Sometimes a little blunt honesty is a good thing.
What They Say:
Tamaki and the Shugogo house fail to prevent the breaking of the first seal by the “Logos”, led by the mysterious girl, Aria. Shizuki carelessly urges the awakening of the Tamayori princess within Tamaki. Tamaki worries about whether she should do it.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One thing that frustrates, both in life and in storytelling, is that we often have characters dancing around telling someone some uncomfortable facts. After what has happened in the last couple of episodes, Tamaki’s grandmother brings everyone before her and makes it clear in the way only a grandmother can that it’s all Tamaki’s fault. While the Five Guardians have their fault as well with what happened with the Artifact being stolen, she makes it clear that Tamaki is the one that holds the real blame because she has not yet truly accepted that she is the Tamayori princess. And learning that the Seal was made with the blood of the Tamayori princess, it makes sense, in context, that her lack of faith and belief would help weaken that Seal.
There is some sense of trying to go about things normally after that while figuring out what the best path is, but there’s an underlying sense of unease about it all as well, making it hard to enjoy even the simple things. There’s some decent time spent as they all do try to get their groove back, both together as they hang out after school but also during school. It’s an opportunity to get to know the characters a bit better, but at the same time there’s only so far that it’s going to go with this run in really clueing us in to each of them while still giving Tamaki a lot of focus. There are some good moments to be had, especially as the amount of time they all spend together is starting to get viewed a certain way by others, especially when it comes to Tamaki and Takuma.
The episode does spend some time with the Logos characters and the way that Aria seemingly has complete control over them. There’s a subservience to them that’s fun to watch, though some have a little bit of a smile and a wink about it. Aria for her part is deadly serious and quite confident without bragging though, which makes her later appearance here in front of Tamaki very enjoyable. While the boys stumble upon them after a bit and are all set to take her on, there’s more a calm conversation that the two have as they try to suss each other out. It’s more from Tamaki than Aria as she’s aware of the situation, but seeing Tamaki not overreact and then to try and get more out of Aria, to sway her, is definitely nicely done.
In Summary:
Hiiro no Kakera works the slow build a little more and teases just enough here to keep you interested without beating you over the head. I’m still not entirely sure of its approach, but I’m enjoying the surface level characters we get here, the pacing and the overall tone of the show. It just feels like we should have a little bit more of all of them to make it a bit stronger. I’m definitely glad that it’s not doing a lot of what annoys me with these kinds of shows and it backs it all up with some atmospheric animation. This episode adds a bit more to the story with some good moments for Tamaki, especially the dressing down she gets from her grandmother, and it pushes her down the path further. You can see its origins clear enough, but it’s the kind of pacing that makes you feel like it won’t get to the really good stuff that’s yet to come.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
