What They Say:
After the festival, Hokuto is mad at Harutora, and Harutora and Natsume meet to sort out family issues. An interruption leads to a confrontation with Suzuka near the Tsuchimikado main house.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The arrival of Suzuka at the end of the previous episode where she laid things out in her own way for Harutora with what she wanted has definitely made an impression. And not a good one as Hokuto walked in on Suzuka being all aggressive and kissing him, which doesn’t sit well with her no matter the actual circumstances. Emotions are running high and you do have to feel for Harutora a bit as he’s basically caught in a situation where talking and explaining isn’t going to help and just being quiet and accepting the grief just reinforces it. Still, the show did well towards the end with the way Suzuka made her way in and made an impression on viewers as well as Harutora and that left me interested in seeing what else would come of it.
While this initially sets off the episode, things shift into a different area for a good part of it as we get the extended dialogue between Natsume and Harutora about why she’s here and what she wants when it comes to the altar. An altar that Harutora is now promising to protect and take care of, invoking the family name when he usually runs away from it, and trying to send her back to where she came from. Unfortunately, the conversation doesn’t go well and gets even worse as it goes on as a familiar appears and puts Natsume down for the count after it attacks her. That has him now trying to save and protect her while also dealing with slowly but surely being chased, forcing him to really stand his ground once again, this time at least knowing what he’s stepping into to some degree.
With it all coming down to Suzuka attacking him again, sometimes with a bit of personal venom at that, it works pretty well to give us a solid fight sequence with some style since she definitely has that. What’s amusing is that after things start to turn and he makes some progress with her through dialogue, she ends up getting set off in a big way simply because she’s interfered with and gets to fall in some muddy water. It’s almost comical but it has the right kind of character moment to make it clear what she’s like. But it also brings Hokuto into play in a significant way after being absent from most of the episode to reinforce that the two really do share a bond, one that he hasn’t really come to terms with. It’s nicely done at first, but it also turns into a very dangerous situation with some real surprises as the stakes are raised and the fallout is impressive and unexpected with Hokuto being taken down in a brutal way, albeit without any blood being tossed around.
In Summary:
Tokyo Ravens does a few unexpected things here and I rather like it for with the way the cast may not be as permanent as we think. But it’s also easy to see a character was created for the explicit purpose of forcing our lead into action, which isn’t exactly as good either, especially since we really only had one episode with them before bad things happen. Still, Tokyo Ravens has an interesting premise to it that can be handled well and it’s starting off its run with a style and approach we normally don’t see, which certainly raises the interest level a bit. There’s no dropoff in this episode in terms of style and animation and the designs continue to be appealing. I’m still wanting to really know more about Harutora, but the little bits we get are nicely done and seeing him work through, at least briefly, some real anguish definitely helps him.
Grade: B
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
