Sunday, May 30, 2010
there wasnt much action featured in Angel Beats!'s 9th episode but it did bring the series to a point where the "direction" of the series is finally revealed...Kanade lies on the bed, unconscious after absorbing all those other Harmonics. Yuri tells Otonashi that it was her fault that caused her to be like that but Otonashi acknowledges her as a good leader and had chosen the right decision to protect everyone. Otonashi then once again looks over at Kanade and whispers that she once said that no one gets sick here and there was no need for hospitals and "asks" her why wasn't she waking up. Back in the meeting room, the main problem now was about which Kanade will awake, the old Kanade that had fun with everyone or the bloodthirsty ones which she had absorbed and everyone knows that the chance of Kanade returning to her old self was unlikely due to the amount of other consciousness she had absorbed. Meanwhile, Otonashi fell asleep beside the unconscious Kanade and he starts to remember more about his life. After the train had got into an accident, Otonashi had survived and was shocked when he stood up and sees many injured and dead passengers around him in the train cabin. He then sees another injured man and quickly goes off to help him and the two of them escape from the train. Outside, Otonashi sees the problem, which was a collapsed wall in the tunnel and was blocked. The person whom Otonashi had helped was called Igarashi and the two of them return to the train and help bring the survivors out. Otonashi then takes the torchlight and leaves to check on the other side of the tunnel but sees that it was blocked. Otonashi then bends down due to a sudden pain that he felt and realises that he was quite badly injured as well. With him being the one with medical knowledge, Otonashi was looked on by the others as the "leader" and all the food and water are to be shared amongst the rest equally. On day 3 in the collapsed tunnel, Otonashi encounters the first victim and was unable to revive him using CPR and feels useless once again since he had studied hard to become a doctor, in hope of saving other people. On day 7, everyone was exhausted and most of the people are already feeling weak due to the lack of food and water and are barely alive. Otonashi sees that they might not be rescued at this rate and borrowed a pen from Igarashi and sign on a medical card to prove that he'll donate his organs after he's brain dead as he feels that this way it would make his life much more meaningful and that he would have saved someone else. Everyone was motivated to do the same and when Igarashi was praising Otonashi for "saving" everyone's life, Otonashi dies from his injury and moments later, the rescuers break down the blocked wall. Otonashi awakes to see Kanade patting his head and felt relieved after seeing that it was her old self that had returned. Otonashi tells her about his life and that he feels satisfied that his body would have saved someone else and it was still a meaningful life. He suddenly thought that he'll disappear which Kanade tells him that he will if he doesn't have anymore regret in his own life. Otonashi then feels that it would be better if everyone could feel fulfilled in their lives and leave this world happy and start a new life. After having said that sentence, Otonashi suddenly realises that THAT was exactly what Kanade had been trying to do alone, to make everyone feel fulfilled and to leave this world happy. Kanade sees that Otonashi should have disappeared after feeling fulfilled but he did not, which meant that, that was not his true regret. Kanade had actually wanted to make everyone lead a fulfilled youth life here and tried to persuade those who wanted to remain in this world and thus began to fight with them. Otonashi then believes that with his help, both Kanade and him would be able to help the others leave this world and asks Kanade to act accordingly to his plan which she agrees. Under Otonashi's request, she returns to be her student council president and appears to have forgotten the time spent with the SSS so as to allow the SSS to have an enemy again and to distract Yuri and that Otonashi would be able to act out of her sight. Otonashi knows that first, he has to understand more about everyone's lives and tries to make them feel fulfilled as so as to bring everyone out of the world. He also sees Yuri's life to be the most difficult one to conquer but what troubles him the most is what would happen to Kanade and him once the others have "moved on".
much much more story development was added in and we finally know where the series is headed to and it was to let everyone "move on" i'm not really fancying this direction as it would mean that it would most likely revert to the char-per-episode style but i'll see how it ends if it really goes that direction and 13 episodes is really kinda short... Yuri also said that there are much more computer parts and software available while Takeyama is altering the Angel Player, which would mean that there are much more copies of Angel Player available and since Kanade isnt really the Angel, why is it that she can develop her own abilities using the software and not the others, or anyone could do the same as long as they have the software? and what would Yuri do and maybe feel, when she realises that Otonashi is on Kanade's side, trying to lead everyone to disappear, it would be a large misunderstanding which could conclude nicely in their way... Otonashi's death was really unfortunate as shown in the episode but he really did what he could to help the rest and it really makes me feel sour when i see him die, in that way... 4 more episodes to go...
Ga-Rei's manga has ended as well, with a happy ending but without Yomi once again. With the outbreak of Naraku around the globe, both Kyuubi and the Tengu had appeared but with Ken-chan and Kagura's abilities, they managed to push back Yomi's forces and Byakuei fuses with the Tengu and faces out with the Kyuubi. Things seem to be progressing smoothly but it led to a problem when the chain linking both Kagura and Byakuei gets broken, which meant that Kagura's soul was shredded into half. Yomi sees the situation going out of hand and goes to find Kensuke and Kagura, which Kagura is already "fading" away and Byakuei being seriously injured. Yomi wants Kagura to kill her and to end everything but Ken-chan tells her that she was doing everything for her sake and after Yomi realises that, her miasma disappears and her soul fuses into the gap of Kagura's soul caused by the breaking of the chain and ... happy ending...
quite a typical style of ending, would have preferred Yomi to stay on though, since that should be the purpose of Kagura. Ga-Rei Zero was great and then followed by the manga of Ga-Rei which showed Yomi returning, twice, but still disappears in the end. The final climax was great too and story-wise was good too, things started to go much more havoc after Izuna died but that part was touching as well... it was a nice manga and a nice anime series to start it off xD