Kekkaishi ep.13

February 19, 2007 | 10 Comments

Well, I was hoping there will be a new opening/ending theme but unfortunately there isn't one. It kind of make sense though since I don't see the point of changing the opening when Shishio Gen has not even appear on the series. Having said that, I think the series' first opening should not feature either Masamori or Shishio and then after 12 episodes, they add them in. I just think it's a lot more exciting that way. The only reason why they feature these two characters right from the start is probably to attract the manga readers. But I assume manga readers would have watch the series in the first place anyway so there is no need to show every characters in the series right from the start. If anything it's kind of a spoiler for those who have not followed the series. At any rate I'm just happy that Masamori finally appears in the series. This means we're going to see the Urakai arc very soon and meet several new characters.

The episode begins with the shot of Sumimura Masamori entering Urakai HQ and heads towards his own pavilion. A few minutes later, Masamori is seen interrogating Kasuga Yomi, asking her if she dislikes working for him since he doesn't think it's a bad situation for her. In response, Yomi asks Masamori to stop addressing her using "You" since she's older than him. Masamori ignores her request and instead points out that she doesn't understand the situation that she's in: she violated their organisation's rule by entering the Karasumori site. If he hadn't talked to his superiors, Yomi would have received a more severe punishment. Not wanting to be outdone, Yomi points out that Masamori was the one who encouraged her to enter the Karasumori site. Masamori admits this but tells Yomi that despite the information he gave her, she couldn't last longer than one night. He then asks her what she wants to do while pulling a jar out of his kimono.

Yomi quickly realises that the content of the jar is none other than her mini pet, Yoki. When she tries to reach for the jar, however, she ends up hitting a Kekkai instead. Yomi quickly promised that she'll do it since she's not stupid enough to defy the leader of the night troops. Upon hearing this, Masamori undoes his Kekkai and allows Yomi to take the jar containing Yoki. Before she left, Yomi also tells Masamori that she understands now why the Hoin doesn't appear on him. A few minutes later Masamori tells his followers that he's going to the Karasumori site. Inside Karasumori site, Yoshimori is complaining because they haven't encountered anything tonight. Because of this, Yoshimori decides to practice his condition-based Kekkai. A short instructional video then reveals how there are two types of kekkai, 「座標指定」- Zahyoushitei, which is coordinate-based and 「条件指定」- Joukenshitei which is conditional-based.

Zahyoushitei Kekkai is not removable while you can move Joukenshitei Kekkai. At one point Yoshimori's Nenshi gets stucked into his Joukenshitei Kekkai so he tries to shake it off but ends up throwing said Joukenshitei Kekkai towards Hakubi's head. Tokine blames this on Yoshimori's lack of 「指南書」- Shinansho (instruction books/scrolls) reading and tells him that the Sumimura's legitimate heir would surely ends with him because of this. Because of this, the next day Yoshimori decides to raid the warehouse which contains the instruction scrolls. Outside, Yoshimori's grandfather is in the middle of sweeping the garden when Tokine's grandma appears on the roof, trimming the tree with scissors. As a result, leaves are scattered all around the area which Grandpa Sumimura had just cleaned. Because of this, the two end up getting into a fight again. At the same time, Yoshimori tries to read his scroll but has a hard time doing it.

Yoshimori, however, remembers Tokine's insult from the previous night and decides to study the scroll harder. In order to motivate himself to read the scroll, Yoshimori has devised a plan where he would read a book about cake for 10 minutes followed by reading the scroll for 5 minutes and so on. He then begins by reading a book called "The World's Sweets". Outside, the fight between Yoshi's grandpa and Tokine's grandma ends when Tokine's grandma manages to cut not only the broom that Yoshi's grandpa used in the fight but his hair. Because Yoshimura's grandpa is shocked, he falls down and notices that the warehouse door is slightly open. His immediately suspects Yoshimori. True enough, not only Yoshi took the scroll, he is now sleeping and drooling on it. As a punishment, grandpa orders Yoshi's father not to give his son any dinner. In order to circumvent this problem, Yoshi's father ask Toshi to deliver Yoshimori's food.

Because of this Toshimori brings the food to Yoshimori, telling her brother that their father will keep their grandpa busy talking for a while. While waiting for her brother to finish eating, Toshimori wonders if the scroll next to Yoshimori is the secret scrolls. Yoshimori confirms this and throws it to Toshimori so his brother can take a look at it. However, Yoshi thinks there is nothing important written in it since it only talks about foods like Ika (Squid), Naruto (Fish Cake), and Uni (Sea Urchin). Toshimori is weirded out to hear this but when he reads the scroll, it turns out the sentence is actually "Ika naru toki mo kokoro wo heisei ni tamotsubeshi" (You should keep the heart calm at any times). Yoshimori is shocked to hear this since he didn't know that his brother can read scrolls. Toshimori explains that their grandpa taught him a little bit but he suspects this scroll is only meant to be read by legitimate heir.

A depressed Yoshimori tells Toshimori that he thinks those who can read it should read it. In response Toshimori puts down the scrolls and tells Yoshimori that he has yet to master any magic. Yoshimori doesn't think it's a problem since as long as Toshimori keeps practicing, he'll get good at it. He even points out that he was lousy when he was at Toshimori's age. Toshimori stops for a while and tells Yoshimori that he doesn't have Yoshimori's talent. After Toshimori left, Yoshimori can't help but wonder why there's a distance between the brothers in this family. He wonders if it's because age gap. Yoshimori also feels that there are people who are more talented than him. A flashback shows that when he was 7 years old, Yoshimori saw Masamori got into trouble with their grandpa because Masamori wanted to read scrolls that belongs to Yoshimori. Since the hoin appears only on Yoshimori, he's the one who'd be the family heir.

Yoshimori hates recalling this memory but thankfully for him, he's quickly distracted from it when he senses the presence of Ayakashi in the Tokimori site. Much to Yoshimori;s and Tokine's surprise, their respective Ayakashi dogs, flail on the ground and refuse to look for the Ayakashi because it smells really bad. Yoshimori, however, would have none of it and pushed Madarao to look for it so he can exterminate said Ayakashi. After the two left, Hakubi tries to persuade Tokine to leave smelly things to their colleagues since it doesn't suit cool people like them. Of course Tokine refuses the idea. Meanwhile Yoshimori and Madarao finally encounter the Ayakashi in question but when Yoshimori tries to Kekkai and destroy it, nothing seems to happen. The same thing happen when he tries it again. In fact, the creature simply falls off. Upon inspection, Tokine thinks this is just a shell and the real creature is still in the area.

Yoshimori tries to destroy the shell but it takes him 5 Kekkai to reduce it down. Tokine thinks the sooner they deal with the Ayakashi the better it will be so Yoshimori takes off immediately before Tokine can plan with him. Hakubi whines again about the situation so Tokine tells the dog that if his nose is not good then he should use his eyes. Unknown to them, their movement has been observed by Masamori from a tree. After the two left, Masamori summons a fish-like creature called Kurohime and asks it to find the Ayakashi. Tokine, who's in the middle of waiting for Hakubi to sniff out the Ayakashi suddenly feels Kurohime's spatial power, making her feel as if she's been thrown into another place. Meanwhile, Kurohime finally detects the Ayakashi in question and whispers to Masamori its location. Masamori uses his Kekkai to leap into the sky but when he finds the Ayakashi, he simply waits, wanting to see what Yoshimori would do to this Ayakashi.

Meanwhile, Yoshimori encounters another decoy so they go off to find the real one. Unlike them, Hakubi and Tokine manage to find the real one, Sasorigama, an Ayakashi with sharp limbs and hard body. Much to Tokine's shock, Sasorigama easily destroys her Kekkai and she's unable to destroy her body either. Yoshimori then appears but he doesn't make much difference either. In fact, at one point, he's completely cornered by the creature. Before the creature can harm Yoshimori, however, Masamori throws a multi-threaded Nenshi around the creature's sickle, cracking it in the process. Masamori then uses a large 5 layered Kekkai to entrap Sasorigama and kills it. In the aftermath, Masamori introduces Kurohime as his companion to Tokine. He then turns around and tells Yoshimori that he's here because he's worried of his incompetent brother. He tells Yoshimori that it seems Yoshimori hasn't made much progress in the last 3 years. The episode ends with everyone being impressed with Masamori except Yoshimori.

Impression:

I am not sure I like the way the anime dumbs down Yoshimori in comparison to the manga. In the manga, he can read the scrolls quite well. He just doesn't know how to interpret the meaning of the words. In this one, he clearly doesn't know how to read it in the first place, which is quite a downgrade from being unable to understand it. I realise that the anime needs to pad out the story so that it can fit its half hour format. But surely they can do it without making Yoshimori looking like a complete doofus who can't do well when this is not the case in the manga version. I also don't like that he ends up fighting Sasorigama and comes across weak and stupid because of it. Yoshimori has been shown to be a quick thinker in the battle and suddenly he can't come up with a good strategy here? I like it better in the manga where he is elsewhere, inspecting the decoy while Masamori is the one who has one on one intense fight with Sasorigama.

Moving on to other topic, I think the distance that the Sumimura brothers have are mostly caused by their imbecile, slow to catch up with time grandfather. I see no sense of keeping the scrolls only for the legitimate heir when the others can use it to protect themselves and their family. What would have happened if Yoshimori was still a baby and Masamori is a lot older? Would the grandpa wait until Yoshimori can use it while a perfectly talented grandson can use it to protect the area and the family? But then again I'm not much into maintaining tradition. While there are several traditions which I think worth maintaining, some should be reworked to match the present time or completely disregarded. Anyway, despite what I've said, I kind of enjoyed the episode. Despite what Yoshimori said, I think Masamori is a cool character and one that I look forward to seeing. Having said that, I do think that he can be a bit mysterious and shady at times.

Preview

On the next episode: Masamori tests Yoshimori.

© memento 2003