Saturday 9 August 2008

Wagaya no Oinari-sama - Episode 15

Just as episode fourteen set us up for a more intriguing instalment this time around, so the fifteenth instalment of Wagaya no Oinari-Sama prefers to keep that sense of intrigue going, as the current storyline proves to be far from over.

The focus of this episode is Kuugen's efforts to find Noboru after he was kidnapped last episode, and although you could argue that Kuu was acting out of character for much of the episode it was at least nice to see a different, slightly more mature and intelligent side to the star of the show this time around. Indeed, Kuu demonstrated some smart and quick thinking that would give Code Geass' Lelouch a run for his money on a couple of occasions - Considering how much I enjoy those smart little turn-arounds in fortune in that series, I can't really complain to see them translated into this show.


Once again however, any attempts at action sequences are relatively brief, which is something that has always surprised me about this series - When you have all-powerful Gods and the like slugging it out, you tend to expect something a little more substantial than the odd smashing of a ceiling, although I suppose keeping the abilities of these deities grounded perhaps isn't such a bad thing (even if the preview for the next episode suggests that any such 'weakness' will go out of the window at that juncture).

Overall, this was probably one of the best episodes yet as far as interesting plot and character development goes, demonstrating the mental growth of Kou, Tooru and Noboru while also giving us a somewhat meatier storyline to get our teeth into that has actually held my attention somewhat. Bonus points should also be given for the Oni buying spells and the like from the Internet, for the simple reason that... well... they bought spells from the Internet. In a list of "things I would like", the online purchase of what basically amounts to magic has to be pretty high up the list - Amazon eat your heart out.

In all seriousness though, I actually found myself getting caught up in this episode, which is probably the first time I've really been able to say that about Wagaya no Oinari-Sama. It's still hardly a classic series, but at least it's now headed in a more interesting direction.

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