Ah, I love the smell of demonic sakura petals in the night.
Garrick: Again, with the last Yozakura Quartet review for this site, it’s me. The finale of this anime… was quite a thriller, although, all in all, I found quite a few problems.
The next step up from the Flak88...
Garrick: I’m back again, with another review of another action-packed episode of Yozakura Quartet. Once again, as the city’s existence is on the line, and the Nana-Gou are nearing full blossom, the Mayor, Hime, and the office must find a way to stop Enjin, and hopefully save the town. (more…)
The story of episode 10. Hime gets her butt kicked. Royally. Over and over again.
Garrick: Once again, I find myself within an action-packed episode of Yozakura Quartet. This episode pretty much follows the precedent of the earlier episodes in terms of action… except, we really start to go in-depth behind the relationship between Hime, Gin, and Akina.
Save Gin!!!
Garrick: This episode may be the best so far. There is more insight on the relationship between Gin and not only Ao, but the whole city council. Mixed in is also a bit of drama… and a lot of emotion. The whole conflict of council vs. Enjin has now truly begin, along with the problems of the fact that Gin’s body is the one taken over. (more…)
Once again.... Big Boom. I find this weapon of Kotoha to be very... pleasing to watch.
Garrick: Once again… I’ve been gone over a weekend… sorry. But, at least I put it to good use. Learning about alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma and sinovial sarcoma is taxing on the brain. Anyway…
Garrick: When you combine mind reading, glowing spears, giant cannons (yay), flying boulders, and a hint of giant trees… you get Yozakura Quartet. Not that it’s a bad thing. As you remember, episode 7 ends with a confrontation between Gin/Enjin and the council. Here we go. Get ready for a lot of melodramaticism… along with spear slashes and hands grabbing artillery shells. Is that really fair? (more…)
Two words: BOOOOO-OOOOOM
Garrick: I’m starting to understand how this anime seems to be organizing their episodes. While it’s not exactly uniform, every character seems to be getting some development… Near the beginning, it was Rin and Akina… and Episode 5 was about Ao, Ao’s brother, and her mind-reading power. Episode 6… explains Kotoha’s story, and how she gained her powers. And 7… well… is really… almost filler, until the VERY end. You’ll see.
Yes, Kotoha. That face you're making... it IS weird.
Garrick: Right off the bat, I will say that this episode was rather unmemorable. Chock full of… what seemed to me… almost as a sort of fluffy sort of filler non-substancial events. Oh. And by the way, this OP is really awesome. Maybe the second or third best of this season… to me. Although, sometimes, I wonder if my opinion is worth anything at all.
Garrick: This episode is mainly, well… discussion of the abilities of Ao, mind-reading. Along with a fleshing out of her past, especially between her and her ‘onii-chan’ or, older brother, who is notably absent up to now. Or… at least, in a way. That… will be revealed later.
Garrick: The episode starts off With Ao and Kotoha in the morning, waking up. Not much of note in this scene, although, Ao does mention something that refers to her past. It’s not a very interesting story, though, but it does have some importance. The episode continues on showing Hime and Kyousuke discussing their new work, along with the rest of the council. Apparently, they’ve volunteered at a sort of day-care/preschool/kindergartden sort of place. Some of the members are less unthusiastic, Kyousuke and Kotoha especially. But rather quickly, the children grow to like them. Of course, this was quite strongly facilitated by Ao’s ability to read minds. She reads to children’s minds, to figure out what they want. In the end, all of the kids end up enjoying their new temporary teachers. Except for one, that is.
Garrick: Junta, the lone child that doesn’t warm up to the main characters, when approached by Ao, runs from the room, ourside. Why? To practice juggling (bouncing consecutively with the feet) with a soccerball. As it turns out, and, of course, is determined by Ao’s mind-reading ability, Junta’s desire to juggle the soccer ball… is a promise he made with his dad… as he left to find Junta’s mother. Once he can juggle the ball 20 times without letting it drop… his dad will return. It’s a rather cute childish story, but seems almost insignificant to the other problems the city counil has…
Garrick: For example… the Enjin. Whereas I know that this guy has been a problem for the city since episode one… I don’t know how much farther back it goes. But, anyhow, one of the city’s protectors, or so I think, engages the Enjin in battle. However, the battle is not concluded, and the episode returns to Ao and Junta. After Ao read Junta’s mind, and revealed that she knew Junta’s ‘secret’, Junta got mad and ran. The next parts of this scene were also sort of inconsequential, but after realizing what she had done, Ao swears not to use her power again. But, with persuasion from Akina, she decides to try and help Junta once more.
Garrick: As Ao returns to Junta’s home once again, she has a surprise for him. But… only after he can juggle the ball 20 times. But, he does, and lo and behold, his father, and his mother appear. Of course, Ao used the council’s help to find the two, but that’s what they do, isn’t it? Nice ending to the little story. Of, and I forgot to mention the small flashbacks of Ao and her older brother.
Garrick: But the episode isn’t over yet. In the next scene, Ao is sitting on one of the seals of the city, a place that meant a lot to her, apparently. As she reminisces about her brother, the Enjin appears in front of her. Oh, and have I said that the Enjin looks a LOT like her brother? The episode ends with Ao gasping, saying, “onii-chan?”. Yeah. Maybe he is.
Garrick’s Rating for Episode 5: 6/10
Garrick’s Anticipation Sacle: 9/10
Tuning, anyone?
Garrick: I don’t know if I said this in the first episode’s Review, but the OP is really awesome. I’ll leave that comment at that, go on with the episode. Episode 2 starts off with the introduction of two new characters, who essentially lead the city. As the main character, Hime, talks to them about the fate of the zombie youkai Rin, she and the two leaders of the city decide to give Rin a few restrictions to living in the city, Ouma. Ironically, that restriction is that she must go to school and get a job.
Garrick: All seems well and fine, until Hime asks Rin to go with Akina to the Office (the main headquarters of the main cast of characters). If you remember, Rin has an amazing hatred of humans (of which Akina is). Being the stubborn little girl she is, she argues against Rin, wondering why a human is helping lead a youkai city. Akina, who is also in the same room, acts as if he’s alright with the biting comment.
Garrick: Akina ‘leads’ Rin to the office along with helping her tour the city. Rin refuses to follow Akina, and goes off on her own to find the office, getting lost on the way. As she’s being lost, she finds Hime and her servant/butler/whatever, Kyousuke. Upon mentioning once again that a human should not help in leading a demon city, Kyousuke also agrees, even if he knows the extent of Akina’s power and the necessity of it to the safety of the city.
Garrick: They now introduce a third new character, Touka, who is Kyousuke’s younger sister, and also happens to have a crush on Akina, or so it seems. I wasn’t totally sure about what to think of her, so, I’ll just leave comments on her out for now. Anyway, Rin and Akina meet again, and Rin calls him a murderer, saying that Tuning isn’t saving lives, it’s killing demons. As was shown near the beginning of the episode, Tuning is the process of sending a demon’s soul… away, effectively killing them.
Garrick: This accusation once again evokes a “It’s okay,” reaction from Akina, although, most the audience can tell now that it does truly affect him. Meanwhile, at the office, Rin is finding a home to live in, and asks if she has to live near humans. At this point, the two other main characters, Ao and Isone, try to persuade her that humans are not all bad. However, when they mention that the school that Rin has to attend also has humans attending, Rin breaks down. They show a flashback of her past, and essentially, the reason she hates humans so. It may make more sense now, her hatred of humans.
Garrick: In other places around the city, several demons and their powers are going out of control, causing explosions and tearing down parts of buildings. This would seem to be caused by the hidden antagonist of this series, a certain fox demon. Anyway, this phenomenon gets Rin, and her powers go out of control, with the only solution to it, Akina, nowhere in sight. It seems that Rin’s “murderer” comment struck deep with him, but it’s understandable.
Garrick: As the group fights of her increasing power (meanwhile, finding their attempts to stop it totally useless), Akina arrives at the scene, using his tuning power in the battle. However, if you remember, Tuning kills the demon it hits, normally. Seeing that the demon-killing power of Akina’s is pointed at her, Rin finds herself fearing death and her own mortality. (Yeah, I know she’s a zombie-demon, but still, it’s rather a sad scene) However, Akina uses the power of Tuning not on Rin herself, but the demon controlling her. I mean, why else would all of those other demons in the city randomly go out of control?
Garrick: As Rin is freed from the controlling demon’s grasp, apparently, she realizes that Akina, as a human, is not evil, and does not want to hurt demons, unless he has to, of course. While I thought that her change in the final scene was a bit… over the top, it’s a good ending.
Garrick’s Rating of Episode Two: 9/10
Garrick’s Anticipation Scale: 9/10
The Quartet of Yozakura Quartet. (the girl on the bottom is the same as the one second from the left)
Garrick: Well, here I am again, with another solo review. This time, it’s Yozakura Quartet, an anime about humans and youkai, or demons, living together in the same city. These youkai each have special powers, as is shown later in this episode. As you would expect, there’s plenty of conflict and friction between the two. The main characters of the anime are a group of youkai (and one human) that are working together to preserve safety in the human-youkai city.
Garrick: Well, continuing on with the episode, the OP is quite interesting. An upbeat pop song that has a very nice tune (no pun intended, the song name is “JUST TUNE”). It was catchy, especially the opening of the opening, but nothing exceptional. It was on the better side, however.
Garrick: Continuing on, the anime starts out showing a girl *inconspicuously* jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Immediately, the anime shows that there is some incident going on, which is later revealed to be some youkai’s doing, more specifically, a youkai that does not want humans and youkai to interact. The majority of the episode is the ‘Quartet’ (which quite oddly, has a fifth member) fighting that one demon.
Garrick: At the end, however, they introduce a plot concept that seems to be the basis of the whole story. One of the characters that is introduced, a youkai, seems to have a hatred of humans, and her pain is caused by humans. Obviously, it’s not a one way thing.
The episode ends with their confrontation finished, and leaves the audience time to ponder the idea of human-created hatred and youkai-created hatred. Deep stuff.
Garrick: The ED is another upbeat pop song, called “Nagareboshi”. It’s also catchy, and quite enjoyable for me. Once again, nothing hugely amazing, but not terrible; it’s on the upper edge of okay.
Garrick’s Rating of Episode One: 7/10
Garrick’s Anticipation Scale: 6/10
