of my favorite shows in recent years, creepy loli/shota and all.

Before I begin, one thing I forgot to write in the catch up is that there is an organization of vampires called Telomere that was behind all of the assassination attempts on Mina. One of the members was a student who lead the charge against the human students in episode 7. I mention this now because they take a central role in the plot of this episode and presumably of the episodes going forwards.

No... onee-chan...

Well, the Vampire Bund has now been established, so a new plotline begins to develop. The episode starts off almost like a hentai, with a young boy waking up to find his “older sister” trying to jump him. The young boy’s name is Yuzuru, and the “older sister” is actually Nanami Shinonome, the former student council president who was turned into a vampire very early in the show. The scene ends with her fleeing after forcing herself to stop from biting the boy.

It has been a month since the events of episode 7 and the opening of the Bund. It has a very strict border policy, with vampires not being allowed to leave as they please. Vera, the head vampire bodyguard/assistant for Mina, reports to her that some vampires have been breaking this rule, and so she is order to investigate.

Mina and Yuki share a touching moment.

At the high school, the students who had been victimized in the previous episode have all been “vaccinated” (they never do explain how they can “vaccinate” turned vampires ex post facto), but all of them have still opted to leave the school. Yuki considers quitting the student council as well because it hurts her to see Mina and Akira together. But after she and Mina talk things out about Akira and learning that there are some aspects of her relationship with Akira that Mina is jealous of, they become friends.

Mei Ran makes a brief appearance early in the episode. She visits Akira in the classroom, flirts with him a bit. It is revealed that she has a pendant which is a replica of one that Akira vaguely recognizes. It will probably become significant later.

A brief glimpse at Mei Ran wearing the pendant

The real meat of the story starts when during her investigation, Vera catches Yuzuru trying to break into the Bund. When he reveals that he’s looking for Nanami, Vera takes him to Mina, who decides to set up a net to catch her in the act. The net is successful, but Nanami does not listen to Mina’s orders, making her realize that she has a different master. After a short chase, they run into the master, a vampire by the name of Hysterica (va: Rie Kugimiya ). Vera recognizes her, and they seem to have a history that stretches at least a 100 years. Last time they met, in 1918, she had been known as Francesca.

Left to right: Hysterica, Vera, c.1918

She also has with her a sizable army of undead-like vampire followers, also immune to Mina’s words. A fight scene breaks out between Beowulf Elite Eight, Mina’s royal guard team made up of wolfmen, and the rogue vampires, while Vera takes on Hysterica herself and Akira goes chasing after Nanami. When they catch up, they see Nanami in pain over her love for Yuzuru, not wanting him to see her this way or to turn him into a vampire, but still having the urge to do so. Yuzuru suddenly appears, and tries to chase Nanami who starts running away from him, but not before Hysterica also appears, pushing him away and grabbing Nanami.

She decides to retreat for now, realizing that she’s outnumbered and outmatched, but not before giving an ominous warning that she is planning on something that will show the “fragile humans” the power of vampires. She escapes by creating a diversion by exploding 2 of her undead vampires, who had been rigged with explosives.

One of the Eight cutting someone in half. They seem to be versed in Japanese martial arts.

Well, this episode was really filled with a lot of content, and it was a lot more intelligible than most of the previous episodes. I’m glad to see even more of Mei Ran and to get a glimpse at what her story is all about. Still nothing concrete yet, but the pendant tells us that unless it’s just a red herring, she will definitely play a bigger role in the rest of the episodes. Yuki seems to have gotten a mostly happy ending, as she learns that she can let Mina have Akira without having to give him up.

But given the more interesting stuff that happened in this episode, I hope that there isn’t too much time spent on Yuki and the love triangle. Nanami was a character whom I wrote off as dead after she first got attacked by vampires, but she had returned in episode 6 and now plays an even bigger role, although I predict she’ll step aside to Hysterica and the bigger Telomere organization that’s behind it all. The opening scene with her reminded me a bit of the latest episode of Baka to Test. The anime industry definitely went through a little sister phase for a while; is it now going through a big sister phase?

That face kinda speaks for itself

I liked how Hysterica was presented as a character. I didn’t realize Rie Kugimiya was going to be in this, and it’s nice to hear her play a character so unlike her usual roles. Besides her voice, the sharp angles of the features of her face, the stark contrast between her thick eyebrows and her skin, and her maniacal facial expressions worked well to present her as a very sinister character. Her former relationship with Vera interests me as well. It seems that they used to be on the same side until some event or decision they made split them apart, and I hope the show explains that a bit more.

The fight scenes were short, but were again pretty well done, like in episode 7. Shaft isn’t traditionally known for using a lot of action in their animation, but it was quite fluid and, more importantly, very well directed. Mina’s take down and destruction of Hysterica’s weapon was beautiful to watch. I don’t expect action to be a major portion of the show going forwards, but if there are little scenes like the ones in this episode, I’ll be happy.

This episode finally had a legitimate ED sequence. Same song as before, but there’s actual animation and stuff going on instead of slowly zooming out of a slowly colorizing picture of Mina in lingerie. The imagery reminded me of some of Shaft’s other OPs and EDs. The high-contrast, very dark imagery reminded me at times of Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei’s final ED (Omamori), while the moving gears and chained up Mina was reminiscent of the OP from the 2 Ef series. Overall, it was a pretty standard Shaft ED, but nothing to write home about.

To start, I’m lvlln, a new writer for Borderline Hikikomori, and I’ll be blogging Dance in the Vampire Bund for the rest of this season. You can read my profile, if you wish.

7.5 is a recap episode with no new content whatsoever, as far as I can tell. But I figure this is a good chance to play catch-up, as no one at Borderline Hikikomori has been blogging it since the first episode. My subjective thoughts on the series, I already wrote about on a post in my own blog, so this post will be mainly a recap of the story so far.

Mina Tepes, the loli queen of vampires.

Mina Tepes is the queen of vampires who outs their existence to the human world. Due to her large holdings in some Japanese companies, she blackmails the Japanese government into accepting her demand that some island off the coast of Japan be reserved as a haven for vampires, the so-called Vampire Bund.

Akira Kaburagi, denying the existence of vampires

Akira Kaburagi Regendorf is the male protagonist, a high schooler who lost all his memories when he was 16. It turns out that he’s a wolfman (he can transform at will) and had made a promise with Mina a long time ago, a promise she considers to be very important. He starts to regain his memories as the episodes go along, and he begins to act as Mina’s bodyguard.

There have been a couple parallel  threads that mix together in the episodes so far. One is the political intrigue that takes place behind the scenes, as Mina negotiates her demands with the Japanese government. There are also a couple assassination attempts against her. The other is the high school story: turns out that the high school Akira attends is one founded by Mina, designed specifically to cater to vampires. Once the existence of vampires become public knowledge, a conflict starts brewing between the vampire and human students of the school.

They made sure it looked pretty for those flying above...

Both protagonists play important roles in both stories, but it wasn’t until episodes 6 and 7 when things started getting interesting and the 2 stories really intertwined. Akira, who had been completely loyal to Mina up to now, becomes angry when he learns that the grandson of the prime minister of Japan had been kidnapped and turned into a vampire in order to coerce his agreement to the establishment of the Vampire Bund. Meanwhile, the conflict has reached a tipping point at the high school, where vampire students freely bully and even convert the human ones. Akira, convinced that Mina and the vampires are the enemy of humans, leads the human students in a sort of rebellion at the school.

Episode 7 was the climax, as the vampire students manage to get into the human ones’ hideout, and Akira and Mina come just in time to save them. Turns out that Mina also takes the side of humans, as she doesn’t condone the behavior of the prejudiced vampires and is, in fact, cracking down on them throughout the world. Mina, upset at Akira’s insubordination, fights him, but Akira ends up saving her life once again, so they make up. Episode 7 ends with Akira returning as Mina’s bodyguard, as the latter announces the creation of the Vampire Bund.

Yuki reacts to seeing Mina with the ring

There’s a lot of stuff I glossed over for the sake of brevity, but that’s been the main plot thus far. Beyond the protagonists, there are a couple other significant characters. Yuki Saegusa is a classmate of Akira and seems to hold romantic feelings for him. She also has a promise with Akira, and she had given him a ring before he had lost his memory. Though she and Mina did argue a couple times, in the end, she seemed to have surrendered Akira as belonging to Mina.

The other, Mei Ran, is a female vampire who appears in front of Akira to help him at the most opportune moments, using her hard candies as weapons. She’s saved Akira on a couple occasions and played a brief role in episode 7 without appearing, as her hard candy deflected one of Mina’s blade stabs. She’s an anime-only character, so no one really knows anything about her or what her motivations are yet.

Mei Ran, about to go berserk on a bunch of vampires

Anyway, episode 7 ended very much like a series ending with a pretty tidy conclusion and credits during the final scene instead of an ED sequence, so episodes 8-12 will likely be a new “arc” with a whole new story. I believe/hope they will reveal more about Mei Ran, and explore further the history of Mina and Akira. I think Yuki’s story is pretty much over, because Akira belongs to Mina now, although I’m still curious about the state of their relationship before Akira had lost his memories.

Episode 8 is out already, so I’ll be watching it soon and reporting back.