Episode 3
This episode covered Days 6 and 7 of the first week. Day 6 is now the day that Rhyme dies (in the game it’s Day 3). Overall though, this day is very true to the game and what happens there.
I love getting to see more of the characters, Beat’s antics and personality really shine through! And seeing it with the anime sound gags is really great. Rhyme’s death is brutal though here, you see her face as she’s erased by the Noise and it’s absolutely heart wrenching.
My only issue is that we don’t really know Hanekoma all that well by this point. Skipping the initial conversation with him means that we still have no idea who he is or what role he plays in the game. I hope that this gets added later, because at this point him dragging Beat off seems like a random thing to do. Also the “someday you’ll know” line when Neku asks him why he’s doing this is just a littttleeee heavy-handed.
Which brings us to Day 7, the boss battle. I thought the battle itself was pretty cool, really liked the way that Higashizawa’s powers are portrayed with his ability to suck in attacks from the Players. And big Mr. Mew for the win!
The other nice thing about this episode is getting to see our favorite Reapers again. I absolutely adored the scene of them inside Mexican Dog, doing normal friendship things. Surprised that it wasn’t ramen, but I love the hot dog fusion place so this is fine.
Neku and Shiki are absolutely adorable here as well, which is important because we don’t get a ton of time to really care about Shiki. I think the previous episode did a really good job, which is why them smiling at each other here as they win the game is so dang cute.
All that’s left now is the after game scene. I had a couple issues with it. First of all, I don’t understand why Beat is left out. Putting in that he survived and decides to become a Reaper wouldn’t have taken that much time. Unless they wanted it to be a cliff hanger? Hopefully that’ll just get tied up quickly the next episode.
Shiki looking like she’s in pain and reaching for Neku is pretty devastating, and it’s a big change from the game. In the game, she peacefully ascends while Neku watches and looks happy for her. Guess it’s a way to hammer home how much he cares for her now. And they don’t specify that Neku has his memory back. Again, might get taken care of in the next episode quickly, or maybe it’s a bigger change. Unclear at this point.
I can’t believe that this episode was basically the last we
see of Shiki and Rhyme! But we get to meet Joshua next week, and what a trip
that’s going to be!
Episode 4
Overall I thought that this episode was really good and a great way to show the transition between weeks. It starts with Neku at Hachiko thinking about how he’s keeping Shiki from going back to life, which is a great way to frame the episode.
Noise then pops up, Joshua grabs Neku and is just like “alright, I’ll be your partner.” I do like how it is in the game, where you just see Neku make a pact and have no idea who it’s with, but this does show Joshua’s personality really well. The mission mail is also perfectly done, with Sho basically screaming it through his megaphone. Excellent introduction to the new Game Master.
The two make it to 104 and this is where things get different. Sho says that it’s now Player vs. Player to survive, and Neku/Joshua try to rally the other Players to stick together and trust each other. Which is an interesting way to show Neku’s growth, I thought it was a little out of character for him to have made so much progress already. I mean he clearly doesn’t trust Joshua even though he knows that he should. It also is a strange way to portray Sho, in the game Sho’s really amusing to walk and interact with, but here he seems like a psycho loose cannon.
Day 2 then starts, the mission is to defeat the bosses of route 3 (a street in Shibuya). Neku realizes that his memory’s back, tying up a loose end from last episode, and he and Joshua defeat some Taboo Noise together. The show also introduces the idea that Neku can scan Joshua and possibly is seeing how he died. Oh and they show the Reaper decals on places Players can shop! Doesn’t make sense really this late in the show, but it’s a nice touch to include.
The best addition though was the scene at the end with Eri. It’s super heartbreaking seeing Eri buy flowers for Shiki, with Neku looking on sadly. They writers really know what they’re doing with the relationship between Neku and Shiki, and clearly are trying to keep her in the viewers’ minds.
And then finally, the episode ends with us learning that Beat has become a Reaper (again, tying up the loose end from last episode) and that he has been assigned to take Neku out. Nice lil hook for next week. Beat’s arc is one of the coolest in the game (probably second only to Neku) so I’m interested to see where this goes.
Very excited for next episode, looks like Hanekoma will be back and we all love some Mr. H!
No comments:
Post a Comment