Kamisama Dolls

[Buffalobiian]

- Kirio's been treated like crap for so long. He's obviously never been properly treated to a nice dinner. Koushirou is a good guy, and he's got a good wife too. That was a bit unexpected.

Totally. He looked like some punk who'd have his own messy room somewhere where he just sits in a dark corner and drink all day in a singlet or something. And his house was pretty modern and western compared to the rest of the village. I wonder if that's a difference between the Hyuuga and Kaga - resistance vs will to change? Nothing to really back this up other than it being a random idea.

Either Utao's really light, or Hibino's got some uber anti-rapist pants that offer 35KGs worth of resistive force unless you take them off properly. :P

[Ryllharu]

Either Utao's really light, or Hibino's got some uber anti-rapist pants that offer 35KGs worth of resistive force unless you take them off properly. :P

It's Hibino's spectacular hips and stellar ass. Utao was hanging off the front, so Hibino's hips and plump bottom were holding up her pants and Utao.

[Buffalobiian]

HorribleSubs - Episode 07

[NeoCybercoin]

Pretty good episode. Actually feel bad for Aki.

[Buffalobiian]

Pretty good episode.

Really? Holy Shit episode I thought...


Okay, maybe objectively speaking it wasn't that much of a spin, but still, I was riding the emotional wave there. Certainly stuff happened that I would never have thought of. For one, did Aki look like the crash-kid, or the kid's dad? That's some wtf mentality there..

Actually feel bad for Aki.

Same. This episode completely turned around my (and I'd think an overwhelming majority of the audience's) opinion that Aki was screwed in the head, to agreeing with him that the village is a shithole. Kyouhei wasn't wrong when he said in the beginning that the village's been left behind in time - including the ruling structure.

I guess the thing that kinda left me stunned was that they the following in one smooth go: reputation/rumours and their damages, the perceived right and wrong conducts of teachers and nature-vs-nurture of kids.

Kyouhei didn't tell us exactly why he stopped being a Seki as well. Maybe he himself doesn't even know. Was it to honour his teacher's words to not abuse privileges and he recognises the possibility or potential in himself - or even just owning a Kakashi? Was it so he can distant himself from all of these Seki, including the raping guy and Aki? Or was it to cut as many strings as possible with the village because he too saw it in a negative light?

The last thought definitely leads to his eventual leaving of the village, but his initial reason for resigning still begs to be answered somewhat - though it's probably not that important since the overall gist is pretty clear. Then again, "honouring the teacher" would have had something to do with it as well, since Kyouhei realises already that he didn't really have as much push as the offending Seki because he was still a kid in school. He could have instead kept Kukuri and followed in that guy's footsteps in using his power to realise his own personal justice.

I guess I feel a bit better knowing you can override a kakashi if you were more talented or if you had more will. I wasn't quite sure I'd like the idea of Kyouhei re-performing the ritual and taking Utao's kakashi from her as if she failed at her role. Come to think of it, Kukuri under Kyouhei's control this episode sang a little more deeply, from memory.. compared to the current one.

[Ryllharu]

I think the bigger "holy shit" was that it was Kyouhei controlling Kukuri when Kirio had it on the ropes and was about to utterly destroy it. A kakashi's song changes depending on who controls it. The more complex it is, the better they are at using it. The song coming out of Kukuri when it used the absorption and return-fire was exactly the song it sings when Kyouhei controls it. Utao was so emotionally flustered back in episode 5 that she could barely make Kukuri flop around.

I think despite Kyouhei feeling betrayed by Aki at the time, the gory scene was the moment Aki convinced Kyouhei that he had been right all along. They've talked about it before, with Kyouhei getting enraged remembering (apparently this incident among others). Kyouhei just doesn't want to admit it to Aki.

edit: One detail that I rather liked was that the teacher wasn't a pure, innocent victim like Kyouhei originally thought during the flashback. She really did have sex with the father of one of her students. Everyone in this series is shades of grey.

[Buffalobiian]

I think despite Kyouhei feeling betrayed by Aki at the time, the gory scene was the moment Aki convinced Kyouhei that he had been right all along. They've talked about it before, with Kyouhei getting enraged remembering (apparently this incident among others). Kyouhei just doesn't want to admit it to Aki.

Right about what?

Good pickup on the Kukuri thing. I forgot about that..

edit: One detail that I rather liked was that the teacher wasn't a pure, innocent victim like Kyouhei originally thought during the flashback. She really did have sex with the father of one of her students. Everyone in this series is shades of grey.

Except Hibino. To date she's pretty pure white.

[Xelbair]

Wild guess - you cannot stop being Seki. Even through the Aki wasn't the Seki anymore he could still control his old Kakashi, and as Ryll pointed out same thing had happened with Kukuri.

[Ryllharu]

Right about what?

That the whole place is a shithole, and that Aki isn't the crazy one, the village elders and hierarchy are.

Except Hibino. To date she's pretty pure white.

I figured you would say that, and while she's certainly the closest, I still disagree. Hibino isn't doing everything out of selflessness. She asked to go to the village, and the benefit is that she finally got to visit her mother's grave again. She also didn't go purely out of the desire to learn about her family's past, or to visit her mother's grave, or to protect Utao. We don't know the exact reason she gave her father (probably visit her mother's grave), but we found out a bit more from her walk in the forest with Moyako. Hibino didn't, "seem too put off by it." She wants to get closer to Kyouhei...really close. She's like an #FAFAFA.

[Buffalobiian]

HorribleSubs - Episode 08

[NeoCybercoin]

Huge tits are huge.

[Buffalobiian]

HorribleSubs - Episode 09

[Buffalobiian]

HorribleSubs - Episode 10

[shinta|hikari]

Just how powerful is that left arm supposed to be?

The barrier skill of Mahiru is kinda cheap since it is specifically anti-seki, but if they fought in open air it should be easy to neutralize.

[Buffalobiian]

Just how powerful is that left arm supposed to be?

The barrier skill of Mahiru is kinda cheap since it is specifically anti-seki, but if they fought in open air it should be easy to neutralize.

Yeah. It does have its limits though. From what we've seen, the barrier has to have her Kakashi in the center (or there abouts), is determined by the length of her wires (if their length limits the practicality of the barrier), and requires the wires to be attached onto something (ie they can't just free-form a dome from pure air). Still, Koushirou and Aki's kakashis are only capable of physical attacks, so their offensive capabilities are pretty much neutralised as opposed to long range types like Kukuri and Takemikazuchi.

Aki's speed would have beaten her too, if the Seki aren't so focused on just using the kakashis and actually thought about attacking the opposing Seki personally while their kakashis are engaged.

It also hasn't been established as to how much skill is required to use the barrier even though Mahiru said she read it in the manual. It sounds like she's an even more talented than Kyouhei is normally. (normally as in when they're not pushed into life/death Limit Break mode). Ryll's theory that the complexity of their tune reflecting the Seki's skill/potential seems to hold true thus far, and Mahiru's a bloody guitar riff.

So right now the families are:

Kuga - Aki, Utao, Kyohei
Hyuga - Koushiro, Kirio, Mahiru

Until this episode I had always been assuming Aki was on the other side and that the Hyuga were cleaning up their own mess of a Seki.

[Ryllharu]

Mahiru is so obsessively insane it's a bit disappointing. I hate to say it, but she is (so far) everything we thought Aki was until the flashback. He got a great deal of depth from his flashback, but in her own flashback, Mahiru is only the lesser. She throws glorious little fits, but she feels a little shallow. I'm hoping that the next episode adds a bit more to her. Right now, she's half child (not in the good way that Utao and Kirio are), and half obsessive stalker. The one thing I did like about her introduction was that the very first thing her kakashi did was try to kill Hibino. It proves that if anything, she's the monster, and not Aki. She was crying her eyes out in the flashback, lost all control from fear when she attempted to control the holy sap in [Amaterasu], but she was the one who broke the most that day.

As for the barrier, she specifically mentions the Kami no Chi (holy sap stuff). Like Buff said, it probably requires an immense level of control. She uses the barrier to interfere with a Seki's ability to control a kakashi, but she's doing it by stopping the Kami no Chi directly. She isn't blocking the transmission, she's blocking everything else. It would be like stopping a remote control toy by physically holding on to all its motors, gears and servos, rather than just covering the antenna. Actually not even that, it's like she's holding electrons still. So she may very well be more talented than Kyouhei, but uses nearly all of it just to use her kakashi's unique ability.

As for Kukuri's left arm, it simply returns everything it is struck with. In the first episode, we all assumed Kyouhei used a supercharged version of Kukuri's eye beam to fry the rampaging kakashi. What we know now because Mahiru witnessed it, is that Kukuri's eye beam was never powerful enough to stop [Amaterasu]. In his subconscious/insane state, Kyouhei opened the arm, and returned the full force of the blast it received. It can probably take anything and everything that is sent at it. We don't know if that also extends to physical attacks, or if is only the energy blasts.

[Ryllharu]

[HorribleSubs] Kamisama Dolls -11 (720p)


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Kamisama Dolls never fails to convince me within 5 minutes why it is my favorite show this season. It's the little touches. Mahiru idly twirls the stun gun around her finger by the strap. If it was any other show, her speech would end and she'd confidently grasp it. But in this series, it flies off her finger like it would anyone else's, and she curses and leaves the frame to pick it back up.

It comes off in a casual way that never feels forced, and it really adds to the whole environment of the series. It makes the characters feel like real people, even if some of them are a touch exaggerated (Kuuko).

I'm not sure what to think about Mahiru now. She's obviously still a child mentally. She wasn't nefarious as I thought she might be, but she's certainly not thinking ahead. She probably figured killing Hibino would turn Kyouhei against her, but she doesn't seem to have much of a plan at all. As villains go, she's pretty weak. I guess that is to be expected, since she is being manipulated by the diet member and his staffer in a power struggle for dominance over the village. She felt like yet another comedy relief character (Utao is really enough all by herself) after she hopped up on top of Hibino and fondled her without really threatening Hibino or doing anything.

I do like her preference to teleport onto tables and desks, any surface that puts her physically above her audience or targets. It fits with her personality and superiority complex so well.

[Buffalobiian]

Kamisama Dolls never fails to convince me within 5 minutes why it is my favorite show this season.

Every episode Kamisama Dolls reminds why I can't like it 100%, even though I'm pretty damn close to it.

It's because even though they do everything correctly (one could argue), every episode's the same format:

-Spend the first 20 minutes of the episode resolving the cliffhanger from last episode
-Move the story along a bit, throw in some comedic relief
-Throw in a curve-ball cliffhanger in the last 30 seconds or less
-See you next week. (Kukuri's corner and OP/ED take up the rest of the time)


The formula's not bad. It clearly works. I just guess that even the best formula can get predictable and therefore introduce a certain amount of boredom with repetition. It also leaves us with not too much to discuss here since they clear up mostly everything in the episode, and the cliffhanger's all guesses.

The only episode that really broke the mould (and I'm unsure if I liked that as one of my favourite episodes for that reason) was the flashback ep with the sexing teacher.

Talking about flashback, according to Mahiru's memory Kukuri absorbed some energy before firing a return shot at the rogue kakashi, indicating that it's not entirely a counter-style weapon that can't take the initiative to attack. Kyouhei didn't seem too phased when Kukuri returned Takemikazuchi's shot, so he must have either been able to use Kakashi's left arm without losing consciousness since the rogue-kakashi incident, or he sort of out of it when he recently saved Kukuri too.

Teleporting - with people. Yeah, that's pretty hax.

[Xelbair]

I still think that Kukuri moved on its own, well maybe not fully on its own - it just assisted the Seki, back then, and i think that Kakashi have some kind of soul inside them, in Aki's one there is probably the teacher's soul right now - i'm just guessing, mind you - his 'discussion' with it hints at that(few eps ago).

[Buffalobiian]

HorribleSubs - Episode 12