Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora ep.02

July 11, 2008 | 17 Comments

Sorry for the late entry but it's a bit hard to muster the enthusiasm to watch this when you're tired. Sometimes I wonder if this show would actually last longer than 10-15 minutes if it doesn't stretch out some of its scenes. Having said that, the quiet, seemingly pointless scenes are also part of the charm for this kind of series. The only other thing that I don't like about the show is the low quality of the animation. It's only two episode and already the character design look horrific. The part where Sora and Kuroda talk about her just arriving from Hokkaidou is a good example of this. The weakness of this kind of character design is that at the worst time, it really reminds me Olive Oyl from Popeye the Sailorman. I remember saying the same thing about the character design in Paradise Kiss so I did a little bit of googling and finds out that the character design for this anime is the same character design for Paradise Kiss, Yoshigaki Yuusuke.

Episode 02

Sora arrives in the airport and decides to take an airport limousine (read: bus) to her destination. She asks the bus driver how long before she arrives at her destination and he gives her an estimate of 45 minutes. Inside the bus, a tired Sora remembers everything she's left behind in her home town. At a hotel, an elderly man gives his son an envelope containing money required for his internship living expenses. Since it's not much, he asks him to use it only for necessities. The son gruffly tells his father that he knew already. The father asks his son to tell the teacher-in-charge that he apologizes for imposing. Before he can say anything else, the son, whose name turns out to be Gouta, tries to leave. Gouta tells his father that he'll do things by himself so he asks his old man to worry about himself.

Meanwhile, Sora finds herself stranded in a place that's clearly not the train station she's meant to go to. Because of this, Sora has no choice but to walk to her destination. Along the way she gets to admire some concrete jungle and an old man trying to catch a fish (or is that an eel?) from a river. While looking for direction at a nearby police box (a miniature version of police station), she hears a loud crashing noise and a bus wheel can be seen falling out of the high-rise highway into the street below. An old woman is in shock because of this and ends up kneeling in the middle of a zebra cross so Gouta goes off to ask her if she's okay. At the same time, Sora senses that something is incoming so she runs to the street and see a truck falling out of the high-rise highway and into the street below.

Sora uses her magic power to stop the truck before it hits Gouta and the old woman. When Sora asks Gouta if he's okay, he thanks her and asks her if that was her magic. Sora confirms this but modestly claims that she still needs some training. Because of this, she's going to a mage training. Gouta suddenly turns gruff again and tells her that she doesn't need any training if she can use that kind of magic. When she asks him where she can get a subway that goes to the mage office, he rudely tells her to walk there. A disappointed Sora has no choice but to walk again, saying that Tokyo's weather is extremely hot. Although she asked many questions at the police box, she also gets to drink cool Barley tea. She also mentions how the origin of magic power is that of DNA. In her case, it was her father who's a magic user.

Magic level is varied between individuals and in most cases, a person's ability blooms in the second growth period. Once a person turns 16 year old, he/she is qualified to join mage training. If this person turns out to have magic ability, he/she must go through magic training. The subjects of a training are differentiated by two main elements. The first is the practical training that's undertaken in the home of the instructor in-charge. The second is the record of a mage's witchcraft conduct and training while they're with the magic bureau. Those who completed training without any problems will be accepted as registered mage. The length of the training period is one month. As she walks along the pavement, Sora spots a group of cats who look like parents and kids. This reminds her of her mother, hoping that she too will do her best.

After walking for a while, Sora finds the building she's looking for. She, however, realizes that she's late for her class. Sora tries to sneak into the class but she accidentally push her suitcase into the class, alerting everyone of her presence. The teacher coldly guesses that she's Sora and since everyone else has done their introduction, she wants her to do the same as well. After Sora has completed her intro, the teacher tells her not to be late again next time before telling everyone that she wants to test them to find out their magic ability thus far. After the written test is over, Sora and the others have a break. The girl who was being nice to her introduces herself as Yamabuki Hiyori. Hiyori tells Sora that the scary-looking teacher is Kawada while her "bodyguard" looking guy next to her is Morishita, Kawada's assistant.

The second test is a practical test involving transforming water inside a tank into ice. The test is designed to check the students' magic level. Before she starts, Sora recognizes Gouta, whose last name turns out to be Midorikawa. Sora, who's still pissed off of Gouta's previous behavior becomes emotional. In the process, she channels her anger into the water and creates an ice stalactice. A bitchy girl, however, is not happy to see this and shows Sora her project, which looks like a bunch of manufactured product (reminds me of fully-rounded cheese stacked on top of one another). Despite this, the other classmates are more impressed with Sora's chandelier-like ice sculpture. The girl, whose name is Asagi, swears that she won't lose. Because of this, she tries to show off by asking the teacher if it's true that there is a magic that can bring the dead to life.

Kawada tells her that no matter how powerful a mage is, such thing is not impossible. Upon hearing this, a boy tells Asagi that if she just thinks a bit more, she'd have figure out the answer herself. No, if she's not such a show-off, she wouldn't ask the stupid question in the first place. God, I hate someone like this girl. Bitch-face immediately retaliates, asking who is the guy so he introduces himself as Kuroda Kouji. Hiyori thinks that Kuroda knows a lot about magic but Kuroda is being honest and tells her that he doesn't know much and that's why he's studying here. An unhappy Asagi asks the guy where is his work and upon finding out that it looks similar to hers, she accuses him of being a copycat. Asagi becomes even more unhappy when others think Sora's creation is awesome. Morishita even takes pictures of her work.

Asagi and Kuroda want to redo their work but Kawada doesn't give them the chance. Then Morishita announces that the test is over, disappointing Gouta, who's been unable to transform the water in his tank. Hiyori asks Sora where her training place is so Sora tells her that it's in Shimokitazawa. As for Hiyori, she'll take her training at Azabu-Juban. Later on, Sora tells Kuroda that she's tired, prompting the guy to laugh. He tells her that it's natural since she came from Hokkaidou today. He then tells her that tomorrow practical training is going to start so that's when they have to do their best. Since Sora is going to stay around Shimokitazawa, Kuroda recommends her to take a look at the surrounding shops. Sora follows his direction to turn right after exiting the Shimokitazawa station.

Sora is immediately captivated by the lively nature of the city so she goes around the shop and just enjoys the scenery. In her mind, she composes a letter to Michiru, saying that Tokyo, or rather Shimokitazawa is amazing, full of shops, and feels like a dream country. Eventually, Sora arrives at the Hara-Mahou-Office, so she's greeted by Hara Seiichirou himself. Hara quickly tells her that there's another trainee staying at the place but he doesn't tell her the name, only promising to introduce her to this person later on. Upon entering the room, Sora is surprised to see that the room is like a guy's room. Despite this, she's happy and tells her 'father' that she's arrived in Tokyo. Much to Sora's shock, however, she later finds out that the trainee who stays at the same house is Midorikawa Gouta.

Impression

Wow, this is a bit different from the manga in that Sora actually get praised for using her magic in the street. I assume that this world is different from the original Someday's Dreamer because in that world, one is actually not allowed to use magic freely. Moreover, the manga also suggests that mages are discriminated against by normal people. I wonder if the change in the story is because the writers feel that they can't possibly include the discrimination story without extending the series to a 24/26 episodes? At any rate, the changes are pretty okay although I have no idea where the story is going to go from here. Since Sora said that the training will take about one month, I guess the story will end once she completed her training. The question is, what angle will the story take? Is it that part about using magic to bring the dead back? I don't think it will be that morbid though. I don't think Sora will use magic to bring back her dead father.

I'm also not happy with the change in Gouta's personality. The guy is a lot more fun when he's the perv that he is in the manga. In this one, he's just grumpy and gruff. As for his ability or lack thereof, I'm sure he'd turn out to be one of those people that develops his magic in the second growth period. But then again, he could be a Squib. :P Also, I can't remember that Asagi girl being this bitchy in the manga. She's completely unbearable in this one like a typical rival character that just can't shut her piehole. On the positive side, I enjoyed the soundtrack and the laidback nature of the show. If anyone knows the song that was playing while Sora was touring the Shimokitazawa, please let me know. At this point though, I'm still not sure if this is an interesting or a mediocre show. I am going to give next week's episode another try and hope that it'll be more interesting than this week. What I want to know is if everyone who watched this last week still like it this week?

Tokyo

If you go to Tokyo for the first time and you're traveling by yourself, I'll recommend that you take the JR train from the airport to Tokyo station. Then catch another JR train or subway to your destination. This way if you get lost like Sora, at least you'll be in a populated area where there are people who can give you help in English. Also, I do not recommend going to Tokyo in Summer. Despite the glorified image of Summer in Japan, Summer is completely unbearable there. Assuming you're lucky and it's not raining for one week while you're there in Summer, you still have to deal with the extreme humidity.

© memento 2003