Remember when I wondered if these folks could die after already being dead?

Well, I guess these two episodes answer that question.
Yes, that, and many of the other questions I posed in my last post have been answered in these two crazy, disturbing, violent, crazy, well-acted, and ultimately crazy climactic episodes.


Wait, ...."climactic"? Aren't there supposed to be four more episodes after this..??


Read the rest!

















Sorry if the hidden post makes it look like this was going to be a long entry -- it was mostly just to hide the oncoming spoilers, I really don't have that much to say.. (^^;

While I don't plan on doing a complete play by play like with episode 5, I will mention a few important things.

Important things like how stark raving mad Fumika's father is.
You see, in episode 7 he gets a home visit from the young lady newly placed in charge of his work, Natsuka's (Fumika's old middle school buddy) elder sister. And after he notices that it's started to rain, he thus proceeds to quite flamboyantly lose it. Though not at all in a bad way. It in fact made him endearing, I'd say.
Of course, disregarding the creepiness (that was there already, anyway).

Endearing I should say, until Fumika arrives to hand him a shigofumi from a former fan, and he in turn shoots her with her own gun.

And so ends episode 7. It was an ending that had me punching things and going "what the hell!!?"

But in order to save you the same frustration of having to wait a week to find out what happens next, here's episode 8 right now!



So how is it, one may ask, that Fumika is able to work as a deliverer of shigofumi, while at the same time residing at a hospital, perfectly alive? Well that's because it's just her sister that's dead.

...her made up one.
....that lives inside her head. (still following?)

We see that Fumika was certainly a happy child, and that Kirameki was pretty great dad. Except for the times when he'd write the drafts to his novels, using his daughter's naked skin as a canvas. It doesn't help that most of the time he was venting his rage toward his ex-wife (Fumika's absent mother), and causing Fumika intense pain.
And so Fumika split into Fumi and Mika, Mika always bright and cheery, there to cheer her sister up when things got hard, and when things got really hard, she was of course also there to shoot people.


Impressions:
Taking a short time-out here, I have to say that this is a very interesting and well done take on the issue of split personalities. Sure the good girl/nightwalking bad girl scenario has been done before, and at times done quite well, but this one I think hovers closer to reality, in dealing with the reasons why and times Mika emerges. But enough of this Psych 101 jibber jabber.


Needless to say, the Fumika we know today is of course the stronger Mika, who has perished along with the real Fumika's ability to think entirely (for now).
We find all this from Fumika herself, in fact, after she eventually ejects the bullet her father shot into her from her body (why did Kanaka make such a fuss if she knew she was going to be OK..??).

But there's no time for this -- we've been flashbacking so much there're only 5 minutes left in the episode! Fumika pins her helpless father, in a final attempt to kill him and protect her real half. However, she cannot bring herself to it.
Or rather, Natsuka's sister doesn't let her. And with her calming big sis words, she makes everything better.
The authorites will not be notified, Kirameki will work on a new novel, start paying for Fumika's hospital care, and we'll all act like none of this ever happened!



Impressions:
And just to prove that we're serious, next week will be a hot spring episode! happy anime, happy anime～

Heh, I may sound like I'm making fun of the whole thing, but this was a very good pair of episodes. Did I mention the acting? Because it was really good. Perhaps most notably on Kana Ueda's part -- GJ, her.

I'm glad they didn't kill Kirameki. He's awesome.

Natsuka and her sister (why can't I remember her name?) make for two very enjoyable characters, as well. I especially like the way Natsuka caught on with the whole "giant talking stick" deal pretty quickly.

Sometimes I wish Kanaka had a face...

So all in all, this series hasn't let me down at all yet. Though there still exists that question of what the climax of the show will be, with so much divulged and resolved already, and with so much room to spare.
I guess next we'll have to deal with the whole problem of Fumika's fate (and right now, things aren't looking too good for our gun-toting, silver-haired version of her..). But as I said before, best not to speculate and just enjoy the ride.

Next ep, we'll likely be getting some backstory on our ol' pal Chiaki. Or something like that. Either way, she's got a prominent role again, and that makes me so happy I won't even punch anything this time!

Labels: Shigofumi

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