Hynavian

I conclude that if one is to be immortal and unable to die, it would be great to be powerful.

It would suck to be in this situation:

or this situation:

I have high expectations of this series (the other being Chaos; Head) as I thought that it’ll be on a GAR lead defeating demons in a blink. It reminds me of the many zombie series like Resident Evil or High School of the Dead where you throw in a female lead who kicks zombie’s ass with heavy gun power. But Shikabane shock me because she wasn’t what I expected.

Shikabane is a push over. I feel that she lacks the special mark of a demon slayer, she is neither cool nor has any special characteristics that would make her an outstanding slayer. Just take her out of this setting and place her in a high school series and she’ll fit. She’s found dead not only once, but twice in just episode 1 and that’s mind boggling for me. There are cool female leads that got ripped into pieces but they make an awesome come back. For Shikabane, the strategy seems to be “persevere” and “attack multiple times till the enemy falls”. So at the end, I get a very determined heroine who eliminates a demon only after pursuing it relentlessly.

This is a dark series, there’s no doubt about it. The motif of death is present from the start, there’s even a supernatural black cat that sneaks around houses at night and it can “communicate” with humans. Humans are murdered by supernatural creatures and I was taken back by some scenes where there’s gore.

What’s interesting is the blend of religious motifs with anime. There are the Buddhist monks, the Buddhist temple, the Buddha, the concept of heaven, etc but fret not, this show is not as religious as it seems. Yes they are there, but it only involves itself in the simplest way where monks help Shikabane and where she aims to get to heaven. I just hope that it doesn’t turn into some eternal rebirth plot that runs for centuries. @_@

Action, yes there is but I feel that there is not enough action between Shikabane and the demons. We see them battle but I see much smoke and rumbles falling off buildings instead of some hand and leg kicking combat. Nothing is more mysterious than her guns. I wonder where she hides them because she can just conveniently draw them out from nowhere. The bullets are also special because I doubt bullets fly the way they are from the way she’s shooting.

Perhaps the main gist of this show is to unlock the “sad past” of Shikabane and to explore the interactions between the various characters while she pk corpses. For now, the premises are set and characters are introduced but not much can be said about Shikabane’s past though there’s a brief flashback of her being attacked by unidentified figures.

Finally, I think that the ED is awesome. It’s fast paced and there are scenes in shades of black and red. The color black adds to the mysteriousness of the whole scene while the red, to the goriness as it represents human blood. For the most part of the series, there are many scenes where everything is so dark or is shrouded in darkness that I had some visual difficulties but I’ve no qualms regarding the use of black for the ED.

Related Posts By Moi

• Mind Blowing Music from Black Lagoon
• Strike Witches Episode 6 – The Night Beauty
• Why the discrepancy for Mai-Hime?
• Ikkitousen Great Guardians Episode 2
• Dance in the Vampire Bund – Rich Loli Vampiress As Ruler