God damn snakes.
Yet another devious trap set for our heroes. If there’s one thing above all else I enjoy about this Hunter x Hunter arc, it’s the traps that must be worked through to get to the next stage. You’ve got a cave full of poisonous snakes guarding the exit to a cave, and the only person who can control them is dead. How will our intrepid would-be Hunters get out of this mess?!
We’re finally getting our first space battle next episode, which is pretty cool. Here and there, however, there are rumblings of our good ol’ space piratey show being too slow-paced. I cannot deny the show is setting a deliberate pace; however, I don’t mind so much because I’m digging the way the show is setting up Marika with the tools she needs to be a proper captain. This is her trial before she’s ready to captain a real group of pirates. When I think about that, I can’t help but wonder if that’s part of the problem people perceive with the show’s pacing.
The wheels had begun spinning in the plan to resurrect the Sister Princess, but not all were happy about this.
Rinrin had slowly but surely amassed a small fortune from the money she borrowed from Wataru every so often. With that money, she set into motion a plan of her own — a plan she believed would allow her to usurp the power of the Sister Princess.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! The Crown Jewel of noitaminA — aka Guilty Crown – has been taking the anime world by storm since it began airing in the Fall 2011 season. And because it is so wonderful and popular, we should of course make spin-offs cashing in on how super duper totally awesome the show is! So, without further ado, it’s time to play . . .
GUESS.
THE.
DUMB!
That’s right, folks, it’s an all-new game show built around Guilty Crown, where you, the viewer, vote on the dumbest moment in this week’s Guilty Crown! So, really, this show is more like “Vote the Dumb” rather than “Guess the Dumb,” but the latter is a much better title, don’t you think? Whichever moment is voted the dumbest will be named Grandmaster Dumb and go on to defend its championship against a new slew of idiotic moments next week! Boy, I wish I thought of this idea earlier!
This is one of the scenes that really sold me both on Hunter x Hunter and Hisoka as a villain. Before this, the viewer knows that Hisoka is obviously much, much stronger than everyone else participating in the Hunter Exam, but there is a glimpse of his real power here, and also a peek into the depths of how monstrous Hisoka is.
Once again, the remake and the older series take a different path to reach the same result. The visuals in this episode focus on making Hisoka into a dark, frightening figure. He looks unreal before, but inhuman here. Hisoka’s bloodlust is apparent in every aspect of him — his voice is more guttural, his eyes are blackened (I like that visual detail; the lust is so intense that it’s almost draining him of energy), and holy fuck, the look on Hisoka’s face when he attacks that would-be hunter. I would not want to meet Hisoka at night!
Marika’s reaction during this final scene really strikes at the core of why I like outer space so much. It’s not simply the austere beauty of space that’s so awe-inspiring, but also the sheer vastness of it. Ever since humanity has launched shit into space, we’ve made great strides in mapping out the universe and seeing what’s out there, but all that is still a tiny blip of what’s truly out there. The possibility exists that we could go on exploring the universe bit-by-bit on into infinity (you know, assuming our species survives into perpetuity) and we’d still not see everything it has to offer.
How could that not be attractive to a pirate yearning for adventure?
Now that this abomination is out of the way, we can begin the next chapter of our sordid tale.
Wataru eventually recovered from his impromptu surgery and was back to his normal scrawny frame in no time. When he was up to going out and around, he found that it was close to Christmas time — possibly. Stores seem to put their Christmas dressings out earlier by the year, so relying upon decorations to figure out when the Christmas season is upon us is a poor decision at best. Alas, it was Christmas, and yet not at the same time: The citizens of Promised Island celebrated Christmas in January rather than the customary December. A strange choice of holiday, perhaps, but it did not bother them.
Oh, Leorio, you should know by now not to fall for such an obvious trap, especially against someone as shady as Tonpa . . .
We finally catch a glimpse of all the other folks in the Main Character Brigade this episode. Sometimes I wonder how Leorio manages to function in this world. Every other episode he’s getting fooled by someone who’s obviously trying to play him, or he’s screwing up an activity or something. Even for a comic relief character Leorio is a failure. But that’s partly why I love him. He looks like he should be the adult of the group, but he’s not, and he tries so hard to be cool, but he’s cool only intermittently. At least he has the best fashion sense of the main characters. A nice blue suit will never go out of style.
Best mom, or BEST mom?
I like how practical Ririka is regarding Marika’s inevitable leap to piracy. She knows there’s really nothing she can do to prevent Marika from being a captain (short of the crew performing a mutiny, I suppose), so instead of dissuading Marika from the pirate lifestyle, Ririka instead imparts the lessons of piracy. Image matters. Consider your situation before you pull the trigger. Handle giant fucking laser guns. That’s everything you need to be a successful pirate!
Wataru stared glumly at the food in front of him.
He had ingested five pizzas already, and Shirayuki had six more waiting in line. Wataru could feel his stomach bulging outward. He loosened his belt another notch as he ripped off a slice from the pizza sitting in front of him and wolfed it down.
There’s so much food here, Wataru thought to himself. Is Shirayuki trying to kill me?
