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ローゼンメイデン 
September 13, 2008 | 
10 Comments
I'm sorry for the lack of update but I have no choice but to go cold turkey on blogging since I had 2 important exams this past week. Anyway, this is a good episode but since I'm not that interested in Stein or Medusa, I find the episode feels a bit tedious. I keep wanting the action to move quickly to both Free and Eruka since much to my surprise, they are far more entertaining than I thought they'd be. For some reason, I like the humorous bad guys more than the outright evil ones in this series. Medusa just comes across as arrogant and a bit boring. I could barely understand what she and Stein were talking about as the two were fighting each other since they're talking about insanity. Free and Eruka, on the other hand, are strangely humane in their reaction to the Kishin. It's kind of amusing to see them struggling to keep themselves sane, especially when they start to hallucinate about the Kishin. I'm also surprised that both Kid and Black Star deal with the hallucination relatively well.
In order to defeat Medusa, Stein decides to summon the madness within him. This leads to a flashback of the time when Spirit had to watch over Stein so the later doesn't cross the line between insanity and evil. When Spirit asked what Stein wants, Stein told Spirit that he wants to live in a world without God. In the present time, Medusa tries to persuade Stein to work with her in changing the world. Stein, however, wants nothing more than a chance to dissect Medusa. With that said, Stein runs towards Medusa even though her snakes are pointing towards him. With his insanity and persistence, Stein manages to break through and uses Soul Force on Medusa. In her last moment, Medusa tries to use her snake to cut Stein's neck. Much to her shock, the snake stops because Stein manages to sew the inside of her body. However, the effort requires a lot of power that neither Stein nor Spirit can do anything else. Medusa believes that the minute Stein can no longer hold the stitches, she'll be able to kill him and her plan to release Kishin will be successful. Meanwhile, Eruka and Free are about to inject black blood into the Kishin bag when Kid barges in trying to stop them. Unfortunately, Kid is immediately affected by the insanity so Free urges Eruka to go and inject the black blood.
However, Kid is not the only one who gets affected by the insanity since Free is troubled by it again. Moreover, Kid manages to overcome the insanity so he and Free end up facing off against each other again. Kid decides to shoot at Free, allowing Black Star to go after Eruka. He also warns Black Star of the insanity but Black Star is not worried since his six sense is really bad. Eruka tries to distract Black Star with tadpole jackson but she ends up getting influenced by the insanity. Before Black Star can get the syringe, however, tadpole jackson sends it flying back to Eruka. In the aftermath, it looks like Black Star manages to slice the syringe in half, stopping the injection before it happens. As it turns out, however, because Black Star concentrated hard on breaking the syringe, he ended up hallucinating and slicing the statue instead. Medusa who senses the awakening of Kishin becomes deliriously happy that she fails to notice that Stein has suddenly released the stitches and goes for a death blow on her. As a result, Medusa's body gets sliced up in pieces before she can even react. Stein admits that it's ironic that he won because of the Kishin but the Kishin is now released. Meanwhile inside the sealed room, the Kishin stretches the bag as if it creates a figure of the Kishin out of it.
Impression
Talk about disappointing ending. I wish Black Star had been successful in stopping the syringe. But if that had happened, I guess his head will swell even bigger than it already is. Unfortunately this means the Kishin is out of the bag. Speaking of the bag, I had forgotten that it was made out of Kishin's own skin. It was therefore awesome and revolting at the same time to see the skin start to mold itself into the Kishin's own body. As for Medusa and Stein, it's hard to describe how happy I was after Medusa's body got cut into pieces. I was starting to get sick of her long speeches and annoying know-it-all attitude so it was nice to see her defeated like that. Unfortunately, it's always the convention in this kind of scene that the main character never checks on the dead body. For once I'd like to see a character that makes sure the enemy is completely dead by slicing them into tiny bits and pieces or emptying a whole round of bullets into their head. It's always annoying to see how lax and careless the main character tends to be after defeating his/her enemy.
I totally agree with what you said about the Stein/Medusa fight. I also think it was kinda ridicilous how the wanted to portraý Stein as a psycho all of the sudden. I don't really think it is possible to control crazy desires like wanting to resurrect ppl by sheer willpower. And even though Spirit said, he was the one to supress Stein's desire, they weren't partner for a long time. Why didn't he go wild again?
Poor Blackstar and Kid. I feel bad for them. Eeven though the failed, it has nothing to do with their abilities as Technicans, but that doesn't count in the end.
In the preview we see Shinigami-sama fighting. I am exited about that! I was impressed to see another side of him in the flashbacks of the Kishin's story, cause he bounces around all the time. Not like I would imagine a Shinigami at all.
Thanks for the summery!
Wow...this episode looks better animated than in the manga-- thanks for posting screencaps!
Though I agree about the Stein and Medusa fight scenes...their dialogue was interesting at first but ended up a little bit dry after a while.
The best part of the episode was Eruka imagining Kishin drooling on her!
"ivy2005 wrote:
And even though Spirit said, he was the one to supress Stein's desire, they weren't partner for a long time. Why didn't he go wild again?"
That was partily due to the Kishin actually, it's explained in the next 2 episodes.
Garten
"Unfortunately, it's always the convention in this kind of scene that the main character never checks on the dead body. For once I'd like to see a character that makes sure the enemy is completely dead by slicing them into tiny bits and pieces or emptying a whole round of bullets into their head. It's always annoying to see how lax and careless the main character tends to be after defeating his/her enemy."
Well, to be fair Stein isn't exaclty in his right mind by the end of episode. =P
As for the Stein/Medusa fight I liked it, so I guess, I disagree.
I find Medusa be more of pragmatist than really evil, she doesn't have any desire to rule the world, or destroy Shibusen, she just cares little about the means she does to reach her goal.
I actually really like Stein and Medusa, both as individual characters and as a couple. Their interaction is just so... dynamic and dysfunctional. I love it. :Db
I didn't really care for Eruka in the earlier episodes, but she's turning out to be quite adorable, along with her Tadpole Jackson. XD ♥
Of course, Death the Kid and Black Star are again awesome in this episode. I really prefer seeing them than Maka and Soul Eater (though I welcome any episode in which Maka is as amazing as she was in episode 21). It's too bad they weren't able to stop the Kishin resurrection... but I guess there wouldn't be much of a story left, had they been able to stop it.
That scene - the Kishin resurrection - was unbelievably creepy, by the way. BONES did a great job animating it.
i duno, i find medusa annoying but then again i'm a shallow person and her face just annoys the hell out of me ^^
found it funny that because of what an idiot black star is he was able to overcome the illusions and when he needed his non-existant 6th sense it just pops up and destroys everything, how ironic life can be
the preview for the next episode looks really good, battle btwn kishin and shinigami! whoo can't wait
Normally I like the antagonist to some degree but Medusa really rubbed me the wrong way. I've read pretty far ahead in the manga so sorry to be the bearer of the bad news but...
On the otherhand. I LOVED the Kishin revival scene. Creepy as hell but Enix definitely paid their worth. *shudder*
I quite liked Stein + Medusa's battle of insanity. One can literally feel the waves and I feel like giggling myself towards the end.
Also Stein raised a vaild point. He's insane because he enjoyed it. None of that overused depressing past made him into what he is. He's just hanging on a thing thread of madness and sanity and even that's questionable
The episode was very good, since it was going right with the manga.
They censored a bit of Stein cutting Medusa in half, but that's to be expected from an anime like this.
It irks me, however, that people think of Stein and Medusa as a couple. They are not, nor will they ever be. Medusa does not love him, she wants to manipulate and use him, and Stein loves no one, just as he has said in the manga, and will possibly, in the next episode.. They purely hate each other.
Up until this point, the anime has been very good on the non-filler scenes, with a few exceptions. I'm looking forward to seeing how they will compress the rest of the story into 51 episodes, how they will change it.
why does the kishin look like death the kid?
i thought that was kinda funny how kid and bs (black star) got the crap kicked out of them
i wonder if excalibar will help defeat the kishin or whatever
isnt the next ep already out?
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