Utawarerumono Episode 22 Discussion / Poll

[Varis]

am I the only one that was annoyed with Erurus super hyper sensitive emo? Is her mind going to recess next because someone dropped a spoon? Even the little Aruru still called Hakuoro her dad in his beast form and she was unconcious for all of it.
I mean is it THAT hard to believe? They knew there was something up with him and apparently they saw his true form before. So why all this "shock".

There is war all around her, so why get so shocked at violence... Hating it is fine but why be suprised over and over and over again?

Perhaps I just have a completely different outlook on things. Perhaps I just don't understand such a position.

[kron]

not bad but they really are trying to squeeze things into the last couple eps.

i played the game long time ago so i cant recall exactly but i swear hakuoro's past was different.

Spoiler for question for game players:

all i remember was the virtual image of the scientist, him being in the lab under observations and number 34 which is his closest clone calling him for help through her/his mind... stuff like that.

can someone send me a pm to confirm if the anime is sticking to the game at all?

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Varis

am I the only one that was annoyed with Erurus super hyper sensitive emo? Is her mind going to recess next because someone dropped a spoon? Even the little Aruru still called Hakuoro her dad in his beast form and she was unconcious for all of it.
I mean is it THAT hard to believe? They knew there was something up with him and apparently they saw his true form before. So why all this "shock".

There is war all around her, so why get so shocked at violence... Hating it is fine but why be suprised over and over and over again?

Perhaps I just have a completely different outlook on things. Perhaps I just don't understand such a position.

She saw it before but she didn't remeber it. After she made the contract, her memory was suppress.

[Renegade334]

Originally Posted by Owaranai Destiny

Just a small observation....maybe I'm reading too much into it, but could the blue creature shown at the last part of the ending sequence be something very much like Hakuoro in essence?

Very good eyesight. The blue creature you see in the ED is obviously Hakuoro - as for the red one, I'll abstain from revealing too much since its presence will be the crux of the final arc.

Let's just say that they're veeeerryy alike...yet so different. Oh yes. Ooooh yes.
Those who know what I'm talking about will surely smirk at this.

[Selic]

Spoiler for Minor Game Spoilers:

I think there was a level in the game where you hunted out what looked like infant Av Kamu. It looked like the upper torso cut off with only a few pieces of armor.

[mikemil828]

Originally Posted by Varis

am I the only one that was annoyed with Erurus super hyper sensitive emo? Is her mind going to recess next because someone dropped a spoon? Even the little Aruru still called Hakuoro her dad in his beast form and she was unconcious for all of it.
I mean is it THAT hard to believe? They knew there was something up with him and apparently they saw his true form before. So why all this "shock".

There is war all around her, so why get so shocked at violence... Hating it is fine but why be suprised over and over and over again?

Perhaps I just have a completely different outlook on things. Perhaps I just don't understand such a position.

If your girlfriend was a 50 foot monster, I would think you would be pretty emo too.

[Onizuka-GTO]

Originally Posted by mikemil828

If your girlfriend was a 50 foot monster, I would think you would be pretty emo too.

Well if she's still cute, and has breasts, i won't mine.

[Cardiac Glycoside]

Hohoho, the flashback screens remind me of the monorail episode in the Simpsons:

(replace Hakuoro with "Batman" for original quotes)

Marge: Homer, don't worry I've got someone who can help you!
Homer: Hakuoro?
Marge: No, he's a scientist.
Homer: Hakuoro is a scientist.
Marge: IT'S NOT HAKUORO!

[PGilis]

Originally Posted by Onizuka-GTO

Well if she's still cute, and has breasts, i won't mine.

Even if you put some Herapetta in her drink last night, and the effects are about to start anytime soon?

[Renegade334]

Weeeelll...Somebody said a long time ago that 'alcohol had been created so that ugly women could get laid every once in a while' but still...
...Wonder why Karura is so obsessed by alcohol then.

Anyway, for Eruruu:

am I the only one that was annoyed with Erurus super hyper sensitive emo? Is her mind going to recess next because someone dropped a spoon? Even the little Aruru still called Hakuoro her dad in his beast form and she was unconcious for all of it.

The only thing she saw was Hakuoro get crushed - she never saw him in his beast body since it seems that her memory was erased and was remembered of the contract by beast-Hakuoro himself. She might have thought the beast had been summoned by Hakuoro - with all those black clouds swirling I'm not sure she saw his transformation.
Besides...nobody saw Hakuoro become a beast before...only Niwe/Yue and Dii did. So it's normal for her to be shocked. Although it's strange that when she rushed to the center of the clearing and reached for Eruruu (although it's understandable since she has priority as a child compared to 'oji-san' ) she didn't bother to look around for Hakuoro. It's still perfectly understandable since it's her sister and she was deathly afraid she'd be dead. The dreaded confirmation that her heart had stopped beating might have taken Hakuoro out of her mind right after.

I mean is it THAT hard to believe? They knew there was something up with him and apparently they saw his true form before. So why all this "shock".

Read above. She doesn't seem to remember. It's only when Aruruu says 'otou-san' that she seems to snap out of it and piece things together. Maybe Aruruu sort of recognized beast-Hakuoro's magic (maybe it has some sort of signature - like a scent, if you know what I mean) and identified the beast for what and who it truly was.

There is war all around her, so why get so shocked at violence... Hating it is fine but why be suprised over and over and over again?

I'm not sure that, if in the subway someone pulled a gun and blew a close bystander's brains all up to the blue yonder, I'd just blink and say, 'bah, same shit, just another day'. Even if it's a daily occurrence and you get to see it in the news every evening, you just don't get used to it. Eruruu's job is to heal people, not to just squeak 'oops' or rejoice when somebody kicks the bucket in a gruesome way.

[Green²]

No idea on how much now that Hakuoro and Eruruu are aware of the beast form at the end. Probably they, maybe only a bit confused as to how they may feel now. Minor I suppose,.. maybe even will pass in time. Only, now you have rabbit dude that ran off scared shitless of what was seen of what Hakuoro had become.

Spoiler for Not sure on which way that will translate later on. ...But if to perhaps later...:

...use fear as an weapon, everything for Hakuoro could turn out rather ugly. For what is known of the beast, is out in the open.

Spoiler for To maybe even in the end,..:

...turing his people against him.

[Zaris]

Good morning, or should I say good afternoon?

To be honest, I didn't know how to rate the episode for a long time. I admit to having played the game in its entirety, so I had a list of expectations of things I wanted to see and things I wanted people to say to each other when it came time to view this episode. I tried very very hard to separate what I wanted out of the show from how the producers portrayed it and seeing whether it worked or failed. It is important to realize that adaptations do NOT have to stay true to the original work and that what you know from the original must not influence your judgment.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll begin with something very generic: the CG. Both moments (the troops retreating and the gate closing) were too obviously separated from the animation and kind of distracted me. But that's being a little too nitty-gritty, isn't it. Still this isn't CG wars so I feel this must be mentioned.

The tactics used to handle the colossus got more impressive as the minutes continued, and I was quite satisfied that they were able to give Hauenkua a moment of stun. Of course, his nature is "kill all and end all' so I expected nothing less of him. His portrayal didn't get any softer until his moment of defeat, so as I thought he is a well-done antagonist - much more so than all the previous ones we've seen.

The dramatic moment: from what we've already seen, it's perfectly characteristic of Aruruu to come to Hakuoro's defense when and how she wants to. Unfortuantely, childhood ambitions aren't enough when facing someone of Hauenkua's nature and so she pays the price of it. You can't fault Hakuoro for feeling the way he did.

Regarding the moment of impact: it wasn't rushed, and it wasn't noise-filled. I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we expected Aruruu to meet death sometime in this episode. But the real shocker is that although she was pretty much a goner when she was thrown off of Mukkuru, Hauenkua wanted more. He made certain that she would suffer a bloody one. That's unnecessary villainous that makes the impact of the whole scene more heart-stopping. And it works, it really does.

Now what some people have called "hyper-sensitive emo" of Eruruu is what I call poor analysis. We the audience are privilaged to knowing a secret about Hakuoro that nobody in the anime does (minus Dii of course). It's called dramatic irony - something the audience knows but the characters we empathise with don't. In these conditions the viewers are participating in the scene; we all root for Hakuoro to turn beastly and deal utter pain to Hauenkua, we just can't tell them when or how. But you can't (and you shouldn't) place our own expectations and our own knowledge of the scenario onto characters who don't know the entirety of the scene and hope they'll learn to conform. It lessens the dramatic impact. That said, Eruruu's emo is justified and quite provocative, and it suits her nature.

If you were a person who has never played the game (and nobody should be expected to know about the game), you might consider the scene with the scientists to be a little out of place. You'd probably think, "did the producers just mix footage of one anime with another?" or something. If you don't know an ounce of Japanese, it is important to realize that it is Hakuoro's voice on the raised platform with the fossil. That voice is what links both scenes together. Is it Hakuoro? If you spend some time an analyze the aspects of it, you'll soon come to realize.

Normally, one would throw a fit and say, "geez, not ANOTHER mystery!" But the sci-fi appearance of it all kinda makes it a likable mystery because it is so out-of-place and out-of-time. And speaking of out-of-time, we're treated to the scene of the contract that titles this episode. If you have a chronological sense of the events that's transpired up to this point, you will understand what it is all about and when it took place.

If I had to complain of anything, it would be that we were probably fed with too many emotional scenes of Eruruu, one after another mourning for the possible death of her sister. But I believe that out of any particular moment of the episode, that would have to be the best fitting.

The episode ends with something unforseen with Eruruu's code of behavior - she withholds information from Hakuoro for the first time. Hakuoro is still in denial, but I think he's slowly learning to accept his double-nature. The secret that we the audience have known for a long time is revealed to Eruruu (and Aruruu), which will probably strain their relationship or just make it even more complex...something I look foward to. Relationships are based on trust, and when one person knows something the other doesn't, it makes for...problematic moments.

Reflecting on all these points, I give this episode 9/10. Some of the animation didn't work either because of inconsistancy of the thickness of the lines or the uglyness of anime/CG mix. That or objects seem too stuck out from the middle/background. After all, this isn't just a story: this is art. I think the last well-drawn episodes were 16 and 18; after that, nothing looked consistant.

These are some of MY expectations that I filtered out:
- Time of Day: the scene was much too blue. Needed more of an orangy-afternoon type or a firey theme to it because the whole episode is about death. Blue just doesn't reflect that.
- Can't Get Enough: Hauenkua should've been laughing more after he killed Aruruu, like all the way to the point where Hakuoro drops down on his knees.
- That Damn Eye Twitch!: Do you recall the one Evangelion episode where Shinji finds his best friend in the unit he was forced to destroy? I wanted something more like that - less movement in the eye, more expanding of the eyelid (hard to do with a mask in the way, but I wanted it anyway). The pupil shrinking is good. Furthermore, I think the two parts where he sees blood coming out of Aruruu's body could be reduced in time length. The point is pretty clear.
- Just a Foot?: To strenuate Eruruu's trama, it may have been better to show the foot coming down on Aruruu and Hakuoro then just panning the camera down on a foot that's already on the ground. But that's just me.
- Sudden Reversal: Hauenkua is a guy who just can't contain his emotions, most notabily laughter. When he saw his Avu Kamu destroyed, I think he should be screaming in terror a lot more than he did.
- Plea to the Man!: I think there wasn't as enough emotional "umph" to the contract between the anomaly and Eruruu during the flashback as there could be. Eruruu didn't look or sound all that desparate in my opinion. This stems from my background of what I know from the game.


Ok...

[shonosuke]

How much episodes will the anime have?

and is the game a H-game?
If so..

Spoiler:

Its pretty sick of hakuoro to have sex with a blind and sick person

[Zaris]

Projected to have 26 episodes (think all anime runs as 26 per season because there's 52 weeks in a year).

Yes it is from a H-game. But before you get grossed out prematurely, there's an entire scenario behind everything...

There's a thread about it too...

[Onizuka-GTO]

Originally Posted by shonosuke

and is the game a H-game?
If so..

Spoiler:

Its pretty sick of hakuoro to have sex with a blind and sick person

What? So your saying Yuzuha is not human? And that she shouldn't have the right to love, and be loved in return?

You sound like the sick one to me...but what would I know? If I was blind and sick and I met a nice women who I like, I might find it sick that she wants to love me too......yeah right.

[shonosuke]

LOVING someone is diffrent then having SEX with someone and knowing the person is sick and blind letting it have your babies

[PGilis]

Originally Posted by shonosuke

How much episodes will the anime have?

and is the game a H-game?
If so..

Spoiler:

Its pretty sick of hakuoro to have sex with a blind and sick person

Yes, the game is originally H-Game, but this (or next) month will be released a PS2 version without H-Scenes, and voices added.

And just to you know...

Spoiler:

...Hakuoro had sex with that blind and sick person (i assume you're talking about Yuzuha here ) because she herself asked him.

You see, like you said, Yuzuha is very sick and on top of that has a incurable heart disease, so she can die any momment.

And she know that. Yuzuha didn't want to die without leave something - a legacy - in the world. She didn't want simply disappear without any trace. So she chose to have a baby first... Hakuoro's baby!

For a long time she was in love for Hakuoro, so she asked Oboro to convince him to give her a baby. And he consented. That was maybe the last wish of a dying person. What he could to do?

[shonosuke]

Just got myself spoiled

Spoiler:

Too bad it goes sci-fi

[Deathkillz]

in other words hakuoro is a very lucky man
edit : just saw the ep and i gotta say its wht ive expected...ie WOW
hakuoro going demon is just fantastic...tearing into those dam gundams like a hot knife through butter
its a good thing that aruruu is all well now...if she was killed off it would be a great shock to everyone...and good on mukruru ^^

but the thing im confused about is the flash scene to that science lab...is it some alternate world to the world our heros are in? is it even a flashback or a scene that happens in the future?

[Zaris]

Originally Posted by Deathkillz

but the thing im confused about is the flash scene to that science lab...is it some alternate world to the world our heros are in? is it even a flashback or a scene that happens in the future?

Spoiler for your answer:

In episode 22, Hakuoro believes it is a memory, possibly his own. And memory implies an event which has happened in the past.

Dun dun dunnnnnnnnn!!!!