Tuesday 23 December 2008

Kannagi - Episode 12

We reach the twelfth episode of Kannagi here, yet there's nary a glimpse of Nagi herself in sight? Blasphemy!

Of course, we saw last episode how Nagi's argument with Jin, and her subsequent feelings of self-doubt, affected her mentally, and by this episode she appears to have disappeared completely, leaving only her "magic wand" laying around and her clothes thrown in the bin, while leaving a note to Jin to say sorry. From there, the rest of this particular instalment is more or less simply Jin moping - Not a particularly entertaining use of time you could argue, but his lonely worrying and meandering throughout the episode is both really poignant as well as being very.... well, like the typical sort of thing a guy does in these situations. Of course, this rather self-centred way of worrying about Nagi shuts out everybody else, including (most vitally) Tsugumi.

If you're already missing the more light-hearted side of Kannagi already then don't worry too much, as there are some glimpses of humour early in the episode, not least the family Jin visits to try and find out more about the God which Nagi may or may not be, which got a couple of laughs out of me. Zange's surprising martial arts progress is also well worth the price of admission.


Given where this episode leaves us, it seems amazing to think that there's only one episode left of the series to shoehorn whatever's left to come into, which again gets me thinking that a second series of Kannagi must surely be on its way. While I didn't hugely enjoy episode eleven's more serious fare, this time around I really found myself empathising with Jin and his troubles, which made for a more powerful emotional experience than I was perhaps expecting. Yes, Kannagi isn't the same without the star of the show putting in an appearance, but nonetheless the quiet, sad beauty of this particular instalment has left me wishing that this series isn't about to end quite so soon.

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