Sunday 27 July 2008

Nabari no Ou - Episode 16

With yet another Kinjutsu scroll in the possession of Kairoushuu, so the focus turns to the scrap for the final scroll, which just so happens to be the one held in an unknown location by Banten village.

As seems to be the general modus operandi of this series, last episode's relatively action-packed instalment is followed by a far more sedate one, with lots of dialogue and little else. This does at least give us an opportunity to learn more about Aizawa's immortality, and is own interest in pursuing the Shinrabanshou, but aside from that it seems like we don't pick up on much truly new information at all, and thus the episode plods along at an almost care-free pace as it makes its way toward setting up the next big stand-off.


While Aizawa's revelations bring another interesting aspect to the entire scenario, everything feels so relaxed in this series that once again it's hard to get any real feeling of urgency surrounding the future of Nabari, and indeed mankind itself. While I've often applauded the way Nabari and the normal world have been mixed in this series, the fact that people can swap sides and change their intentions without even much in the way of bad blood adds an odd feeling to proceedings, giving off that sense that the whole story isn't all that important after all. The only benefit to come from all of this is the lack of a real 'bad guy' to rally against, with the series preferring shades of grey to any real sense of 'good versus evil' that becomes so cliched in many other series.

Overall though, I'm reaching the point where I wish we could just fast-forward to the final episode to find out what happens at the end at get it over with, as really get the impression that there isn't much on offer to entertain us between now and then. I still wonder if this show wouldn't have worked better as a jam-packed thirteen episode series, considering its almost constant mixing of action-filled episodes in with others where virtually nothing happens. It's certainly turned out to be a long way from the "Naruto for grown-ups" I jokingly referred to it as after the first few episodes.

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