Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpuchou 5

Alright, I originally started this blog to practice writing, mostly through anime blogging. It’s been about 3 months since I started this thing, and not one dedicated anime post yet. So, I figured I’d start.

I haven’t decided on a format for these things yet, I’m just feeling it out. Keep in mind that since these are going to be single episode (and maybe sometimes movie) blogs, there may be unmarked spoilers. As things go on I might do some fancy stuff to hide the spoilers or whatever, so bear with me.

The first anime I will be blogging is: Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpuchou. Don’t ask me what it means. I’m 5 episodes in and I’m going to assume you have the same level of knowledge about the show as I do for the time being, so beware if you’re expecting some kind of explanation on background story up to this point.

There are several pictures following this, so be forewarned in that regard as well.

This episode starts off with a lady sitting on a comfortably crowded train when the guy next to her collapses on her shoulder. Disgusted, she looks about to retaliate. But when she looks at him he’s foaming at the mouth and suffocating. Naturally, she flinches away and screams while the guy falls to the floor.

I’m glad that never happened to me when I was on the Yamanote line (Yamanote = Green! Lessons in Japan retained!) Below where the train is passing, there’s an ethereal cat in the middle of the road. We’ll likely see more of that cat later.

Elsewhere, in a dark room, someone is playing a video game. It looks to be an MMORPG like Ragnarok or FFXI. They’re typing in English, interesting. It appears our player is ‘Mushroom’, and he’s fallen asleep or something. He must do it pretty often. His mother calls him, but we see that he’s slumped backwards on his bed, also foaming and suffocating.

A girl is sitting with her hand cupped to her mouth, reading something on her cel phone. Apparently both of the kids who just died are students, and they knew each other. This girl knew them too, and she’s reading a text message. The message says that she’s afraid she might be next. They all apparently had some kind of bad dream and she thinks the dream might be cursed.

Then she falls limp, likely dead. Guess she was right.

Scene changes to another dark room, where a man is alone in front of a book or something. He pulls out a razor, and cuts something. Perhaps he’s responsible for these deaths, and is adding another ‘notch’ to something.

The opening credits start. “Time to DIIIEEEE!” How appropriate.

Here are our heroes. They’re all standing fairly far apart from each other. What a tight knit, friendly bunch they are! They’re reflecting on the previous episode’s events, where they saw a human transform into demons. They’ve destroyed a few demons before, but now they all seem to be worried that the demons are in fact humans. Kisaragi (the older bishie at the fore of that image) assures them that this was a special occasion. Someone caused this particular Powered Up human to turn into a demon. He tells them again that not necessarily all humans with powers will turn into demons. Our heroes are ‘humans with powers’ as well, they may have feared this fate for themselves. The spell used will apparently only work on those with darkness in their hearts.

While everyone else is down about this whole thing, Aoi speaks up with her little pep talk. A little while ago, she was the weakest one, not knowing where she fit in with the group and people always telling her to ’stay back so she doesn’t get hurt’. She got over it and proved her own usefulness, now she’s all strong. Yay character development?

Even in previous episodes, she’s been plagued by memories of something in her past. Someone was stuck in a burning house, begging her to save them. I’m guessing she couldn’t/didn’t.

The ayes eyes have it. *sigh* Wordplay works so much better in oral form.

Because of this experience, Aoi wants to save as many people as she can, demon or otherwise. So, Kyouichi–the loudmouth with a wooden sword(bokken)–votes for her. Wait, why are they voting?

I don’t think Tatsuma knows what’s going on either, but he votes too. He seems to be the ‘go with the flow’ kinda guy.

Komaki, the brown haired girl and Aoi’s best friend, does not agree with them. She reminds them that the demons are serious business, and that they–particularly Aoi–could die. She proposes that they all quit this demon hunting and go back to being normal students. I think that’s a very practical idea. But then if they did that, this would only be a 5 episode show.

Aoi is already blindly devoted to saving people, heightening Komaki’s irritation. She pretty much throws the burning house incident back in her face, saying she can’t even protect one person. Komaki bails out of the meeting, into the rain.

The collapsing students are making the news. They report it as being comatose, so maybe they aren’t dead. There are also people gossiping about, saying they heard one of them talking about a weird dream with a dog right before they dropped.

Komaki (last name Sakurai) still seems deeply disturbed, missing the archery target she just shot at entirely. She’s the captain of the school’s Japanese Archery team.

Meanwhile, Yuuya (the muscular wrestling guy) is in the school gym, working out. It’s implied that he only does that outside of the Wrestling activities when he’s depressed. Kyouichi is sitting by the window with his wrapped up bokken nearby, talking to him. They’re both reflecting on Kisaragi’s earlier words, about Darkness in their heart being the deciding factor for being transformed into a demon. Kyouichi teases Yuuya, saying he doesn’t have anything to worry about. By the way, Kyouichi seems to be a fairly high ranked member of a gang. Perhaps he’s a Yakuza heir or something. There’s some darkness there, and it appears he’s concerned about it.

Aoi goes to visit Kyoko Tohno, the school’s resident journalist who got herself a little too close to the action in the last episode. She witnessed the before mentioned human-turned-demon-turned-back-human perish right in front of her. She seems to be pretty traumatized by the whole ordeal and has locked herself away for several days, refusing to see anyone.

There’s a nurse feeding a cat in a dark side alley. That doesn’t seem very wise, but I know there are people who just can’t resist cats. After taking a few bites (of the food, not her hand), the cat bristles and runs off. The nurse turns to see what startled the cat, and Aoi is walking past her on the opposite side of the street. Something else catches the nurse’s eye though, and she sees…

the ethereal cat in the middle of a crosswalk. That PT Cruiser drives right through it, and the nurse seems to recognize it.

Turns out it’s not a cat, it’s a dog. The same dog that people see before they die maybe? Hmm. She looks back at Aoi, perhaps putting some nonsensical ideas and thoughts together that won’t be revealed till later in the show.

Here we get a look at what looks to be a Yearbook, with some of the peoples images with crosses cut through them. Turns out that’s what the guy at the beginning of the episode was carving with his razor. He stops on an image labeled ‘Aoi Misato’, which looks like it was from several years before, and whispers her name.

Aoi goes home and pulls out what is probably the same yearbook, and it’s from Middle School. She looks pretty depressed until she comes upon an inserted picture, probably of herself. They don’t show the entire picture.

This who appears to be the main bad guy, probably the leader of Dark Law. He’s the one who transformed the guy from the last episode into a demon, and he seems to be monitoring many things while being surrounded by floating candles and masks. At this time, he’s gazing at that ethereal cursed puppy. Perhaps Nintendogs would serve him better.

Never mind, I guess he tried Nintendogs.

Aoi stops by Kyoko’s house again, where the poor girl’s mother is trying to get her to say Hi or something. Aoi has been going there every day. She’s trying to cheer her up, telling her not to worry about all the things she saw and that they’re completely normal. Right. She lets her know that Our Heroes will protect her, and everyone in the town.

Apparently, Kyoko interviewed Aoi for a school newspaper when they were both in different middle schools. Aoi really enjoyed it, because to everyone else she was a perfect, goody-goody kinda girl. Kyoko took the time to really get to know her. Aoi lets her know that since then, she always wanted to be friends with her. After Aoi leaves, Kyoko opens her door to see her, and finds something on the floor.

It’s pictures, the pictures Aoi took out of her yearbook. The pictures Kyoko took of a clumsy, middle school Aoi from the newspaper.

Kisaragi phones Aoi, to let her know that she won’t be able to contact him for a little while. He says he’s going to look for a rare pot or something. Aoi’s father is a frequent and well respected customer of Kisaragi’s antiques store, which is how they know each other. He actually calls her ‘Aoi-sama’. She’s from a very wealthy family.

As Kisaragi emerges from the phone booth, fortunately not wearing blue tights and a cape, a demon mask appears in the air before quickly vanishing. Dark Law is watching.

After hanging up, Aoi hears a dog’s howl come from outside. She goes to close the window when suddenly someone calls out to her from right next to her. But no one is there.

A bunch of possibly homeless and likely drunk men are outside, watching one of their mates break dance in the middle of them. A short distance away from them, something is glowing eerily on the ground. It looks to be a dog bowl and a detached leash that is tied to a pole.

Next day, Our Heroes are back at school. Komaki apologizes to Tatsuma and Kyouichi, who feel she should be focusing her efforts on Aoi. They see each other in the changing room and Aoi smiles, but Komaki turns away from her. (Service shot!)

The girls all seem to be swimming while the guys are stuck in class. Komaki continues to avoid Aoi, when Kyoko stumbles into the school gate. Aoi stands and greets her from the pool, and Komaki seems jealous.

Yeah, a little jealous. (Toono=Kyoko Tohno) Komaki confronts Aoi, pressuring her to answer the question. Aoi’s face goes blank suddenly, while Tatsuma’s pencil lead breaks in class. Apparently breaking pencil lead is a bad omen.

Aoi seems to have shifted into another existence, where this dude wrapped in toilet paper rises out of the pool. This is probably the guy who caressed her middle school photo and seemed to be orchestrating the comas of the other students from the Yearbook. He reaches out to her, and wants her to go with him.

Wow, puppy grew up quick.

Following his Broke Pencil Omen, Tatsuma leaps out of the classroom window and takes off towards the pool. Kyouichi, who had been spacing out in class (that’s his arm in the first pic, hanging out the window), grabs his wrapped up bokken and follows him. The teacher will likely knock them out when they return.

Aoi has collapsed. Kyoko sees this and is paralyzed in shock. A nearby teacher, who may have come to check out the girls in swimsuits, tells Kyouichi to take her to a particular hospital. Kyouichi is reluctant for some reason, but Komaki tells him off.

Meanwhile, Kisaragi enters some shrine, still being monitored by Dark Law’s Demon Mask Satellite Streaming Service.

Our Heroes arrive at the hospital, and immediately Tatsuma (who is carrying Aoi) feels that something is strange there. Yuuya and Komaki don’t feel it, and Kyouichi is impressed that Tatsuma picked up on it. Apparently there is someone here that Kyouichi ‘can’t handle’. They enter the deserted building, and Kyouichi yells out a greeting, trying to provoke some response. Thundering footsteps are heard approaching from the hall, frightening Komaki. “She’s here,” Kyouichi says.

Yikes.

Hey, it’s that nurse. “Irrashaimase!” she says in a bubbly voice. She glimpses Aoi and recognizes her from earlier. Perhaps a thought of exacting neko revenge flashed through her mind just then, but she probably realized she was already unconscious.

The scene changes to an odd ferris wheel in a desert. This is probably the ‘alternate plane’ where Aoi was taken by the Floating Toilet Paper Demon Dog Trainer. There are giant, dilapidated stuffed animals who appear to be eating the heads of three students. Disturbed kid. Aoi is special, however. He has her seated on a couch, and he’s staring at her.

Dark Law man is still observing the whole thing. At the shrine, Kisaragi sees that the innermost shrine itself has been destroyed. Apparently the shrine (and others like it) seal away certain demons. The episode ends with an image of the destroyed shrine.

Judging by the image, the next episode appears to focus on Aoi, Toilet Paper Man, The Dog, Kyoko and possibly Komaki when they were all in middle school.
‘Cept the dog, who was just… I dunno. Will be explained in the next episode!

Well then, what would normally take me 20 minutes to watch took me over 2 hours to write up, take frame captures and put it up. All for a show that isn’t really my favourite right now, but is pretty interesting. The art in this show looks quite well done, and it’s unfortunately hampered by however the person providing the show is recording it. To watch this, then look at an almost crystal clear image from Code Geass, it’s quite a difference. I’m getting these from Shinsen-Subs, who at the end of the episodes put in some additional information regarding the background of some of the things mentioned, because a lot of the mythologies and locations and beliefs in this show have real-life counterparts. This wasn’t a very action packed episode, but it gave us a little more insight into the characters.