The House of AnimeJB

Episode Summary

Mysterious disappearances have been happening all over Tatsumi town, and the student council of St. Ruminus Academy decides to look into it themselves when students at their school start going missing. Souma doesn’t believe that students actually can just disappear, but the others in the council aren’t discounting something supernatural. They speculate that it might be a monster, and decide that Kiriye’s kendo skills are more than enough to protect them, although Kiriye thinks that he’s not as good as they say. Saionji, who seems to be the class president, knows more about it than he lets on. He seems to know about the existence of another world, and comes across a book that he feels should explain how to get to it.

On his way out of the school, Souma notices windows rattling in the student council room. It makes him stop long enough to remember that he left his cellphone in the room, and he goes back in to get it. While he’s inside, the rattling window opens on its own, and the wind that it lets in opens the book that Saionji had earlier. Souma notices, says something about a “Dream Continent”, and looks out the window again. He may or may not have notices the boy standing in the tree outside the window. The boy has wings, one white and one black.

In the next scene, it is revealed that Saionji has gone missing now, too. Later that night, amidst an odd glow in the park, a strange girl appears and jumps away, much farther than a normal person should be able to. She lands on a telephone pole, musing about the fact that Zero must be in this world somewhere. This suggests that she is from the other world that Saionji was reading about before he disappeared. The girl keeps moving, and meanwhile a monster appears in light similar to her’s from earlier.

The scene shifts to the next day in the student council room. Kiriye is talking about an odd dream he had, in which a girl appeared and said to him “When the tree that links with this world blooms, the illusory door which leads to the continent will open. The red moon of the heavens will reflect upon the mirror-like spring and will be the door to the other world.” He thinks it has something to do with the disappearances, and Souma passes it off as a coincidence, still thinking that there must be a logical explanation for everything. Kureha, one of the girls in the council, asks for more information. Kiriye tells her that the girl had strange, long ears, but that she was very pretty. Shiina, the other girl there, says to forget about the dream because there was a wolf-like howl heard last night.

Outside, waiting by the gate, Souma decides to confess to Kureha. Before she can answer, they are attacked by a werewolf type monster. The strange girl from earlier shows up and begins immediately fighting with the werewolf. Souma catches her when the werewolf sends her flying, and her hat falls off to reveal that she has cat ears. They both act embarassed, and the cat girl introduces herself as Mao. She explains that the monster is a beastman that got through the gate from the other world. With the help of Souma and Kureha, Mao captures the beastman. She then explains about the other world, End Earth, and its relation to the normal world, Elde. It seems she’s there looking for the boy with the wings, Zero. Before much more explanation, the beastman breaks free and attacks Mao. He manages to break a mirror she was holding that she refers to as the mirror of dimensions. It starts releasing a green light, and everyone there is transported to the other world. Souma and Kureha wind up in what looks like a void. There, they meet with Zero. Zero says that he watches over the world, and then seems to entrust that responsibility to Souma. They are transported again.

Meanwhile, Kiriye and Shiina notice that the sakura tree that hasn’t blossomed in years is in full bloom. Kiriye remembers the dream he had.

Back to Souma and Kureha, they find themselves in a large field. They decide to look around for the mirror of dimensions when Kureha somehow senses that something is coming. A goblin type monster attacks them, and Souma stops it. Then, a bunch more show up. They run for a bit, but Souma decides to hold them off and let Kureha escape. After the obligatory “I can’t do that!”, Kureha runs off while Souma stays to fight. That doesn’t last long, as Kureha is attacked and conveniently has her clothes ripped in such a way that her undergarments are easily visible.

Just after Souma notices this, they are attacked by a large cyclops. Kureha gets in the way of a thrust from the cyclops’ sword so that it hits her instead of Souma. When it does, an eruption of purple light sends the cyclops flying. Souma rushes toward Kureha, who seems to have felt the effects of the stab even though she’s glowing rather than bleeding. She stops responding to anything, and Souma notices the hilt of a sword coming out of the light around her chest.

Souma hears Kureha’s voice, telling him to take her heart. Visuals make it obvious that she means the sword. He pulls the sword of out her, and looks at it while the camera shows it off. Kureha wakes up, wondering where he got the sword from. He tells Kureha that it is her heart and promptly cuts the cyclops in half with it. The other monsters run away, and Souma says that with that sword he feels like he can’t lose.

Characters

Souma

Eurkos: To be honest, I didn’t think he was the main character at first. He doesn’t seem like the likely candidate, especially with someone like Kiriye there. Not that it’s a problem, really. I like that a non-likely person is the main character. He’s realistic in his thinking… he seems to have some skill fighting and isn’t worried about thinking that he does. He’s probably still gonna try to deny the things around him now that he’s in End Earth. It’ll be interesting seeing where they take his character from here.

Kureha

Eurkos: Kureha is the sweet, quiet type. It’s no wonder that Souma likes her. She used a bow for a bit while they were fighting with the beastman, and it looked good on her. I hope that she becomes less needy as the show goes on. Right now she’s just the normal “Oh, save me Souma-kun!” and I’m hoping she learns to take care of herself.

Kiriye

Eurkos: Even though he and Shiina didn’t go with Souma and Kureha to End Earth, I’m sure they’ll show up there at some point. They wouldn’t have been in the episode as much as they have. Plus, they wouldn’t have mentioned that both of them are really good at kendo. Anyway, Kiriye is more the main-character type than Souma. He seems fairly average in everything. He’s obviously modest to a fault. At this point, I’m not very interested in him, which makes me glad that he’s not the main character.

Shiina

Eurkos: Like Kiriye, I’m sure Shiina will be in End Earth at some point. She gets bonus points for being a redhead, but I haven’t seen enough of her to have much interest at this point. Hopefully more will come later.

Saionji

Eurkos: Maybe it’s just me, but this guy is obviously up to no good. He just spills evil out, and his interest in End Earth is very suspicious. I’d bet that him trying to find ways to get to End Earth is why people are disappearing. He’ll probably be a main struggle point for the other characters.

Hiruda

Eurkos: Hiruda is Saionji’s lapdog. Or rather, I’m sure she’d like to be. He probably doesn’t pay much attention to her when she’s not doing something for him. Like Kiriye and Shiina, she’ll probably be around later but I haven’t seen enough to be interested.

Mao

Eurkos: Mao seems fun, so far. She’s fairly light-spirited, as she was fairly happy with things up until her mirror broke. I wonder what the thing she wants to ask Zero is, and why it’s so important. I also wanna see more of what she can do, since it seems like she has special attacks and whatnot.

Zero

Eurkos: He’s all over the place in the opener and closer, and he got a decent amount of screen time for someone with only two lines. He’s obviously very important, and I wanna know why. What’s up with the rings, and why are his wings two different colors?

Storyline Thoughts

Eurkos: So far, it seems like things that have been done before. I guess that’s because it’s based on an old j-rpg. It’ll probably turn out to be good because of that, as well. If you’re looking for something completely original, this probably isn’t it. I’m curious to see what the deal with Kureha is, and why she got all glowy and swordy when she got stabbed by the cyclops. I also wanna know more about End Earth in general.

Final Verdict

Eurkos: This one makes it into the 6 ep test. Admittedly, it’s not one of my favorites right now, but it has potential. That’s the main reason why it took me so long to write this review. I’d been busy watching other stuff, aside of having life issues to deal with. But I picked it back up. I like the animation in it, except for the over-use of washed colors due to bright light. It seems like the outdoors in Japan are exceptionally bright according to the animators. All in all, it’s decent. I look forward to more.