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Now in Japan
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Monday, 22 January 2007 00:00 |
 I'm still trying to figure out if Kagihime is shoujo or not - I think the show itself is possibly as confused as I am. This batch of episodes introduces another Alice User and two challenges for the gang to deal with, while Kisa's stalking of Kiraha seems to have been sadly curtailed...
3 - Caucus Race
Aruto is summoned to see Kagarigi-senpai - the most popular, beautiful and intelligent girl in the school, who spends most of her time in her own personal room, surrounded by books. She's decided that Aruto's going to be her research assistant - there's something about him that interests her, and no, Aruto doesn't get a say in this. And since Kiraha's over-reaction to the news involves destroying Kagarigi's computer (and all the research material she has stored on it, allegedly), Aruto's got his work cut out for him. Kagarigi's an Alice User herself, making Aruto particularly useful to her research...
4 - Little Bill
Arisu finds another Alice User in the act of burning down the library - this User's aim doesn't seem to be to find the Endless Alice story, but to make sure there's no way it can be found. Or at least that's what she sees - at the end of the "fight", Arisu finds herself outside the library, with no sign of the fire. Aruto and the others saw the red glow from the flames, so they're as confused as Arisu is. At school the next, Arisu sees a girl who looks just like the one she saw in the library - although this time around, she seems more interesting in eating things than burning them. Her names Andersen, and when she meets Aruto she takes an instant liking to him - to the point where he can't believe she's the same girl Arisu met...
5 - A Caterpillar
Another battle yields another story for Arisu - but this time, someone's watching proceedings from a safe distance. Later, when Aruto takes what should have been a shortcut home after shopping, he finds himself at the home of the girl who had been watching him, and who seems to be expecting him. Calling him Takion, she asks Aruto to tell her a story - with it raining outside & having nothing better to do, he does as she asks, and he soon becomes a regular visitor to the girl's home. Her name is Therila, and thanks to an illness she's unable to leave the house much - and when Kiraha learns of her, she soon develops a convenient illness or two of her own. Meanwhile, Aruto's visits to Therila are beginning to prove dangerous - not that Aruto realises it...
Episode 3 seems to complete the introduction of the main cast, with the arrival of Kagarigi and her itty-bitty Alice User form. She looks set to be the brains of the outfit, while she also has an almost sadistic streak when it comes to analysing Aruto - much to the disgust of both Kiraha and Arisu. I haven't made up my mind whether I like her or not, yet.
Episodes 4 & 5 move into challenge-of-the-week territory, with Akane's appearance letting us know that the Alice stories aren't the only ones capable of building up a magical world around them (in her case, it seems to be Hans Christian Andersen stories that do the trick), and Therila's story telling us that Takion seems to have been around for a rather long time. For all the little potential threads that are started here, though, there's very little progress made on resolving anything - it's all just a little up in the air at the moment. This far into a series I would have expected the bad guys to have started to move, but it seems that Takion's more interesting in having some illicit fun with Riddel than doing anything constructive. Or destructive, come to that.
All that leaves me a little underwhelmed. These episodes were okay as far as they went, but I was expecting more from them than I got. Episode 5 was at least worth the effort, but the other stories didn't quite hit the mark. With Kagihime being quite a short series anyway, it'll need to get into gear soon if it's to really make its mark, and at the moment I'm not entirely convinced it's going to do that. |
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