Karin ep.17-18

March 30, 2006 | 9 Comments

Usui's creepy eyes!! That was brilliant. I couldn't stop laughing for a while after I saw that scene. I'm glad the animators realise that the guy's eyes are unusually weird and strange. I guess Boogie-kun wasn't off the mark when he was making fun of Kenta's eyes a few episodes ago. Anyway, these two episodes mark the return to the comedic material. As a result, the previous episode's serious tone has mostly disappeared from both episodes. There are traces of it every now and then but in general, these episodes are too light-hearted to be taken seriously. I can't remember now if this is supposed to be a 24 or 26 episode series but either way, I think it's a good idea for the series to start a major arc now while there are still 6-8 episodes left. I really hope they won't leave the main arc until 2-3 episodes before the end of the series.

In episode 17, the school festival begins. Karin's class specialises in haunted house but unfortunately Winner/Maki's rendition of vampire lore is kind of lame so they scare no one. Thankfully the class can always rely on Usui Kenta's eyes. That's right! Children are guarantee to cry as soon as they see those bulging, pupil-less eyes. The other classes, on the other hand, decide to milk the horny boys for all their worth by dressing either as as maid or as girls with neko-mimi (cat ears). While these happpen, Karin tries her best to guard over Kenta so that slutty grandmother of hers can't get her claws on him. Karin is afraid that Kenta's love will disappear if Elda sinks her fang on him. The problem is, it seems the only love that Kenta has is towards food. To compound problem number one, when they go to a Yakisoba stall, it seems Kenta's mother and Kenta/Karin's manager actually work there and assume that Karin/Kenta are on a date with one another.

Karin/Kenta's 'date', however, takes a different turn when Elda arrives at the school with the intention of sucking Kenta's blood. The three eventually face to face on a rooftop where Karin tries to stop Elda but ends up passing out when she has a nosebleed. Elda who realises that Karin is a blood-maker is now even more intent on sucking Kenta's blood and proceeds to immobilise Kenta with her power. Anju who's also on the scene tries to stop Elda but Ren tells her to stop if she really cares about Karin. Kenta tells Elda that he doesn't care if she bites him but he doesn't want her to foretold their future. All of a sudden, hwoever, Winner appears while announcing his name, surprising Elda who hears the 'Sinclair' part of his name. This in effect breaks her power on Kenta, just in time for him to catch Karin, who's about to fall from the shaky platform. In the end, Elda decides to spare Kenta from her bite and to go away to search information about Karin's strange affliction.

Episode 18 is all about Ren and his background story while he went to a male boarding school. Yes girls, this is the all shounen-ai episode of Karin. It all starts with Ren being pissed off that Karin and Kenta are still together. He claims that a vampire shouldn't be with humans. Anju thinks that Ren's hatred for humans come from Elda but Boogie tells her that the truth is, it is because of what happened to Ren when he was young. Back then Ren was enrolled in an all male school with shounen-ai tendency. Ren's roommate was a slightly effeminate guy called Makoto Fujitani. Despite this, he's actually a lot more straight than the other yaoi-loving students in the school, especially the ones from the student council. Ren ended up being attracted to Fujitani after he licks Fujitani's blood when Fujitani punches a wall with his hand. He became confused about this especially after he felt a connection with Fujitani on an emotional level.

One day Fujitani decided to sneak out of the school because he's fed up with it. But before he could do this, he's been kidnapped by the 3 student council members in order to lure Ren. After saving Fujitani, however, Ren found out that Fujitani really is a boy instead of a girl like he used to think. Ren realised that all of these times, he's been kind of attracted to a man. He became even more pissed off when Fujitani revealed that he wanted to get out of the school so he can bed all of the women who are attracted to his 'cute' face. Ren claimed that he'll die before touching a man but he could no longer stop his desire to suck Fujitani's blood. Because of this, he sank his fangs on Fujitani and then erased the memory of everyone in the area. This is why Ren hates men after the incident and humans in general. The episode, however, ends with Ren looking melancholic after seeing Fujitani with two girls in the middle of the city.

Impression:

I have to say that I'm rather disappointed with the entire resolution or should I say, dissolution to Elda's arc. It felt too simple and easy. I really wanted to see what would happened had Elda bite Kenta. But I supposed if Kenta still retains his love for Karin that will be even cheesier. This way we'll never found out about it. But even then, I still think there is something missing from episode 17. I think it's mostly because Elda looked surprised upon hearing the word 'Sinclair' and yet there is no follow up on this issue since episode 18 suddenly jumps into Ren's background story. Episode 18 was all kinds of funny although I supposed it'll mortify some people. But I can't help but laughing when chibi Karin told her brother that she's been reading Yaoi manga and offered to give her brother some pointers. Well, that explains why she had that wild imagination involving her brother and Kenta a few episodes ago. As for the rest, I'll let the screencaps to speak for themselves.

© memento 2003