Friday, March 18, 2011

Hakuouki Hekketsuroku episode 10 FINAL EPISODE

There is no Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica today. Woe is my soul. I understand that with the tragedy that is going on in Japan things are going to be delayed. But it also sounds like the episode wasn’t going to be ready anyway? I understand that blackouts are happening in Japan but shouldn’t the episode be…done? I didn’t know that the show was still being made after it started to air. I thought they created the whole show and BAM it aired.

But apparently this is not the case and in any event we are not going getting episode 11 for a while. Not sure if my tiny heart can take the suspense but I shall. In any event XO I am all caught up with Hakuouki Hekketsuroku now. XD Not sure if anyone still cares about this series but I am glad to be caught up. I don’t like leaving things unfinished.

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And he looks o so happy about it too!

So in any event…on with the finale. Spoilers for Chizuru…being useful?!



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Bring the count up to TWO!!!

Episode Summary: After the snow melted the New Government comes to the tiny Republic Island of Fail to kill all our heroes. The forces get split with Hijikata leading part of the group. Hijikata makes this face that some would call a smile and tells the troops they will win. AND THEY DO! Truly it is a miracle. He does have to reprimand some people who were acting hasty as they were taking his LOOK AT ME DIE role but overall he is happy. But the other half of the troops fail at protecting their position forcing Hijikata to pull back. But before that happens Hijikata gets all weak and Chizuru insists that he suck her blood. You would think after all this time he wouldn’t put up a fight. Eventually he sucks her blood in the most ineffective way ever. They make it back to base camp with Hijikata is reunited with eyebrow dude who gets to live while all the hotties die. Keisuke shows up and promises to also fly the Shinsengumi banner because of their warrior spirit. Hijikata is pleased and decides to show off his new found love of people by talking to the troops.

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Nice knowing ya buddy.

Later everyone either has a celebration party or we are going to die so let’s get drunk tonight party. Hijikata rather spend the night getting tea from Chizuru. There he sorta reveals he loves Chizuru and he will live on for her. They have a weird kiss and everything is AW. The next morning Keisuke’s troops are ambushed and Hijikata goes to help. On the way he is shot and Chizuru drags his body away. She tries to tend to his wound but he keeps on bleeding and she screams his name about 1829 times. She eventually kisses some of her blood into Hijikata’s body and things look like they might just suck. Eventually Chizuru starts dragging Hijikata back to camp. On the way they see a big sakura blossom tree and they talk about their love and stuff. Chikage is like AW how sweet time to die. Hijikata decides to fight despite being injured because he has something to protect now. There is fighting and Chikage has the advantage the entire time. Hijikata keeps getting up though and Chikage decides that Hijikata is not a zombie oni but a real one. He bestows upon him a real oni name and Hijikata then stabs him in the heart out of gratitude. Hijikata then falls to the ground and dies in Chizuru’s arms. Chizuru thinks back to all her dead friends and how they must be all together in heaven. It appears that Hijikata wipes away her tears but no go folks. Hijikata is dead. THE END!!!

Well folks.

REJOICE!!!!!!! Saito is still alive. WOOHOO! Having a party over here in the house of Tenchi. I was all boo hooing over his death but according to history Saito and Shinpachi live through this train wreck. Shinpachi is surprising. I thought maybe he show up at the last minute. But apparently he was out for good and had plans to really leave the whole mess behind with Harada.

Which I guess is sad in a way. Okita was clearly pissed at Hijikata but still came back to help out. One would think with all the warrior spirit talk Shinpachi would have come around and splattered his body to increase the death count. But maybe this was a more realistic view (in a show about onis and dumb girls living til the very end). Not everyone thinks the same way about issues and Shinpachi represented the HEY not liking this portion of the group.

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Well...you might have an oni name but Saito got to live YAY!!!!

But Saito is alive. Which is nice. Because he is my favorite and all. But I think out of all the hotties he had the most loyalty in him. Sometimes it got annoying with all his warrior spirit talk. It is okay to talk about other things my friend. But overall he was the quiet strong type flying all over the place and slicing people. The cutest moment of course was the clothes on wrong issue. XD Yay Saito!!!

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Obviously Chizuru is an oni fish...

But since this show didn’t cover Saito or Shinpachi’s apparent survival I guess it is time to talk about the demise of Hijikata. Sadness fills my little heart. Probably Chizuru’s more since all she got out of him was two whole kisses. I be pissed too if that is all I got out of a relationship that took me like 2 years to build.

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Chizuru doesn't believe in reality obviously.

But Hijikata had to die. Because it is history or something. That and the rest of his people died for him and epically said TAKE CARE OF HIM CHIZURU! And since Chizuru couldn’t keep a cactus alive obviously Hijikata died. This show was a downer folks and everyone had to pay their dues.

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So romantic!!!

I think I have said about 2389 times that I am truly disappointed in how this was more a historial anime and not the zombie oni piece I was promised. But this show also pretty much failed in the romance department too. We got like 19 episodes into this series (seasons 1 and 2) before Hijikata stopped actively hating Chizuru. And in this episode he barely got out that he loved her before he died. While harem romances have been overdone in an anime that has like 8 guys and one girl I was expecting….more. And we never got it.

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Clearly losing his mind.

Hijikata’s personality really changed the last two episodes. Before he didn’t even seem that close with his boys. But now he is all laughing with strangers and hanging out with them all casual like. That is how he should have been before. Now when things are super serious maybe it is not time for the booze and the laughing. Before maybe. Now not so much. Almost like Hijikata lost his mind and decided since he was going to die he was going to at least give people a smile before they all splatted on the ground.

I wonder if Hijikata and his people really ever thought they had a chance. They were a tiny little group of people hiding on an island. The new government had other COUNTRIES helping them. I really hope they didn’t believe they had a chance and were all just fighting for honor and to make a point that not everyone was happy about this new way of life. Which was probably best in the long run. Not that I like piles of dead bodies but the people were freed from oppressive rule and had representation and all that fun stuff.

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Oh crap I thought Hijikata was immune to bullets.

So they lost the war. And Hijikata FINALLY got shot. After all these fools rushing into battle when people are SHOOTING at them one of our heroes finally gets SHOT. This is where Chizuru finally proved to be useful. I almost died of shock. Her carrying Hijikata was XO. Like really, she wasn’t a hindrance at all during Hijikata’s path to death land. She has been useless this entire series but in the last episode she…dragged Hijikata’s body across the forest and gave him some blood. Yay.

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But I carried Hijikata so I am more useful than a rock now yes?

Not once did Chizuru use her sword in an actual useful manner. Maybe she was just carrying it around for endurance training.

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Good thing this was a fair fight Chikage.

The battle between Chikage was pretty damn useless. His entire plot in this series was useless but I was expecting more of a battle and an explanation on how Chikage was dishonoring the oni name by fighting Hijikata. I would have thought killing false oni would have been a good thing but obviously I was wrong. But Chikage was super dramatic with giving Hijikata his oni name (LOOK the name of the series) and it all ends with Chikage dying on purpose. Or it looked like it was on purpose to me.

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At least he died somewhere pretty.

Having won the battle with Chikage Hijikata dies. Because after declaring he had something to live for and protect dying is the logical choice. See I am not sure how much protecting my husband would be doing if he was dead. And since Chikage was alone with Chizuru and didn’t hurt her I am not sure how much danger she was in. But Hijikata had some man pride going on so he had to fight. Besides he was bleeding to death and was probably already on his last leg in zombie oni mode. Better go to out with a bang I suppose.

Chizuru was awfully calm about the entire situation. If my boyfriend had just died I would be sobbing all over his dead body not thinking fondly of all the other dead people that have left my life. I wouldn’t be like OH they are all flying the banner in heaven and all is well. No. Not all is well. You got two damn kisses out of this cold hearted fool and he dies from a bullet wound, a stupid fight with a crazy oni, and probably reaching the end of his life force from drawing too much energy in zombie oni mode.

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What a happy ride this has been...

A lot of people have said they cried at this ending. I think the deaths all came together way too soon. Like there was no time to mourn. It was like OH we are reaching the end of the series, time to kill off everyone. And the battle with Chikage was way too rushed. However even if I didn’t hate Chizuru I think it was best that Hijikata die. I don’t think he could have lived on after they lost the war. With all the honor stuff the men were always talking about it was best for him to go out a warrior instead of dying an old man who couldn’t win a battle to save his life or beheaded as a war criminal.

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Ya'll should have just died together. That would have been more romantic.

So folks…Chizuru sucks. This show was perfect for history buffs not those expecting a lot of hottie fighting over a girl. And Chizuru sucked so bad even if I wasn’t a crazy yaoi girl fan I be pairing those boys up with each other just to save them from Chizuru. However I think I am glad I stuck with this show as I did learn a bit of history and overall I expected my anime horizon by watching such a downer/war like anime.

And Chizuru sucked. That can’t be said enough. The end.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well I cheated and didn't read your post because I'm still catching up on this series, but re: the whole Madoka Magica being in production thing, that pretty much confirms my suspicions that they ran out of time and budget on Kuroshitsuji 2. The first half of episode 12 was so rushed and awful-looking! They must have had the very end done ahead of time, and then wound up winging it on the Hannah/Claude/Sebastian battles because Sebbie never transformed into that big demon monster thing that they'd been hinting at him doing for three weeks prior. Can you tell I'm still bitter? But I didn't know how these things got done. Yay, now I do.

When I watch HH10, I'll come back and read this. Sorry!

Christina said...

Anonymous- It is just so weird to me. All this time I thought they MADE the anime and they found a station to broadcast it and found people to produce merchandise. I really had no idea that things were still BEING MADE a week before it was set to go live on tv. Boggles my mind really.

It was very disappointing that Sebastian never got all monserty. But the end was better what with demon Ceil and all. See this is why I don't understand making an anime while it is being shown. You need the money to make the ending as spectacular as possible!

Anonymous said...

Your anime blog posts are epic! XD Especially for Hakuouki! Every time I read a comment refering to Chizuru's uselessness I always find myself laughing in agreement! :D

I think I would have preffered this series if it didn't have the romance between Hijikata and Chizuru in it, because for me that personally ruined the story!

Epic battle scenes and such awesome bishies! And then the girl who pretty much lead most of the guys to their death :S

Although I love this anime because it had a brilliant historical story and beautiful artwork/animation!! I wish Okita had more action screentime before he got sick though! :)

Christina said...

Anonymous- Super late response is super late. But yes I can't remember the last time I saw such a useless heroine. And she carried a SWORD around. Like she has a weapon and didn't even attempt to slash one person!!!

I think if the romance between Hijikata and Chizuru had been more prevalent it would have made more sense. Instead Chizuru blushed around him sometimes and Hijikata treated her like a fly for like 18 episodes.

And Okita definitely got hosed in terms of screen time. :( He was talked up as one of the best fighters but he had more cough scenes than battles. :*( Poor Okita.

Anonymous said...

i'm leaving a comment quite late, though i just finished watching episode 10. DANG!
the saddest thing is that after so many years little Chizuru didn't get a slightest piece of ass, considering she was surrounded by all those megahot guys. i found this anime in reverse harem genre O.o she got 2 kisses, and one was not even real (i really don't find blood sucking things, vampire kinkiness romantic at all).
personally i started watching this only because of hot bishies wearing katana and stuff. and that's my best impression when i ended it. it was a bit boring at times, i'm not really into historical/war anime, but yeah i'm glad i learned something new.

your review is great made me laugh so hard, although everyone who watches animes more often got used to those kind of characters so i didn't mind her a lot.

And ending?! i was like WHAT?! Just two guys dying under the sakura tree, yeah it's a nice way to go, but it happened so fast and a lot of things remained unexplained. Kazuma is still a mystery for me.

Just missed Okita's appearence in season 2, he was my fav.

all in all, great review :))

Christina said...

Anonymous- Late comments are always appreciated and since I am quite late to everything myself they are expected. XD

Yes I do think a show that had hotties all over the damn place really lacked in romance. It was like OH this was supposed to have romance in it?! and the writers through something last minute when most of the time the guys treated her like a kid sister or the nuisance she was.

Okita dying for like 3/4ths of the show was the biggest disappointment ever. But we can take comfort in the fact that Saito did not die at all. Just when one goes to Japan all his merchandise is sold out because he is the favorite character from the series. Guess who is super low on the list? XD

Anonymous said...

Let me tell you something if hijikata died he should have turn to dust like the others. When chizuru was crying,hijikata wiped away the tear so there is proof that he still alive in the anime
i believe that with all my heart

Christina said...

Anonymous- I really didn't think about that....maybe because he wasn't fully transformed at the end? But that would make the love story a little less sad. I guess there is a different way of looking at it! Thanks for the comment.

Anonymous said...

i just wanted to clarify a couple of things

chizaru did attempt to use her short sword a couple of times but it would have been like a child picking up a tennis racket and trying to compete against a pro in a tournament she only had basic training in swordsmanship

as for her sword its one half a samurai sword set about half the length of a katana or sometimes 3/4 of the size of a full length katana which means its useless against a katana anyway that sword is usually a defense tool or the knife you commit honorable suicide her twin brother the psycho had the other half of the set

youre one of the only people ive read to actually deduced that he dies right there even though it is historically shown he dies from that bullet many still wish for him to have survived like he can in the game and live with chizaru

so thanks