I wish more people were watching this series, though I certainly wouldn’t expect them to. As I expected it’s pretty much right up Main Street for Deen, and they’re doing an excellent job shoehorning a fairly long manga into a one-cour anime. More than anything else I appreciate that the show is as coherent as it is, no easy task given the necessary pacing. We’ve certainly lost some color and detail along the way, but I don’t really see any way that could have been avoided.
As an example, Enchuu’s backstory really shouldn’t have been a matter of one episode (and change). It’s basically the underpinning of the entire plot, or at least the portion of it that spines through the entire series. But even so, the point came across – it was easy to see how driven Enchuu (Kamiya Hiroshi) was, and why he would be as resentful of Muhyo as he ended up being. Muhyo never seems to be working very hard (remember, with him always watch what he does, not what he says) and he still ended up being the youngest executor ever. Enchuu is mostly wrong about why, but when you’re been driven to madness by grief and revenge lust details like that hardly matter.
These vengeful spirits (in a shirt?) are actually pretty scary beasts – capable of killing with just their screams of anguished rage. And for Enchuu that’s child’s play, of course – he’s talented (not as talented as Muhyo, but that’s a high bar) and he’s sold his soul to enable himself to use dark magic. And there are no filters with him – he’s interested in his revenge and nothing else, and any collateral damage is merely a fringe benefit. It’s nice to see Rouji come up useful in the clutch here, though it required a pretty big pep talk from Youichi to get him there.
The fact is, we haven’t necessarily seen yet just why Muhyo – who would have had his pick of any secretary he wanted – chose a newbie like Rouji to be his. But that answer is a part of the story too, in weeks to come. It’s all coming together rather quickly, but that’s not a matter of choice for Kondo-sensei and the anime’s staff. It’s as if given a puzzle of 10,000 pieces and instructed to put it together in an hour, they decided that rather than try and leave it unfinished, to make it a puzzle of 1,000 instead and complete the job. And in the long run, that was probably the best decision they could have made.
animealex
August 31, 2018 at 10:02 pmSo, if I got this right, Enchu is a case of the friendly rival, who turned evil (and insane), because a) he couldn’t cope with Muhyo’s (slightly) abrasive genius, b) simultaneously loosing a family member and c) not knowing, that Muhjo was willing to pass the promotion for Enchu’s sake? I hope there’s a bit more to it, otherwise the characterization is lacking. Enchu was shown to be a nice, but driven individual who totally snaps after one admittedly very bad day? Sorry, but I don’t like Big Bads who follow the Joker’s “one bad day is all it takes…” line of reasoning. There is either a deeper darkness or previous case of insanity in Enchu, or he is a very shallow character overall. I know it’s not always smart to bring real live psychology in a fictional series, but realistic would be Enchu falling into depression and not him becoming a mass murdering monster, after what was shown so far. Especially since it should be quite easy for him to find out, that Muhyo didn’t want the promotion.
And now for speculation time: Did Muhyo choose Rouji perhaps not for his talent, but because he is so unlike himself and shows that he cares?
I like the style of the series overall and found it funny, that the MLA Headquarter City reminded me of something out of Harry Potter.
Guardian Enzo
August 31, 2018 at 10:18 pmYou’re not the first person to make the Potter comment. Not sure of the timing on when the manga started vs. the Potter books…
I take the Enchuu situation a bit differently. I think he slowly built up his resentment over time, at seeing Muhyo do so well while seeming (SEEMing is the key word) not to study and work so hard. Then, when his mother fell gravely ill and he was passed over for the executor promotion on the same day, seeing everyone gushing over Muhyo pushed him over the edge.
Kurik
September 2, 2018 at 2:10 amStarted watching the series because of the good reviews you have been giving it Enzo and because I lacked any decent anime to watch other than Hero and Lupin (why don’t you review Lupin by the way..its great!). My only issue with this episode though is that they are at the Magic school with other professors and Judges who are skilled in magic and we don’t get a feeling of them doing anything when this invasion went down. They know Enchu is out there but no ‘barriers’ are put in place or warnings going off anywhere. Its a bit odd and distracts me. Overall though a decent entry.
Guardian Enzo
September 2, 2018 at 2:36 amI think it’s just a matter of Enchou knowing all their secrets, and he may be the first person from their ranks to go dark side.
As for Lupin, the hatchet job the Fujiko Mine series did on the franchise gave me so much PTSD that I’m not sure I’m ready to go back to Lupin yet. But I do hear this version is better.