Thursday 15 January 2009

Shikabane Hime: Kuro - Episode 2

The first episode of Shikabane Hime: Kuro ended with Ouri and Makina reuniting, but not too far into this episode it begins to look like a decidedly brief reuinion.

For starters, Makina is none too happy with Ouri's dedication to continue as her Contracted Priest, with her feelings clearly somewhere between wanting to belong to Keisei alone and not wanting his brother to be dragged through the pain and hardships she knows lay ahead. Then on top of it all, the pair of them are captured by some Kougon priests who seem determined to exterminate both of them.


Thankfully for the pairing they're interrupted at this point, both by Shichisei as well as some more welcome visitors. It's the former who take the initiative though, whisked anyone in the immediate vicinity to... well, I'm not sure where really, it looked like a level of Gears of War to me. So, Makina gets to fight Shichisei, loses, but finds herself calling upon her deepest powers again as she becomes flooded with regret, only to get kicked around a little by Shichisei's leader Hokuto (who seems to have a rather interesting link to Makina in some shape or form, seeing her as a "broken mirror" of some description).

After spending some time setting things up (and wasting some time with rubbish humour) in the first episode, at least this second instalment moved things on apace, throwing pretty much all of the major characters into the melting pot in some shape or form however briefly. I can't help but feel that a bit of the soul seemed to have gone missing from this episode though, with a turn towards a more generic action-oriented episode which worked reasonably well without ever doing anything memorable. Still, with Shichisei on the run again the series is ripe to take an upward turn depending on where it goes from here, so hopefully it can produce something a little deeper and more well-rounded next time around.

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