Tuesday 9 June 2009

Kurokami: The Animation - Episode 21

After episode twenty turned everything around 180 degrees, I guess it's time for us to start cheering on Reishin now that the nefarious villain has turned out to be a nice guy who was "only" completely screwing up the world to save Kuro from death. Still not the best game plan if you ask me, but I guess that's why they haven't put me in charge of some ancient tribe with fantastic powers.

Anyway, Reishin has more important things to worry about than the ethics of his plot now, with the two embodiments of Masagami (the third being Kuro herself of course) now released from their prison and free to rampage... which, funnily enough is exactly what they choose to do in good old-fashioned fire and brimstone fashion. However, despite being self-described Gods, this pair struggle against Reishin, who ultimately defeats them, only to find that they can regenerate their bodies. Things only get worse once they manage to take control of Kuro, employing her in the final piece of Masagami's God-like jigsaw puzzle.


Of course, what happens from here is pretty predictable, with Keita managing to call out to Kuro to renounce her part of the Masagami triumverate, so that she can take her turn to fight and defeat them alongside Reishin, albeit at the cost of the latter's life. So, the world is saved and (I guess) the Doppeliner system is in tatters... Yet we still have three episodes left to go? Goodness knows how they're going to fill up that much time.

Predictability aside, this was pretty much what you'd expect from an episode like this, consisting as it does almost exclusively of a huge set piece showdown between Reishin (and later Kuro) against the embodiment of Masagami. Somehow I prefer it when Kurokami's battles are a little more "intimate" than these huge, sprawling and ridiculously powerful affairs, but I suppose it still worked pretty well and fitted quite nicely into a single episode without feeling either rushed or badly paced. I can't help but feel that the story could have ended here, with maybe one more episode to wrap things up, but I suppose we'll just have to wait and see how they're planning to fill three more episodes now that the show's big story seems to have been resolved. I just hope they aren't going to do anything ridiculously cheesy like bringing Reishin back to life...

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