Ushio & Tora

[gunswordfist]

This episode showed a lot. Amazing.

Also, did anyone else thought Jie Mie's brother and Ushio were being a bit overdramatic this episode? Sorry, just an observation

That was another great one. A lot of stuff has been explained. And next week it looks like we'll finally meet the fourth successor.

It's funny, when Tora said Ushio can't turn back now I thought the same about watching this show. I'm in until the end.

I can't go back either.

Oh, almost forgot

Spoiler

I actually thought Hakumen No Mono would either have some good in him and that would have been shown or he had some redeeming quality to explain why the oyayume (sp? Dammit) have protected him for so long. ...Nope. He's evil and had a clever evil plan. Not that I'm disappointed.

So Ushio originally traveled back in time and was always supposed to literally be the chosen one? Hell, chosen by Jie Mie, her brother and Ushio's mother.

[close]

[Spark Of Spirit]

I think her brother's going mad made sense.

First, he learned the dark technique to make a weapon to fight against demons, but it required sinking to their level. He didn't use it, not really, and it ended up getting a LOT of people killed by Hakumen no Mono including his father (directly as the blade didn't work) and his mother (who froze due to fear). Then when he reveals he could have used this technique sooner, his sister sacrifices herself in order for him to make the blade that would kill Hakumen no Mono for good. Basically all these deaths are because he didn't speak up in the first place and now he has nothing left.

I can understand Ushio's reaction because these were good people who were forced into death and despair by Hakumen no Mono and there was absolutely nothing he could have done about it. Being that the whole series he was the one that always did something when things looked bad (an admirable quality that shonen protagonists used to have a lot of) and that there was nothing he could do here, probably stung him a lot. Remember when Jie Mie's parents died, the first thing he realized when he rushed Hakumen no Mono was learn that he couldn't stop the monster when he looked in its eyes and saw what it really was. This is the first time in the series, that he's aware of, that there was nothing he could do to save anybody. That was probably hard for him to take.

Spoiler

I also liked that Hakumen was that devious that it would pit the humans and youkai against each other AND save its own skin at the same time. He's the polar opposite of Ushio, and even Tora, who lives only torment others and destroy anything it can. It's going to be very satisfying when the two of them finally get to tear that jerk a new one.

[close]

[gunswordfist]

No, everything that went on made perfect sense. I meant during the explanation of what he had to do. Try rewatching it and not laughing when Ushio is all wide-eyed when her brother first tells him it. I want to make a gif of that..

And yes, HNM is one devious bastard.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Well, if you say so. I don't remember that and my connection is on the fritz right now so I couldn't rewatch it if I wanted to.

[gunswordfist]

 

[LumRanmaYasha]

It was another damn strong episode. Everything in this show fits together so perfectly, it's like Fujita had it all planned out from the start. I sorta see what GSF means; some of the drama is a bit over the top, but considering the proceedings and characters involved, it's only natural they'd have as such strong and emotional reactions as they do. Regardless, this episode was perfect as a half-way point for the series as a whole series, and I can't wait to see how the rest of this season in particular will play out now, especially since we'll finally be seeing the fourth successor next week and there's still a whole bunch of people and locations in the opening that have yet to show up.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Kirio's got more than a few screws loose. But his "mother" is even creepier since it's obviously Hakumen no Mono.

I didn't expect the sect's headquarters and Ushio to be so easily trounced by one of Hakumen's monsters, and now that they've lost their leader, it looks like they're even further up the river.

Also, looks like she had children long ago. I'm guessing Mayuko is part of her line of descendants.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I wonder what consequences Hakumen's manipulation of Kirio is going to have. Though judging by the episode title of next ep, it looks like whatever he's going to do will be bad news for the Beast Spear. I'm interested in what his background is like and how his character arc will play out.

Poor Ushio, though. Yet another person he couldn't save...things have been rough for the kid lately. Wonder what effect this loss he'll have on him. The sect is definitely in trouble with their matriarch gone, and I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of internal conflict in the group as they try to restructure themselves and rebuilt their headquarters. I have a feeling that next week is going to be another big one.

[gunswordfist]

Yeah, I was wondering if Mayuko could be related too, which would make Ushio and her cousins or something, right?

Also, it should be interesting to see what happens to the Sect.

[Spark Of Spirit]

This show, man.

So, Hakumen crept into the sect through Inasa's envy carried out through Kirio's pride. Destroying their trust and faith in Ushio and the beast spear by taking advantage of a weak moment staged by Hakuman no Mono himself. Just going through that abandoned place you can see how far they've all rotted away. It's pretty sick.

Then there were all those scythes. They were going to spread those useless weapons to the sect. How far gone was Inasa, anyway? He was all too willing to just sacrifice a random baby for his experiments. Now we know why Kirio is so warped, being that he was essentially made that way. And now we have to wait a week to see what happens next. These episodes are too short.

Oh, and Nagare and Tora are a real pair. 

[gunswordfist]

And another unexpectedly great episode. I didn't expect to learn so much about the 4th successor. That explains a lot. I'm sure HNM set all this up to destroy the spear and make a weapon strong enough to counter it.

This show, man.

So, Hakumen crept into the sect through Inasa's envy carried out through Kirio's pride. Destroying their trust and faith in Ushio and the beast spear by taking advantage of a weak moment staged by Hakuman no Mono himself. Just going through that abandoned place you can see how far they've all rotted away. It's pretty sick.

Then there were all those scythes. They were going to spread those useless weapons to the sect. How far gone was Inasa, anyway? He was all too willing to just sacrifice a random baby for his experiments. Now we know why Kirio is so warped, being that he was essentially made that way. And now we have to wait a week to see what happens next. These episodes are too short.

Oh, and Nagare and Tora are a real pair. 

Oh yeah and alladis  And I didn't even think about the dummy scythes. What a clever asshole Hakumen No Mono is. Makes Naraku look incompetent....er.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yeah, I'm definitely going to rewatch the series after episode 26 and the break starts. The pacing really sucks you in, but I just know I've missed a lot because of it.

And HnM is a real turd. Stringing along Kirio even after the creep tried to kill his friends and outright lying up to the bitter end. Though obviously this isn't the last we'll see of Kirio or Kuin, it sure was one heck of a reality check for them.

I guess up next will be the final arc before the break, though I'm not sure what it could possibly be.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I finally finished catching up with this series. I really like it. It really appeals to that classic 90's battle shonen fan in me. I could easily imagine having watched this show alongside stuff like Yu Yu Hakusho, Dragon Ball Z, and Rurouni Kenshin, back on Toonami.

I also like the main antagonist of this series (so far?), especially with how he's built up over time until his ultimate reveal, and the reveal actually isn't a letdown. Hakumen actually feels like a legitimate threat in terms of both being powerful and intelligent, and I can buy into the fact that he's such a big deal that he would have to force Humans and Youkai to team up in order to take him out.

Another feature that this series executes well is it's own fictional mythology. I've seen countless shonen try and fail to build an interesting mythos and backstory to their worlds, but few actually know how to make it interesting by playing into the grander story. In a series like Naruto, you'll have new elements to the backstory and lore of the world just haphazardly thrown in when it's convenient to the plot, but it's so obvious that it was never originally planned for the series and it just ends up feeling like a random piece of information that you don't care about. I like how this series manages to introduce elements of the backstory and keep it interesting, but call back to certain things later on, which makes the lore feel all the more important, rather than a cheap plot-device to service the story. That is to say that: yes, obviously that's the intention of building a lore in your story in the first place, but the lore should give you the illusion of having always been the way that it was, and not just something that the writer came up with on the spot. Ushio and Tora manages to nail that aspect. Series like Naruto make it laughably bad. That's essentially what I'm getting at here.

And I just like the "buddy-cop" aspect that Ushio and Tora have developed, or I suppose you could say say that it's like a buddy cop and robber relationship with the robber turning straight. While I do think that Tora could probably drop the "I'm going to eat you as soon as I get the chance because I'm still a bad guy" act by now, I also don't mind it so much since he is such an amusing character. And while a lesser writer would probably just focus solely on Ushio and make Tora just an afterthought despite being in the title (note: this is basically what happened in Beelzebub, which is one of it's biggest problems among many), I like how both characters get equal amounts of focus in this series, and how their teamwork builds as the story progresses.

Overall, it's one of the better battle shonen anime that I've seen in a long time. It'll be tough having to wait a week at a time from now on for new episodes to be released. I could probably just read the manga, but I think that I'll stick with the anime for now since I have a ton of other manga that I need to catch up on, including a bunch of WSJ series.

[gunswordfist]

That episode was very intense. Characters like Kirio almost always annoy me but with everything that happened to him, how could he not be like that, if not worse?

A pleasant surprise was Kirio's artificial demon companion. I thought he would just be there for Tora to show off on but in the end, he's the very first one to have ever cared for Kirio and went to protect him. He might become a well developed new ally here while in almost any other show like this, he'd just be one dimension and dead.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to rewatch the series after episode 26 and the break starts. The pacing really sucks you in, but I just know I've missed a lot because of it.

And HnM is a real turd. Stringing along Kirio even after the creep tried to kill his friends and outright lying up to the bitter end. Though obviously this isn't the last we'll see of Kirio or Kuin, it sure was one heck of a reality check for them.

I guess up next will be the final arc before the break, though I'm not sure what it could possibly be.

I wonder if HnM's avatar actually cared about him just a little bit but maybe I'm giving that asshole too much credit.

You and me both, on the rewatch. So much has happened and it has been barely over 20 episodes. I'm going to enjoy seeign what I didn't pay attention to or even forgot and re-enjoying the best moments.

I finally finished catching up with this series. I really like it. It really appeals to that classic 90's battle shonen fan in me. I could easily imagine having watched this show alongside stuff like Yu Yu Hakusho, Dragon Ball Z, and Rurouni Kenshin, back on Toonami.

I also like the main antagonist of this series (so far?), especially with how he's built up over time until his ultimate reveal, and the reveal actually isn't a letdown. Hakumen actually feels like a legitimate threat in terms of both being powerful and intelligent, and I can buy into the fact that he's such a big deal that he would have to force Humans and Youkai to team up in order to take him out.

Another feature that this series executes well is it's own fictional mythology. I've seen countless shonen try and fail to build an interesting mythos and backstory to their worlds, but few actually know how to make it interesting by playing into the grander story. In a series like Naruto, you'll have new elements to the backstory and lore of the world just haphazardly thrown in when it's convenient to the plot, but it's so obvious that it was never originally planned for the series and it just ends up feeling like a random piece of information that you don't care about. I like how this series manages to introduce elements of the backstory and keep it interesting, but call back to certain things later on, which makes the lore feel all the more important, rather than a cheap plot-device to service the story. That is to say that: yes, obviously that's the intention of building a lore in your story in the first place, but the lore should give you the illusion of having always been the way that it was, and not just something that the writer came up with on the spot. Ushio and Tora manages to nail that aspect. Series like Naruto make it laughably bad. That's essentially what I'm getting at here.

And I just like the "buddy-cop" aspect that Ushio and Tora have developed, or I suppose you could say say that it's like a buddy cop and robber relationship with the robber turning straight. While I do think that Tora could probably drop the "I'm going to eat you as soon as I get the chance because I'm still a bad guy" act by now, I also don't mind it so much since he is such an amusing character. And while a lesser writer would probably just focus solely on Ushio and make Tora just an afterthought despite being in the title (note: this is basically what happened in Beelzebub, which is one of it's biggest problems among many), I like how both characters get equal amounts of focus in this series, and how their teamwork builds as the story progresses.

Overall, it's one of the better battle shonen anime that I've seen in a long time. It'll be tough having to wait a week at a time now on for new episodes to be released. I could probably just read the manga, but I think that I'll stick with the anime for now since I have a ton of other manga that I need to catch up on, including a bunch of WSJ series.

I probably wouldn't mind reading the manga after I finish the series.

I did expect Tora to openly be Ushio's friend by now as well. I wonder if this'll tie into why he hates humans so much, which I'm guessing has to do with something they did to him in the past and something I fully expect them to show, if that's true.

[Spark Of Spirit]

One thing that I like was that while Kirio was tricked, he wasn't a total moron about it once HnM revealed itself. Once he saw what his "mother" was doing and that she was about to kill the sect members, he didn't hesitate to turn his weapon on her and kill her. He was still shaken up and emotionally devastated, but he didn't get thrown the idiot ball plot device in order to build up fake drama by continuing to listen to her and fighting Ushio for the rest of the series.

I finally finished catching up with this series. I really like it. It really appeals to that classic 90's battle shonen fan in me. I could easily imagine having watched this show alongside stuff like Yu Yu Hakusho, Dragon Ball Z, and Rurouni Kenshin, back on Toonami.

I also like the main antagonist of this series (so far?), especially with how he's built up over time until his ultimate reveal, and the reveal actually isn't a letdown. Hakumen actually feels like a legitimate threat in terms of both being powerful and intelligent, and I can buy into the fact that he's such a big deal that he would have to force Humans and Youkai to team up in order to take him out.

Another feature that this series executes well is it's own fictional mythology. I've seen countless shonen try and fail to build an interesting mythos and backstory to their worlds, but few actually know how to make it interesting by playing into the grander story. In a series like Naruto, you'll have new elements to the backstory and lore of the world just haphazardly thrown in when it's convenient to the plot, but it's so obvious that it was never originally planned for the series and it just ends up feeling like a random piece of information that you don't care about. I like how this series manages to introduce elements of the backstory and keep it interesting, but call back to certain things later on, which makes the lore feel all the more important, rather than a cheap plot-device to service the story. That is to say that: yes, obviously that's the intention of building a lore in your story in the first place, but the lore should give you the illusion of having always been the way that it was, and not just something that the writer came up with on the spot. Ushio and Tora manages to nail that aspect. Series like Naruto make it laughably bad. That's essentially what I'm getting at here.

And I just like the "buddy-cop" aspect that Ushio and Tora have developed, or I suppose you could say say that it's like a buddy cop and robber relationship with the robber turning straight. While I do think that Tora could probably drop the "I'm going to eat you as soon as I get the chance because I'm still a bad guy" act by now, I also don't mind it so much since he is such an amusing character. And while a lesser writer would probably just focus solely on Ushio and make Tora just an afterthought despite being in the title (note: this is basically what happened in Beelzebub, which is one of it's biggest problems among many), I like how both characters get equal amounts of focus in this series, and how their teamwork builds as the story progresses.

Overall, it's one of the better battle shonen anime that I've seen in a long time. It'll be tough having to wait a week at a time from now on for new episodes to be released. I could probably just read the manga, but I think that I'll stick with the anime for now since I have a ton of other manga that I need to catch up on, including a bunch of WSJ series.

Glad to hear that you like it! It's really one of the best shonen anime out there. Probably helps that Nishimura is the director, but the core story is just so good on its own.

I hear you on the Tora wanting to eat Ushio aspect on the relationship, though this recent episode has shown that even he knows he doesn't mean it any more. We still haven't gotten to his back story yet, though, and it looks like its going to be a doozy when we finally get to it. Unlike other Youkai who just detest humans on principle, Tora actually seems to have a reason for it.

Also, Hakumen no Mono is the overall villain of the series. The only reason I know it is because when the series was first announced, Fujita said it would end with the "final battle with Hakumen", but I think there are other villains along the way like the avatars and those creepy scientists in the opening. From what I've seen of Fujita's works, his stories all center on his established core of protagonists versus a specific villain.

But if there is one thing I do want to point out about U&T is how every character feels like they have a place in the story and end up being integral to the plot in some way. Unlike a lot of shonen which toss characters off with new arcs, in U&T anyone could show up at any time and still be as useful as they were in their initial appearance. In shonen like Naruto or Bleach, the chance of that would be next to nil.