Iwamoto-senpai no Suisen – 02
This series is willfully strange, for better or worse. The narrative is a bit uneven, and I feel like that’s on-purpose. The disconnect between the characters and their supposed ages is obvious enough that it’s even acknowledged on-screen. I’m not sure what it all adds up to or where it’s going, but I would say it’s only working at about a 50% level for me right now.
Iwamoto now has a foil, Haramachi Kai. In addition to being the one student who looks his age he’s a second-year who was a failed candidate for the chief secretary position Iwamoto now holds. Kitsujou (the Ishida Akira character pulling the strings) assigns the two of them to work a case together. A shrine where people stick sickles into a tree to carry out grudges, which as it turns out holds the body of a person whose blood had that power. We also get a look at Iwamoto’s domain at the school, the “quarantine”. That’s where the esper kids with quirks hang out until the army decides how they can be useful (like the brainiacs and the brawny soldier types).
I want to like this more than I do but right now it’s not closing the circuit. One more episode based on the Nurarihyon connection, but it’s gonna have to show me something more.
Black Torch – 02
Once again Black Torch serves up a pretty solid episode. This is obviously formulaic battle shounen, but if that were a disqualifier, well…
Jiro’s grandpa being a part of the espionage agency – and said agency being descended from the Oniwabanshuu – makes perfect sense. They clearly exist in the murky moral middle, neither good guys nor bad guys. But if they want Jiro – and Rago – it doesn’t seem like anyone is in much of a position to stop them. Nor however are they in a position to stop Jiro from escaping their puppet hospital with the help of his crow friends. He heads home with the intent of bidding his grandfather a proper goodbye and then clearing out, but he gets a lot more than he bargained for.
What’s not clear to me yet is what the actual plot of this series is going to be. Jiro vs. the spy agency? I don’t think so. Jiro working for them with a case of the week formula? Possible, but I don’t feel that either. Jiro and Rago as free agents, working with the agency on a select basis seems possible, but that still wouldn’t explain what his overall agenda is going to be. In any event I like the both of them – and Toshimasa too, though I doubt he factors much after this. Black Torch seems more likely a watch candidate than a coverage one, but the next two episodes will make that decision.
