Brynhildr in the Darkness

[Kraco]

"When he was a child, Murakami was infatuated with a girl he called Kuroneko. She insisted on knowing about aliens and having met them, but no one believed her, even young Murakami was skeptical. One day, she decides to show him the aliens, but an accident occurs and Kuroneko dies while Murakami is left seriously wounded in the hospital.

Years go by and Murakami obsesses on finding proof of the existence of aliens because of a promise he had made with Kuroneko. Then, one day, a new transfer student comes to his class, who not only looks a lot like Kuroneko, but is named Kuroha Neko!" -Manga-Updates

Genres: Action, comedy, seinen, mystery, romance, sci-fi, tragedy
Links: Official | AniDB |ANN
Download: Episode 1 - HS





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Considering this is from the creator of Elfen Lied and the genres weren't anything weird, I had no choice but to check this show out. I can't really compare how much I liked this to Elfen Lied as my objectivity wouldn't reach 10%, but still I'll venture to say this didn't begin as boldly. Nevertheless, this looked vaguely interesting on its own, and considering the author, I guess blood will be spilt. Actually already was, even if it was something as silly as a girl slapping a foolish guy enough to send blood flying...

Anybody could see the similarities between the stories, but let's give this a chance to show if it can stand on its own. I'll keep watching for now, though so far a couple of other shows this season impressed me more.

[David75]

As I stated in the generic thread for the start of the season, I was a little put off by that last scene.
I did react too, to the blood flying quite high to the window.
Somehow, Kuroha Neko could be one of multiple clones.
Regarding moles, I was wondering if they were not tatoes too. After all the dots were small enough that with the right color it would be hard to clearly tell... unless you watch very closely which I doubt the guy did at the time.

[NeoCybercoin]

Plus it was raining and if she is the same girl than she could easily have the same marks but people do grow so maybe it moved more to her right and thus still being underneath her clothes.

[Kraco]

Episode 2 - HS





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These witches are even worse off than the diclonius of Elfen Lied. The total scumbag scientists are the same, though. Apparently the witches are dying in any case, whether they are captured or not. A single press of a button and they die all the more gruesomely.

I don't think this story will have a happy ending, haha.

[NeoCybercoin]

I expected a more gruesome scene with her melting like that. But at least they did show that.

[MasterOfMoogles]

I hope we don't end up with more shoujos turned to goop

[NeoCybercoin]

This is what happens to the girls who are captured again. Unless they got some awesome power I take it. And a bunch of them escaped so I think we will be seeing more....goo girls later.

[Ryllharu]

[HorribleSubs] - Brynhildr in the Darkness 03

Dissolvable girls makes for easy disposal! No mess cleanup! Order your witch today!



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Well, it was a slow first two episodes, but it has finally picked up and my interest has officially been piqued. Passed the three episode test.

It wasn't too hard to guess that Neko would still be his childhood friend. I had initially assumed that her moles were removed by the lab, but them moving on her boob as she developed large ones works fine too. Murakami having a perfect memory is a bit lame though. That's like Japan's go-to special ability for male characters. Would have been better if he said something like, "My uncle worked there, and I asked him one time. We'll use the internet to look up what that code means." The execution here, "I read it in a book once that I was looking at for no reason, my memory is perfect," felt like a bit too convenient to maintain believability.


That said, I'm really hoping the pills are something completely commonplace, like baking soda, aspirin, or ammonia. The girls are manipulated to no end anyway, it's not hard to make the leap that they could be cheaply controlled by their "death suppressants" being a miracle drug to them and a rounding error to the lab that created them.

[David75]

You mean it could be K Vitamin, like the antidote for anti-rodent poison? And the device they use to enhance their powers creates such poison.
Why do I think about that? Well, because I think I read that rodent poison causes major bleeding in said rodent and the antidote is K Vitamin.

Double A second power probably is something like a hypnotic effect where she's able to project any mental image.
In our case, she projects Neko's death. While the enemy is stuck in a fearsome outcome, she has the time to slaughter them with her 6 meters radius cutter...

So I guess the guy, knowing this, decided to shounen-shout to get rid of the illusion and try and keypress the hold button. I wonder if he can be fast enough though.

[Ryllharu]

Could be Vitamin K.

I'm definitely guessing it is something commonplace, but not overly abundant. The two girls we know still had plenty of pills left, while the hacker one ran out even though she has been taking pills as payment from the other escapees. This of course assumes all of the escapees divided them equally when they fled.

The two girls have been eating lots of wild herbs and plants, some of which are probably rich in Vitamin K.

The real reason I think it is something readily available is the fourth girl shown in the OP. She obviously shows up after this, so unless she's a future defector, she's surviving somehow.

[David75]

Wikipedia says that you need around 120 micro-grams a day and is covered by usual meals.
One pill could easily contain 50 or even 100 times that amount, you can't eat enough to cover one pill a day (30 hours is already quite late)
But it could be those pills contain something else. After all, trying to resupply is a plot device that can be used 2 or 3 times in 24 episodes for example.

[Kraco]

I suppose what it is would depent on whether its a genuine medicine needed to combat some side effects from their witch modifications or purely a method to control them. If the former, it could be anything, like David's vitamin K, but if it's the latter, logic would dictate it's something a bit more complicated so that escapees wouldn't be able to acquire it easily, for example an enzyme.

I fully agree on the main character dude's power coming out of nowhere and for no particular reason. It would have been at least partially remedied if it had been used in the beginning: For example saying the dude was bullied as a kid because of his unnatural memory and Neko was his only friend because of that.

[Kraco]

Episode 4 - HS






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I can't help but think this author has a gift for creating nasty situations, clandestine government agencies, and scumbag scientists, but the story is a bit dodgy otherwise here and there. At least I hope there's enough guile here so that the yet another transfer student isn't actually the AA+ witch the scientist was talking about but simply another one of the escaped witches.

These witches' situation is very grim and cruel, I've to say. Much worse than Stargåte's Jaffas. It's quite an interesting setting, to see how they struggle to spend their remaining days meaningfully.

Times have clearly changed: The onsen part was so censored, as opposed to the stuff in Elfen Lied. It was still much better than the usual "Kyaaa! Pervert!" scenes of the more average anime.

[David75]

Only one scene was really out of place:
You experience someone melting like icream on a hot plate right in front of you, and you do not even bat an eye.
But a slimy green thing with multiple eyes makes you shout out of fear.
Yeah right...

[Ryllharu]

At least I hope there's enough guile here so that the yet another transfer student isn't actually the AA+ witch the scientist was talking about but simply another one of the escaped witches.
...
Times have clearly changed: The onsen part was so censored, as opposed to the stuff in Elfen Lied. It was still much better than the usual "Kyaaa! Pervert!" scenes of the more average anime.

Of course she's the AA+ they sent. The girls really are naïve if they think that they can stay in a school that is obviously nearby and go unnoticed for too long. They got sold out by their peer anyway. The obvious solution to this is that Ryouta figures out how to make the pills from that tablet, removing the need for this new girl to continue to be beholden to the lab and thus betray them by feeding false reports.

I'm also assuming that the baby alien capsule is critical to the Seele-Lite's grand plan that needs to be initiated by the lab as soon as possible. The escapees obviously took it with them during transport, maybe one of them knew how important it was, definitely not our heroine, unless she forgot about it later.

Also, for the particular type fans this manga is meant to appeal to, that onsen scene wasn't censored at all. For the rest of us, maybe so. I am disappointed that Ryouta didn't go grasping at her boob to find the moles (that we the audience know are there). He's stern enough to go unphased as girls dissolve, but he can't handle boobs and "a girl's junk". Go figure.

[Kraco]

You experience someone melting like icream on a hot plate right in front of you, and you do not even bat an eye.
But a slimy green thing with multiple eyes makes you shout out of fear.

He's stern enough to go unphased as girls dissolve, but he can't handle boobs and "a girl's junk". Go figure.

It's clear he can handle death better than life. It's a result of watching his first love fall to death (as far as he knows) and living ever after with the feeling it was his fault. However, I actually think how he attacked the alien with berserk rage was a result of being shaken by the dissolving girl. He just didn't turn into a screaming, panicked wreck, probably partially because of all the adrenaline and on the other hand Neko remaining alive. In any case this whole drug thieving operation alone proves he's quite levelheaded, so it's cool he stays cool in action (at least as long as Neko isn't dying). Obviously he's a total n00b in relationships so being embarrassed is given.

[David75]

Ah, so the scene was so violent that he didn't react at first and that green thing was a way to let out all of this?
Why not.

Ryll: So they try to appeal to footfetishits. But before that onsen scene, it wasn't obvious. But I guess that would lead to women power and men inferiority. Would it also explain why those girls have to suffer so much and get killed in such ways at the hands of guys who have have a psychotic inferiority complex?

[Ryllharu]

I think it was obvious, but only in retrospect. The girls always seem to kick him in the face, not slap or punch him.

[David75]

I can't remember.

I just hope the show will remain entertaining.

[Archangel]

Episode 6

Did we really need to go through all that to arrive at the obvious conclusion? I thought this guy was supposed to be smart, you'd think it wouldn't take that long to figure out the utility behind the swap ability.