Sunday, January 12, 2014

New Anime Series! Toaru Hikushi e no Koiuta episode 1

Anime post number 6 tonight weee! A long week at work awaits me sadly. Working Saturdays is just so...rarw on many levels. Unless it is slow. Then it is prime Pokemon training time. I have temporarily put shiny Eevee breeding on hold to "catch them all". Or catch them most. You know, when customers aren't being so rude and coming in, expecting me to wait on them and such. What do they think this is, a business? Gosh.
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Famous last words? See ya later home!
So what is post number 6 of the night? The new anime series Toaru Hikushi e no Koiuta. Episode 1 weee! Spoilers for angry Princes and the people who say they are their sisters. Oh and planes. Lots and lots of planes.
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Look at my unimpressed face.
Episode Summary: The series starts off with a glorious air battle. Old fashion airplanes are flying about and people are getting shot out of the sky. Fly planes fly. One particular pilot does some crazy backwards move to avoid being squished by two other planes. Said pilot gets all passionate and says he is going to stop it, from anyone else being killed again. Then the episode seems to go back in time, before this battle. It appears to be an important ceremony and new pilot cadets are being promoted or something. It seems to be a rather big deal. All the kids look nervous and what not. The blond who was doing air tricks earlier (later?) is named Carl and his sister Ariel is also among the new cadets. Before the ceremony kicks off all the kids say goodbye to their parents as I guess they are going on a long term mission. Ariel seems very upset while Carl doesn't seem to want the attention. Carl does say goodbye to his father eventually and Dad says that the mom would be proud of him. The kids then go to their old fashion looking planes as Ariel says they have to come home no matter what. They get into the plane, Carl the pilot and Ariel the gunner. Everyone takes off and heads towards the ceremony site. Some priestess looking girl named Nina gives a very important speech. War, terrible war. Oh wait that's something else. No this speech involves a drop of water and what I think is land? A landmark? One day the water stopped dripping and the..entity in question said to bring back the water, even at the expense of itself. So the entity was broken into many pieces and the water returned. But now humans want to find the beginning of everything and are traveling to the End of the Sky, on the floating island Isla. The anchors on Isla are ripped away and it floats near the crowd. The pilots then fly overhead and throw confetti. Carl notices that one gunner is missing but then focuses his attention on Nina and how he hates her. He is about to do something stupid when Ariel expresses her fears again about them coming home. Carl says they will and they wait their turn to land on the island.
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Flying high in the sky.
A gust of wind causes Carl to spin out of control and Ariel talks him to safety. On land Ariel makes fun of Carl and they argue who is older. Another plan is seen having trouble landing. Sensing that plane pilot is going to be made fun of Carl goes to tell the pilot by no big deal man. Only that pilot (Ignacio) is a complete jerk and walks away. Later the rich cadets are driven to their barracks while the poor ones have to walk to theirs. Life might be unfair but the place looks nice. Carl seems to have decent enough neighbors but they might hate him as he is directly across from Ariel and they are bickering back and forth from the window sills. Their neighbors note they might be in for an interesting ride. Carl is interrupted mid rant as he sees Ignacio under a tree. Ignacio sorta glares at him and walks away. Carl will not take that snub and runs out to yell at the boy. Carl is unable to locate Ignacio and he thinks to himself how he shouldn't even be here. Le sigh. Carl decides to explore the area when he stumbles across a girl with a broke down bike. Apparently she is beyond shy and can barely function. Carl fixes her bike and the girl squeak out that her name is Claire. Carl realizes that Claire is a pilot too, probably the missing gunner. He offers to take her back to her section (the rich one) as she shouldn't travel alone at night. He bikes along and Claire sees happy, even pretends to fly as the clouds surround them. It is a beautiful moment until Carl crashes because the clouds were hiding debris and the lake. The two laugh and Carl continues to take Claire home. They are greeted by super serious guards who are like halt who goes there? Claire produces her paper work while Carl is like dude I was just dropping her off. Claire says goodbye and Carl practically dances home in excitement. Life is a new, fun adventure. Well except the part where future Carl says the island never returns and the world is cruel. THE END!
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Put your assumptions aside when you see this old looking planes that have a high level of mobility.
Well...that went differently than what I was expecting. Because I expect things from shows I have yet to seen. That is the Tenchi way. I thought we were going to see that Carl was actually the prince..of something. Maybe he got shot down and was hiding out in this country. Silly me for assuming things.
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Looks like this journey isn't going to end in rainbows and kisses.
I mean...I could be wrong. Perhaps that opening scene isn't in the future. Maybe that has already happened. Maybe Carl got shot down and is hiding out in enemy territory. That this family of his isn't his because I can't spell so I went to myanimelist and saw that they have different last names. So he could still be a Prince. And maybe he was angry during the battle because of his mom who apparently is dead. But...I doubt that. Especially since the dead mom might be from his adopted family. Carl doesn't seem that great at flying now. No no, the battle in the first few minutes is in the future. So for now we will just operate under the notion that Carl will become awesome and a deal of his past has yet to be explained. Gosh you would think this was episode 1 or something.
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Errr...okay. I see. X___X
So after all the nifty air tricks and battle we zoom to the past. Hello characters. I know that miss important character Nina priestess was trying to say something …important. But apparently I didn't follow it well enough. All countries and religions have their own version of how things come into being. Maybe some people view what I believe as a long winded confusing speech too. Maybe (hopefully) at the end of the day it won't really matter. It was just a story and the point that does matter is that the flying island...Isla is going to find The End of the Sky. Put aside those water droplets. We are going to find the truth. Because the world is flat.
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We'll be right back.
Our main character Carl (the prince I assume) is among the sea of other pilot cadet people. Nothing really stands out about him yet. Just that his sister will maybe be his gunner. And that she seems way more nervous about this employment than he is. I liked seeing varying degrees of emotions with the kids. Some were upset. Some were excited. Ariel was all over the place. It doesn't look like service was mandatory as there were two other sisters that were only slightly older. I am sure some of the nobles join to make their families proud and the poor ones join out of a sense of duty or being poor. In any event there wasn't a total doom cloud in the air. This seems to be a good thing for all. Yay planes! They are going on a super fun adventure and it will be a great time. Until it goes horribly wrong.
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X___X Hello there rage face....
While this was episode one we did learn a few things about Carl this episode. One he does not stay in the house. I kid I kid....maybe. Okay he seems to have a very close/teasing relationship with Ariel who is not his biological sister. It looks like from the opening song he has been around her for a long time though. It is unknown at this point if they have....a love relationship? It doesn't look like it on Carl's part. I hope it keeps up that way, tis refreshing. Carl does not seem to like Nina. Almost blew her out of the sky. I am sure that is a big no no. Like um she looks rather important, that is probably a bad idea. I am guessing that Nina is on the opposite “side” as Carl and he sees her as the enemy as she is in a position of power? Maybe she killed his mom? With some orders that Carl doesn't agree with. For now...Carl wants to kill her despite going on a mission she has a hand in. We also learned that Carl is still a newbie. Yes Carl, there are sudden gusts of wind in the sky.
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How dare you walk away from me!
Another weird thing we learned this episode is that these kids don't all known each other. Not yet anyway. It looks like they all had some sort of basic training else where. I say that because no knew each other yet all managed to fly planes. Maybe the kids who made it past basic were all brought here. Or maybe they aren't even really cadets, more like fresh, super green soldiers all going on a mission together. Carl will be surrounded by nice, lovely friends that will eventually die in plane accidents. The only not so nice one seems to be Ignacio. Like how dare you ignore me, I will focus only on you and not the other decent people that seem to be around me.
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So they made you join the military?
After not finding Ignacio Carl took a few moments to collect himself while on his new flying island home. There must be magic afoot if an island can fly and the other planes look beyond old. Apparently Carl doesn't want to be here ya'll. He didn't get to go into great detail because he ran into Claire but I am sure a Prince without his Kingdom is a bit sad. But we are going to put that aside for now because look there is a Claire. Lets talk about..Claire for a minute. I am sure somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight...there is someone who finds Claire endearing. I find her borderline annoying. I get that people are shy and that some woman have had truly awful experiences around men. Well then maybe you shouldn't join the military if being around men or other people scares you so much. Conversations with strangers can be uncomfortable but Claire takes it to a whole notha' level. Just saying Claire. I must have the grumpies. I am sure you are a nice girl. Just...don't die when a stranger approaches you. It will be okay.
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I think it's love!
Despite being...almost completely unable to talk Carl must find Claire more than acceptable. Lets just fix this bike, because this a Japanese anime and bikes are a must, even on a floating military island and walk a lady home because danger lurks around every corner on this military island. I mean..it was chained up and apparently looked after. But I guess there still could be...flying bears and stuff. XD Any excuse for Carl to spend time with Claire. I think it was kinda cute. Especially sailing through those clouds, Claire not being spazzy, and having a great time. Savor that moment. Even falling in the water or that guard being a jerk can't get Carl down. He is in love. *insert Disney princess music here*
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I am going to guess that there in fact are humans there...and won't be so friendly.
And that's about it for this little episode. Carl puts aside that rude guard's behavior. I am getting a feeling that this series will be about class issues. Obviously. Rich kids driven to their barracks and poor people don't have the papers to get in the gate. But Carl and Claire will break the social norms, GO LOVE! So Carl is happy for now despite not wanting to be there. A journey into the unknown. What a fun adventure it will be. Only...not really. It seems that opening scene IS the future. Future Carl makes the mission sound bleak. The island isn't making it back home folks. Carl screaming at the other planes that no more people will die leads me to believe that at least a few people we met in this episode will die eventually. But why? What is at the “edge” of the world? And why will this lead to war? Carl's people? Guess we will have to wait to find out yes?

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