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happymetalgirl · 4 years

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July 2020

Machine Head - Civil Unrest

On this two-song EP, Robb Flynn once again leans into spur-of-the-moment inspiration in an effort to jolt Machine Head out of the creative fatigue that plagued the polarizing Catharsis, but unfortunately the approach that didn’t really work for “Volatile” doesn’t really work for “Stop the Bleeding” or “Bulletproof”, and it all adds up upon the revelation that these songs are constructed from scraps off the Catharsis kitchen floor. Robb’s finger is on the pulse of the tension underlying American politics and his heart is in the right place (which I commend him for his steadfastness to in the face of the apparently sizable chud subset of Machine Head’s fanbase), he just needs to take his delivery a little off the nose. Of the two songs, “Bulletproof” is definitely the stronger and more hard-hitting, while the goofy 2000′s metalcore melodicism of “Stop the Bleeding” meshes poorly with the grim subject matter Robb attaches to the track. In the grand scheme of Machine Head’s career, this EP (and the two non-album singles that preceded it last year) is disappointing filler that does nothing to lift the band out of the dry creative well they’ve found themselves in.

5/10

Khemmis - More Songs About Death, Vol. 1

A much more solid two-track EP, Khemmis’ More Songs About Death, Vol. 1 is comprised of a groovy cover of Misfits’ “Skulls” and an acoustic rendition of the folk song, “A Conversation with Death”, that the band had covered electrically for a split they did with Spirit Adrift. The band adapt well to the more original acoustic style of the latter song, as soulful as ever even with acoustic subtlety replacing their open-hearted doom metal. As for the Misfits cover, the band apply their signature harmonic doom guitar work to give it a signature seal while adhering to the core foundation of the song, and they show that the song does take to their brand of doom quite well. After Desolation and being signed to Nuclear Blast, Khemmis sure were excited to get working on their fourth LP. Now that of course sits on the list of many projects the pandemic has forcefully postponed, but these kinds of offerings and the band’s hinting that they might just come out of this with two albums’ worth of material is helping make the wait a little more bearable. Thank you as always, Khemmis.

more respect to Khemmis/10

Inter Arma - Garbers Days Revisited

Coming off the back of their magnum opus, Sulphur English, Inter Arma’s offering to hold the quarantined world over until the band’s next opus is a quick (by their standards) covers album of metal and hardcore classics, as well as some surprising classic and southern rock tunes. And the band manage the eight diverse songs with an impressive display of two-way adaptability. Turning “The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill” into a blackgaze blast-beat fest and “Scarecrow” and into a crushing blackened sludge-doom epic while layering their atmospheric black metal smoothly over the old-school rock grooves of Neil Young’s “Southern Man” Inter Arma show an aptitude for selecting cover songs that fit their style. It sure helps that they’re a versatile act too, bending their mammothian heaviness to suit the core appeal of covers of Cro-Mags’ “Hard Times”, Nine Inch Nails’ “March of the Pigs”, and Venom’s “In League with Satan” while shedding all that sludge to expose their southern rock roots on (slightly) more stripped back tunes like “Runnin’ Down a Dream” and Prince’s “Purple Rain” (a closer so fittingly beautiful it seems almost unfair), which find them embellishing soulfully and clearly enjoying themselves in the studio. A lineup of tracks like this would make be nervous for whatever band was trying to tackle them, but Inter Arma prove that can shapeshift back to their southern roots just as well as they can bulldoze as needed to do their own justice to these several tracks, making for one of the best cover albums I’ve heard for a while.

8/10

This Will Destroy You - Vespertine

Serving as a soundtrack project for a highly rated California This Will Destroy You seemingly took a long time with this project, having released the “Kitchen” single in 2017 under the same premise. The album is entirely ambient, and not quite as experimental with glitchy electro-ambiance as projects like Tunnel Blanket or Another Language were. Instead, Vespertine highlights the serene/somber atmospheric foundation of the band’s post-metal/rock sound that made the Young Mountain EP and their self-titled LP such transcendent experiences and exemplary advocates for post-rock upon their release. And it’s a great display of just how the band’s discernible ambient style can shine through even such a minimal approach. It is basic ambient music for sure, no additives, but it’s unmistakably This Will Destroy You to those who know them, and it hearkens back to some of their best work, so I see it as a welcome addition to the band’s catalog.

7/10

Static-X - Project Regeneration, Vol. 1

Rebooted in honor of Wayne Static after his untimely passing in 2017 the original line-up and Dope frontman Edsel Dope behind a mask resembling the late singer and the pseudonym Xer0, Static-X return after over a decade of radio silence since 2009′s Cult of Static to mesh the final recordings of Wayne Static for the band with contributions from Xer0 on the first of two volumes of new material under this premise of paying tribute. Despite the lengthy absence and the loss of the band’s central creative force, the album is a mostly smooth transition from Cult of Static with some callbacks to the electro industrial metal of earlier albums like Shadow Zone and Machine. While it captures the essence of Static-X across its 39-minute track list with a handful of hard-hitting industrial nu metal bangers, Project Regeneration - Vol. 1 is a bit of a dry recount of the band’s legacy, and I hope the band saved the better chunk of songs for the second installment.

6/10

An Autumn for Crippled Children - All Fell Silent, Everything Went Quiet

An Autumn for Crippled Children is an anonymous Dutch trio who are helping to keep the blackgaze movement going with their eighth full-length album here. The band released their seventh not long ago in 2018, but this year’s is my introduction to the band, which has been a pleasant one. All Fell Silent, Everything Went Quiet is a moderately sized offering of heartfelt blackgaze as you know it from the likes of Deafheaven and Ghost Bath channeled through more second-wave-like stylings of the Norwegian black metal scene; so it sounds kind of like if Mayhem made more open-hearted music rather than deflected edginess through Satan-worshipping (not to shit on Mayhem or anything). There is more to this album, however, than just diluted or lo-fi Deafheaven worship; through the haze of the band’s fuzzy blackgaze is some pretty dynamic songwriting and impressive. More than just soaking distorted guitars in reverb and juxtaposing blackmetal screams with post-rock ambiance, An Autumn for Crippled Children capture some of that emotional diversity that makes blackgaze at its best (...Sunbather) so divinely captivating. And the spacious beauty the band conjures out of the negative space in the static-y guitars and thin percussion on songs like “Water’s Edge”, “Paths”, and the title track is surprisingly enveloping, but the standout cut on the album I’d say is the very unashamedly Ghost-Bath-y “Silver” for its overt heartfelt delivery with every instrument and its integration of what even sounds like a piano. I doubt this would convert many black metal purists who idolize Burzum and Darkthrone. In fact I bet this album would upset them even more than New Bermuda, but for those without a stick up their ass, looking for some juicy blackgaze with a different set of ingredients than your Harakiri for the Sky or Wolves in the Throne Room, this is some good shit.

8/10

Bury Tomorrow - Cannibal

I gave this one a good several tries because 2018’s Black Flame grew on me significantly after my incredibly underwhelmed first couple of listens, but sadly Cannibal strikes melodic metalcore gold far less often than its predecessor and finds Bury Tomorrow knee deep in the unflattering tropes that the genre is trying to shake off. With a pretty one-note approach to melodicism that results in a largely homogeneously flat emotional tone across the album, it’s definitely a step down from the emboldened and invigorated Black Flame that negates any sense of the band’s ambition that that album might have given off. I can point out “Better Below” and the brief breakdown on “Gods & Machines” as mild highlights in the tracklist, but they only really stand out because the rest of the surrounding tracks are so dry. I’d like to say that things just didn’t click this time or that some experiments just didn’t pan out, but it’s quite clearly just the lack of imagination and ambition that sinks this project deep into the background of forgettable metalcore, and I know this band can do better.

4/10

Kansas - The Absence of Presence

They’re hardly even metal-adjacent but for their sizable contribution to the 70′s prog rock movement that such a huge proportion of metalheads are into, a new Kansas album I suppose counts as on-topic for this blog. The band returned after a decade and a half of absence with a stuttering restart without iconic vocalist Steve Walsh on 2016′s The Prelude Implicit, and it was clear that they needed to do more than yearn for glory days to get the gears back in motion, so with The Absence of Presence the band’s new blood has stepped up to the plate to inject some freshness into the band’s compositional process. The band still sticks to that core violin-spiced prog rock that characterized their iconic 70′s albums, but the structuring and soloing style (especially the keys) are a bit more modernized than the band’s past work, and by modern I mean what Dream Theater sounded like in the 2000′s. Make no mistake, though, it’s an improvement on The Prelude Implicit, and it highlights the band’s talents and natural grandiose tendencies far more than the radio rock singles they’re most widely known for, and the cinematic bridge of the opening title track is sturdy proof of this. It’s a testament to the influence they have had on modern prog through the genre’s biggest bands like Dream Theater, and perhaps a testament to the two-wayedness of that street as well as fun, bombastic tunes like “Throwing Mountains” sound like they would fit easily on something like A Dramatic Turn of Events or as a break from all the melancholy on a Steven Wilson project. The album does wear a little thin on ballads like “Memories Down the Line”, but it makes up for its duller moments with plenty of exuberant prog expressiveness on most of the songs (the closing track being probably the standout example), which should be a good time for most of the band’s fans who fondly remember albums like Masque and Monolith, and any newer prog fans who may not be aware of the band’s influence on today’s prog metal.

7/10

Haken - Virus

Speaking of respectable modern prog though, Haken’s aptly named album this year serves as quite the easy bar to clear for prog metal so far this decade. I regretfully missed out on their 2018 sister album, Vector, but I am partially mending that ill by covering Virus here. Like I said earlier, it’s a solid record that captures the smoothness and tempered heaviness of Soen and the attitude of early Opeth with the angularity of Tool, but even if it ends up being the year’s best prog metal album, I don’t think it will be too long before one of the genre’s juggernauts (or even exciting new faces) kamehamehas this one away. The album starts out pretty solid in its first few tracks, but remains pretty meager and restrained in its explosiveness until midway through the album, relying on rather short bursts of typical prog heaviness like the opening of “Prosthetic”, whose rumbly bassline is a delicious highlight amongst the Townsend-esque choir implementation. The ten-minute “Carousel” ups the band’s expressiveness after the deceptive soothe of the second track with a clash of goth-y ambiance and pounding metallic bombast. The five-part “Messiah Complex” suite finds the band at their most adventurous, straddling the winding mid-song compositional whirl of Dream Theater with the occasional eccentricity and djenty heaviness of producer Nolly’s former band Periphery, the band still sound themselves and confident in every move they make, like true prog masters, ending beautifully on the two-minute “Only Stars”. I think it might end up being the year’s best straight-up prog metal album, and the band have worked hard to earn that honor, but I would honestly be surprised if someone else or Haken themselves don’t outdo it within a year. That’s to take away from what an exciting 52 minutes of prog this is, because with such a moderate runtime for such a tight prog album, it’s definitely deserving of the respect of a top album in its field.

8/10

Skeleton - Skeleton

Even though I tend to end up liking them, I find myself skeptical of projects whose aesthetic feels forcedly retro or whose marketing is focused heavily on nostalgia, and the self-titled debut from the Austin-based trio, Skeleton, complete with its intentionally cheesy and amateurish cover art, definitely checked those boxes. I even got the sense from 20 Buck Spin (being that I’m on their mailing list and follow their accounts and all) that they were more excited than usual to be releasing the trio’s debut. And honestly, after a few listens through of not being all too aroused by the crusty proto-death metal at the core of the band’s sound, the traditional heavy metal focus on infectious guitar riffs helped the album grow on me a good bit. The stylistic versatility of the guitar playing really is the cornerstone of the album, from the Kill ‘Em All-style riffs on “Taste of Blood” and early Sepultura-esque galloping on “At War” to the blackened punk grit of “A Far Away Land” and the even more catchy classic metal riffs on “Turned to Stone” and the melancholic old-school doom atmosphere on “Ring of Fire”. The snarled black metal vocals are gnarly in that old-school sense, throaty and raspy but kind of cheesily thin too to fit with the aesthetic the band are going for, and it’s a pretty similar story with the drums: not flashy at all by today’s standards but just right to supplement the guitar work and complete the vibe. And of course with 11 tracks not even grazing the half hour mark, the songs are pretty trim and compositionally bare bones, falling into quick, crust punk formats foregoing the typical verse-chorus paradigm. Yes, Skeleton has grown on me, and I’m curious to see if they end up expanding this sound like Ghost did from Opus Eponymous to stay creatively fresh or if they plan to draw from the long-abandoned (or less frequented) wells of musical elements they did on this album for the foreseeable future.

7/10

Burzum - Thulêan Mysteries

I know that in a lot of circles (including some I consider myself a part of), saying something even vaguely positive about Burzum invites a wave of disapproval for supporting (or at the very least, excusing) the black metal world’s most notorious villain’s racism, but I can’t say with a straight that Varg Vikernes didn’t play a huge part in shaping Norwegian black metal as we know it or that I don’t like Filosofem or Hvis lyset tar oss. I don’t think that amounts to supporting the guy’s racist bullshit, and luckily Varg has made it pretty easy not to support his racist bullshit because Burzum has been shit for a long long time now; in fact I’d say Filosofem was the last worthwhile Burzum album, with his pathetically bad ambient records during and after his time in prison and the three stale black metal albums that welcomed him back from prison. After such a weak return to music from prison and Burzum’s discontinuation-turned-hiatus, it seemed overdue that Varg finally retire the Burzum project after the unimaginative ambiance of The Ways of Yore. I mean the project has thoroughly emulated the trope of the white guy who views everything he touches as way more genius than anyone else does, which is pretty rich for a guy so willing to dismiss the current black metal scene as derivative, and he’s seemed more invested in whatever it is he’s been doing on YouTube or his blog. Nevertheless, Varg remains an infamous figure in metal probably to a lot of dudes who think there’s some esoteric genius to decode in his lore, to an extent I find kinda disturbing. The weird reverence a lot of the metal community has for the neo-nazi murderer’s cult of personality (the vast majority of whose discography is masturbatory throwaway doodling) is astounding. So this guy’s back, with an hour and a half of, by his own account, ambient scraps of dungeon synth music that he built up over an extended period of time and basically figured he’d compile into an album (because, like I said, everything he touches must be gold in his eyes), and goddamn it sure sounds like exactly what he pitches it as. The first track, “The Sacred Well”, is actually pretty soothing and decent helping of ethereal ambient music, but it doesn’t take long for things to go downhill. The annoyingly repetitive acoustic motif of “ForeBears” and the absolutely amateurish improvised piano plinking of “A Thulêan Perspective” quickly shed light on just how lazily patched together this thing is, while the subsequent “Gathering of Herbs” literally cuts off awkwardly like the full track didn’t upload fully. A few tracks like “Jötunnheimr” and “The Road to Hel” offer some fleeting promise in their eeriness, but they disappear as quickly as most of the tracks here do, in a flash of confusion as clearly incomplete ideas piled into an album for no reason that even Varg can justify. The last third of the album contains some of the longer tracks, but the swapping of fragments of half-assed keyboard doodles for half-assed demos spread thinner than tissue paper is a trade-off akin to the upcoming general election and it’s too little and way too late. I have to highlight the laughably farty synthesizer horns on “Ruins of Dwarfmount”; I mean thank god it’s quick because it’s absolutely awful, but the chuckle I get out of how bad it is is probably the best experience I have from this whole album. Just about everything on here is some combination of irritatingly repetitive, blatantly incomplete, or grossly unprofessional, and the thing that gets me is that it’s not like ambient music or dungeon synth is any sort of rocket science. I’m not at all the kind of music genius Varg’s weird devotees see him to be, but given the same equipment, even I could undoubtedly make a better ambient album than this. Although I’m not nearly as well-versed in ambient music as I am in metal, I have heard enough of a chunk of it to say I know the good shit and the bad shit, but honestly, this album is a new low for me. I didn’t know an ambient album could suck this much. It’s like an extended Daudi Baldrs with a slightly better keyboard, but with no excuse this time for the cheapness of the sound and certainly not the length. Yeah, piece of shit.

2/10

Boris - NO

Tokyo’s prolific sonic shapeshifters have all but given up on giving up, and I suppose the title of this year’s record summarizes their brief questioning of if they stop making music. The band’s first intended farewell album, Dear, which found them (not really) bowing out to the sorrowful drone doom of their most iconic record (Pink), was followed them by last year’s LφVE & EVφL, which saw them revisiting various shades of their career as comfortably as ever. NO finds the power trio on another stylistic tour of sorts, this time through some of their heaviest and most grimy territory, starting from brooding sludge doom to spending most of the album on Slayer-esque thrash and hardcore punk ripe with gritty attitude. The production is thick and nasty as is usually best for Boris, but the writing on this record is just kind of absent-minded for such a stylistically varied project. While the more drony opener, “Genesis”, rides its runtime well on the raw heaviness that the band put the pure simplicity of their slow groove through, the farther the band step away from their wheelhouse, the more apparent sparseness becomes of the more underwritten songs like the meatheadedly punky “Kikinoue” and “Fundamental Error”. We get some crushing riffs like that on “Anti-Gone”, but also some clumsy wailing about like on the song “Lust” that calls into question the effort Boris put in at the drawing board. The sheer power is there, but it’s being used generally inefficiently on a sizeable portion of NO. Still, it’s pretty cool to hear Boris at this pace, and the pure energy they pour into this project is enough to get the job done.

7/10

Tuscoma - Discourse

Tuscoma’s follow-up to the wildly eccentric Arkhitecturenominus is gets off to a slow start with its rather generic churn of blowtorch-blackened post-metal through its first two tracks and is short on risks for the reputably ambitious duo, but Discourse does eventually kick in to dig deep to tap as much of the frightful potential of the band’s sound and showcases a decent example of what the New Zealanders are known for and of lies out in left-field of post-metal.

6/10

Executioner’s Mask - Despair Anthems

Making their debut as a collective for Profound Lore, the quintet of seasoned post-punk creatives embark on an eccentric voyage through darkwave on a ship of modern gothic rock, and the results are as fascinating as they sound on paper, recalling the cerebral ritualism of Children of God-era Swans as much as the energetically veiled despair of Type O Negative and AFI while dipping the rock elements into the industrial side of darkwave every now and then. And again, the product is an effortless immersiveness into the record’s moody journey, not through atmosphere-building, but through the infectiousness of the goth dance numbers take you on. It’s certainly more of a metal-adjacent album than a bonafide metal album, but the way the band captures the despair they set out to is as effective through more subtly seething means as DSBM’s best, and the band’s adventurousness with their sonic palette alone makes for an interesting listen, or several, as I will certainly be giving this project more than its fair share of my ears.

8/10

Ensiferum - Thalassic

Very similar to Amon Amarth’s longtime solidification of their sound, the Finnish talents seem able to simply exhale exhilaration through their both tried-and-true and continually honed black-reinforced power folk metal. And it’s clear the band are on autopilot at least to some degree on Thalassic here because the writing is pretty homogeneous and formulaic nearly all the way through; that being said, the sheer energy of the band’s performances into a sound experience allows them to wield so effortlessly more than carries them across the seas they sing of.

7/10

Bedsore - Hypnagogic Hallucinations

Stepping out from the shadows of Italy to present the great big world of metal with their forty-minute debut-album, the four-piece on the 20 Buck Spin label make their grand atmospheric aspirations for their brand of death metal immediately known across seven tracks of hellish wails and haunted ambiance. Taking ominous clean guitar motif-writing and structuring influence from Neurosis to the point of uncannily resembling “Souls at Zero” on the second track, “The Gate, Closure (Sarcoptes Obitus)”, Bedsore still inject plenty of their own distorted flair into the cavernous death-metal-flavored howl they espouse on Hypnagogic Hallucinations. The band do bank rather heavily on the immersiveness of the atmosphere they try to conjure, leaving a blind spot in the album’s dynamic beyond the fluctuations between clean and distorted nightmare. Compositional shortcomings aside, this is a solid debut to set the Italians on a bright prospective future.

7/10

Spirit Possesion - Spirit Possesion

Blackened thrash metal is one of those smaller subgenres within metal that feels more like a niche occupied by a few stalwarts like Aura Noir, Goatwhore, and Deströyer 666, but now Spirit Possession is making the bid to join those ranks and potentially turn more spotlight onto the specifically hybridized style. The band’s self-titled debut brims with the thrash enthusiasm of Bathory and the old-school riffing that shaped the way the early progenitors of black metal composed theirs, and not only is the Portland duo’s riff-game on point, but goddamn does it sound savory and spicy as hell through the more flattering production and against the backdrop of modern black metal a la Watain. The nasty chug on the song “Swallowing Throne” really highlights the benefit of the thicker, tastier production. The exceptionally grand “Amongst Inverted Castles and Holy Laughter” is a fine example of the band straddling old and new with impressive flexibility, while the bulk of the album's indulgence into early black metal and thrash is impossible not to want to indulge with, like a really fun party with a good crowd that makes it so much easier to have a few more drinks than you originally intended to.

8/10

Defeated Sanity - The Sanguinary Impetus

Through just enough delicious riffing, memorable accentuation, and technicality on par with Dying Fetus packed into structurally creative bite-sized portions, brutal death metal stalwarts Defeated Sanity somehow make a pretty persuasive take-it-or-leave-it case for the genre.

7/10

Paysage d’Hiver - Im Wald

The boldly two-hour debut double-album from Paysage d’Hiver is also a bit of a double-edged sword, basing partly its very ethereal black metal atmosphere on the homemade sound that regularly kneecaps the grander feel the project is going for. And the album does indeed reach some soaring heights of blizzard-stung ambiance, which the biting sound of the tinny, but engaged, percussion and the vexed swooning of the tremolo-picked guitar playing across the album’s several indeed well-organized lengthy tracks. It takes a lot to trudge through the long path covered in thick snow that this album sets out on, and the lo-fi production often doesn’t help the individual elements that make Im Wald enjoyable stand out, and it can be all too easy to get lost in the homogeneous whitewash of the hazy winter wind. It’s a rewarding journey to finally make it all the way through with unbroken attention, but blame for the easiness of that attention being lapsed can at least partially be placed on the shoulders of Paysage d’Hiver for its mastermind’s one-note approach to an otherwise well-arranged and well-composed album.

7/10

Gaerea - Limbo

Despite the members’ faceless appearances behind their fully-covering black cloth masks, Gaerea’s music does not hold back its sorrowful outpour through heavy atmospheric black metal that crashes through and drowns like torrential flood waves as much as it tears at the heartstrings through unabashed languishing. The massive weight of the band’s sound invokes the feeling of being in the presence of an incarnate deity weeping at the ills of mankind and the destruction they have forced this deity to bring about. Abstract descriptors of the album’s experience aside, the band aren’t really doing too much new for the atmospheric black metal they’re making, not breaking any rules or pushing any boundaries, but everything that makes the genre so attractive is turned up to eleven. I was ready to be as critical as ever, but I could immediately see not long into my first listen why Season of Mist were so excited to hype up the Portuguese outfit’s incredibly accomplished sophomore release. The guitar playing is simultaneously powerful and beautiful, much like that of the Ulcerate album from earlier this year (Stare into Death and Be Still) that I also loved, and the drumming is just as ceaselessly thunderous in support. The lamenting screamed vocals are possibly the least exaggerated facet of the album, but certainly not the the point of being unfitting, in fact they fit the chaotically despondent mood quite well, or a detriment to the record’s overall barrage of mourning. As for how all these massive pieces are arranged, they all crash in synchronized waves in a fashion, again, not at all unfamiliar to anyone who’s heard blackgaze, but the raw passion of the band’s performances exemplify why this strategy is so widely adopted for atmospheric black metal. Gaerea have made quite the statement of intent on this one, and I will definitely be enjoying it repeatedly throughout the year and beyond.

9/10

Upon a Burning Body - Built from War

Upon a Burning Body went full Lamb of God last year with their very trim and direct 31-minute fifth LP, Southern Hostility, focusing their efforts on making their southern brand of groovy deathcore as tastily whiskey-soaked as possible, laying on the groove heavily and unrestrained in a way that I thought definitely worked in their favor. Just a year later, the band are back with a 17-minute addendum to their infectiously brash display of muscular bravado, and it’s pretty much as brutishly intense as expected as the band bounce through single-string grooves and ripping drum rhythms to the same conclusions they did last year, only this time it feels so much more fatigued, like they’re trying to artificially replicate this genuinely pissed off attitude that produced results for them despite just not being in that kind of headspace at the moment. The songs are pretty baseline for them and generic as fuck, missing that X factor that made Southern Hostility’s distilled rage so tangible and fun. Built from War has some of the staple features that made its predecessor such a good time, but despite its few high-energy moments across the five tracks, it feels like an unnecessary rehash of the lightning in a whiskey bottle they had last year, just no lightning, so empty whisky bottles that bear the smell to remind you of what was previously in them.

5/10

The Acacia Strain - Slow Decay

I have been pretty harsh on The Acacia Strain in the past; they haven’t come up much on my blog, but the times they have, I feel I’ve been a little overly critical of their use of elements that I’ve perceived as excessive that they’ve used to forge their recognizable sound. The band released a mini album (It Comes in Waves) on Closed Casket Activities just before last year was over and I didn’t even hear it until a few months in to this year, and honestly, I wasn’t all too broken up about it because it was some of the band’s most lethargic, meandering material to date; dragging aimlessly until the last two tracks of the album, a significant step down from 2017′s already middle-of-the-road Gravebloom. So with those albums in recent memory I was kind of not looking forward to Slow Decay all too much, but a few days before its release, I refreshed myself on the band’s 2014 album, Coma Witch, which I remember as a culmination of what The Acacia Strain had been trying to morph their horrific, hardcore-tinged deathcore into since Continent, and it was a great time, that album, and it made me a little more hopeful for the band’s tenth LP (if you count It Comes in Waves). And Slow Decay indeed has The Acacia Strain back on track after the stuttering of the past two releases. The burgeoning metallic hardcore movement over the past few years has certainly vindicated The Acacia’s Strain’s steadfast adherance to their hardcore roots, and with there really being no time like the present for that kind of energy, the stars’ aligning has indeed brought the best out of The Acacia Strain. And on Slow Decay, it’s not like the band have changed up their hardcore-driven approach to djenty deathcore all too much from what they did on Coma Witch, they just sound energgized through a good batch of songs this time, the many situations at hand showing their influence on the rage the ban draws from bleeding through the lyrics ranging from critiquing anti-vaccine sentiments to blasting the snobbishly entitled attitude of boomers. The fiery disdain for the state of the world comes through hard on the blood-pumping chug of “Crippling Poison”, the punchy, pissed-off groove of “Inverted Person”, and the rest of the dissonant horror-tinged riffing all across the album, and it just goes to show that The Acacia Strain have found a groove that works for them and when they have the right fuel for their fire, they can incinerate anything in sight.

8/10

Imperial Triumphant - Alphaville

After revolutionizing the method of jazzification of metal music on 2018’s Vile Luxury, I was ready for a satisfying continuation of jazzy death metal from Imperial Triumphant, but I was not prepared for the wildness of the band’s ambition with their sound and beyond and the incredible success of their sonic expansion on Alphaville. The band are still jazzy as fuck on their successor to Vile Luxury but they’re not advertising it as blatantly like a product-placed soda can this time around, partially because they can’t with so much else going on in the nightmarish mix of sounds. The combination of dissonant grand piano chords over palm-muted chugging and merciless blast-beats on “City Swine” is perhaps the most overt example of the trio’s love for the traditional sounds of the type of jazz often associated with the big apple, but the palpable jazz influence in the winding guitar lines and dizzying drumming all across Alphaville continues to set Imperial Triumphant apart even within their wing of metal’s avant-garde. Indeed, their sound reaches beyond mere genre hybridization; the band incorporates various avant-garde elements in an experimental, yet clearly well-engineered manner all over the album. From the haunting fuzzy dissonance and disorienting electronics of the title track and the odd inclusion of taiko drumming by Meshuggah’s Tomas Haake to the gloriously frightful choir climaxes on both “Atomic Age” and “Transmission to Mercury”, Alphaville is full of surprises, and a size-able step forward for a band already bounds ahead of the curve on their previous album.

9/10

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suffering-and-happy-about-it · 5 years

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Living a Boring Lie (Pieces of the People We Love, Part 3.)

Series description: Not many people had the chance to see a vault or to mean anything in the world of Pandora. Will a hardly built relationship in the loneliness of the desert have the potential to change anything in the world of anarchy and chaos - or will the friends try to murder each other?

Part summary: Against your better judgement, it was now obvious that taking Scooter in wasn’t that bad of an idea - yet one radio transmission was all it took to change your entire life around.

Series warnings: A lot of guns, violence, reader is a tough badass - not a vault hunter tho. They’re badass and don’t give a fuck. And Scooter is a dumb bitch, as always. All Psychos and Fanatics are various Vine references - oh, what luck that reader can understand them since she is friends with Bandits.

Word count: 4 K

Tagging: @notaliteraltoad

Series masterlist: H E R E

Series playlist: H E R E

Boys, just as you asked them to, drove you right to your lonely shack in the desert. It wasn’t anything too fancy, but it wasn’t resolving just yet either. It was a few years back when you found it just standing in the middle of nowhere, knowing immediately that this beauty was your dream home. It was far away from any possible trouble happening on Pandora, you didn’t even know that the Eiridium cracked Pandora’s surface open until you’ve heard the wild news on the radio and even after that, you needed to see it for yourself before you told yourself ��Yep, this fuckery had totally happened”. Other than that, it was far away from anything alive - there were no Skags in the proximity of your house, no flying fuckers, no people in sight; it was surely the loner’s paradise if you will.

Swiftly, you opened the main door and invited him to the ‘everyday room’, as you called it. It was the living room, kitchen, dining room, and hall all mashed up together. The only other room inside the house was your bedroom and a small bathroom and a toilet. With a vague movement, you’ve shown Scooter the old couch and took all of the excessive clothing you’ve had on. With too much of a noise, you put your shotgun on the table, and then, you took out a small glass to pour yourself some vodka. With irony, you’ve given Scooter a toast and kicked every drop of the liquid inside your throat.

“Take the couch and if you’d like to have something to drink, the water pipes should be still working. Or pour yourself some vodka for all I care.” - And with that, you took all of your things and carried them to your room. How comes you didn’t notice that it was already this late? It was almost midnight. You’ve realized how tired you were at the exact moment you took a good look at your bed. As if your brain just realized how incredibly all of your muscles hurt, you literally fell to your mattress, taking the clothes along with falling asleep. It was strange, knowing that you weren’t alone in that. That night, you’ve been half-asleep and half-awake; your ears were listening to every sound - for quite some time, you could hear deep breaths and light snoring. Yet as soon as the sounds have stopped, you’ve had a nice, long sleep. The house was strangely when the dawn rolled around.

You were still laying on your bed, the blanket was half fallen off your thigh, your hair was completely messed up. Honestly, you looked like a hot piece of garbage. It could almost be considered a peaceful morning - until a loud bang ripped your ears apart. Something exploded. Something fucking exploded near your house; there was a high-pitched noise going on repeat in your eardrums. A feeling of dizziness was making you feel sick as you tried to pick yourself up for a few seconds. The smell of scalds was in the air and honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised if you’d just find a motherfucking huge hole in the living room’s wall. As you finally stood on your feet and could tell which side is right and left, you searched for the shotgun. Thankfully, you’ve seen only one of these. When your head stopped spinning, you’ve walked out to see what was happening. At first, you’ve been going through hundreds and hundreds of scenarios. Did the COV attack on your cabin? Or could it be Walrus’ men from Ham’s Creek? What reason would they have to attack you? You haven’t tried to fuck anyone over in the last few years as far as you could recall, so no-one had a particular reason to attack your house just simply out of the blue. Out of boredom? Yes, you could see that someone would’ve done that out of boredom.

There was no more time to think about the reasoning behind a simple grenade blow. In fact, there wasn’t time for anything - you hadn’t a moment to put any kind of pants on or to, at least, wear a coat for fuck’s sake. No, you simply burst into the cold desert dawn in a tank top, panties, and with a long shotgun in your hand. The night could’ve ended merely an hour ago. Sun was still barely above the horizon, the huge massifs of rock were still covered in shadows and some kind of a mysterious mist. First, you made sure that your gun was ready to shoot before you turned your gaze to non-other than Scooter himself. That crazy-ass of a man was sitting on one of the power line columns with a screw he stole from your small workshop situated in the corner of the living room. With horror written in your eyes, your mouth had opened as you watched him out there. Was he about to kill himself? - “What the hell are you doing out there? Just don’t… Don’t just jump down, will you? I don’t want to have a bloody fucking porch. Just climb down, come on, man. Do you want to talk it out, maybe? I’m not the best at this kind of stuff, but I can take you to see Pintley. Do you realize that suicide is not the solution here on Pandora? I mean… If you want to really die, I can take the small chip out of the nape of your neck, and then you can have a nice little harakiri.”

The man was looking at you at first, leaning his elbows to the top of the column as he twisted the screw between his fingers. Then he smiled, waving down on you. - “Ya funny in the mornin’, I tell ya, man!” - The tone of his voice was joyful and happy, so… Maybe, suicide wasn’t what he was trying to do. As you realized that he’s not about to jump down, you’ve calmed down and started to think it all through. He was sitting on top of the electric power line… In that case, could the electricity straightaway just burn his damn ass? You had a New-U ten seven miles away from your home so, if the electricity would burn him until only ashes and black goo would remain after him, he would still be respawned not too far from where you were standing. Technically, if you’d like to help him get burned, all it would take would be just one round and one gunshot… Quickly, you stopped yourself from thinking about hurting someone. Not to let the ice-cold mask slip, you just stood there without any emotion inside, just as if you just died from the inside. Then, Scooter started talking again.

"I am not tryin’ to kill myself, man. I am just tryin’ somethin’ out and I want to repair you Catch-A-Ride station since it’s kinda my thingy." - Scooter explained calmly. Oh, Catch-A-Ride, yes, that was "kinda his thingy" since it was his and his sister’s business. To be exact, it was the only car business running on the entire planet. But why on the world was he climbing up on a column that was at least twenty feet high? Then, you finally noticed what had exploded - there was a fucking crater just not even two feet away from your door - it was the exact place where the mysterious thing had blown up. Since there was anyone other than Scooter, it was almost blatantly obvious who had thrown the fucking explosive.

"And why… The fuck… Is there a huge ass hole just two feet away from my door? Were you trying to kill me? In my sleep? Very cavalier-ish, that’s all I’m going to tell you. Wow." - The irony in your voice was almost palpable, just like the spikes coming out of your eyes. Did you really think that he’s trying to kill you? Yes, you fucking did and you weren’t about to give him any of that for free. But… Scooter didn’t seem to care about any of that. In fact, he seemed not to give the slightest fuck about your bad mood. It was probably just his sunshine aura that was making him blind. He completely ignored your furrow and wide-open eyes and leaned even further into the wooden construct under his arse.

Once more, you looked up and shot your gaze right to his eyes. He was raising one finger, pointing at you. - "Man, I dunno what ya been doin’ here, but ya had a Torgue grenade stuck in ya power line, rippin’ one of the cables out, ya see now? Since ya power line is powerin’ the station, that was the reason why the machinery was not workin’. Thank me later, alligator." - As he finished the sentence, the corners of his lips turned into an even bigger smile. With a dumbfounded expression, you looked at the man. Deat. Fucking. God. Wasn’t this dumbass a treat? Wasn’t it amazing to have him at your home? Wasn’t it a delight, to have him around?

No. Not it fucking wasn’t a delight for you. For him? Maybe. And you hated every second of sharing your personal space with a burning passion. It sucked shit if, you had to be honest. Even though he didn’t have the opportunity to try to make you talk, you could simply tell that he’s into conversations. The man surely liked to laugh, to have normal human interactions, and just the simple feeling and acknowledging of the fact was making you nervous. To say the least, it was disrupting your anti-social loneliness in the middle of the desert. And now, when he was just sitting there and poked around with the damn screw. Because of said screwing around, you were expecting to be grateful for having him at your place. You wanted to shoot something so badly you were about to cry. Just because you wanted to act like the adult one in the situation, you straightened and screamed the first thought which came to your mind.

"Um, um, um... Yeah! Fuck you, man! I can’t even use grenades." - Then, you turned on your heels and walked back home, getting ready to go to sleep once you'd reach your bed again. For Scooter, the conversation clearly wasn't over as he started to yell at you once your back was turned to him. "And what is my motivation behind killin’ ya, huh? I’m not a hunter or a monster or cannibal, man. What the hell would I do with your corpse?" - He yelled back, but the only thing you did was that you showed him your middle finger. After drinking a whole glass of milk to sleep better, you laid back in your bed.

But not even an hour after this little situation had passed by, another loud bang sounded through the neighborhood. This time, you opened your eyes immediately and looked into the ceiling. One of your eyes was ticking as you tried to get it all together. The dude was a stranger, right? If you'd drag him somewhere, no-one here would be searching for him, right? Everyone already thought he was dead, so if you'd kick him out and let him wander around the desert until he'd get him killed... You surely wouldn't be to blame, right? This time, you took your time with dressing up as you furiously mumbled various things you could start yelling at him once you'd run out of the door. Although, you still decided to go with the weakest ones you came up with. "Ok. That’s it, Scooter, that's it. I thought you’ll at least be a quiet roommate. That you'd magically disappear one day. That would leave to me, living my life just like I did before you respawned. But you just can’t help it, can you? You're here for the first literal day! And what are you up to? You talk, talk, talk, and smile, and you're being all friendly and... For the love of God, go pack your things or… I'm… About… To... Shoot... you?” - The last words were uttered as a whisper as you stopped with the yelling.

Sure, your throat was ready to go on with the daily dose of yelling, but something different had taken your breath away. The Catch-A-Ride ramp had a runner parked on top of it, and that meant only one thing. The station was repaired and working. For a second, you were staring at the car, then at Scooter, and then you turned your attention back to the car. Scooter was standing right next to it with a wrench in his hand, giving you and a shit-eating grin. "Ya were sayin’, cupcake? I'm afraid I didn't hear ya." - It didn't escape past your radars that his voice had n impressive amount of irony in it, but that wasn't the thing which had blown you away. The car itself was... A miracle. You weren't able to make it work for such a long time and it took Scooter merely four hours to get it going. A working car. Who would've suspected that such simplicity could make your life so much easier? A car whose motor was running meant that you didn't have to wake up before sunrise every morning, it meant that you didn't have to go such distances on foot.

"Nothin'. Forget I was saying something." - For a moment, you looked at him in a way he'd describe as 'different' - your eyes didn't look like two about-to-be-shooting laser guns, there wasn't a furrow in your face and you seemed to be a nice person for once. Sure, it lasted for a mere second, but it was there. Scooter had seen it. That was all that mattered to him to determine you're not as much of a pain in the ass as you tried to present yourself to be. There was something into you, but obviously, you weren't used to letting that side of yourself out as much. It existed, tho and Scooter was immediately out of his mind racing about ever surreal consequences in which he'd be able to achieve anything like that - instead of that, he decided to rant about the cars. Normally, if he'd realize that a woman might be... Nice, he'd start saying so much bullshit that someone like you would blast him through the roof of your house with your shotgun alone. So, at that place and that time, he decided not to start a random rant.

"Also, ya had an old ass system there, so I looked into that as well. Your system was last updated a longer time ago than the time I've died and that’s sad. Man, cars are like unicorns - you need to take care of 'em. I re-uploaded ya an old cloud file into the system, with the… Ya know, basically everythin’ ya should need in here. Bandit technicals, those flyin’ thingies from Elpis. All is set up and ready to good.” - The man stood up next to you, patting the car with his palms gently. - "Now, when we're friends again, Cowboy... Wanna try those beauties, huh? I’m pretty hungry." When you turned your head at him, his face had a huge, naughty smile on it. At that moment you, gave him a naughty smile back, being on the same wave as he was. Now, you could hunt down at least four skags in half the time - that meant more money and more time. Sure, Scooter still wasn't your favorite human being on the whole planed and he still was invading your personal space... But he had a few good traits in him.

Neither of that hadn't even matter, since not even an hour later, you were both boosting the living shit out of your brand new Light Runner. Scooter was yelling at the top of his lungs meanwhile you sat behind the steering wheel, laughing. Damn, did it feel good to be driving a car again. The adrenaline was running wild in your bloodstream as you cut the sharpest turns with the machine. It felt good to simply step on the pedal and to feel the car rushing forward. Neither of you felt the rush for quite some time and damn, didn't this make both of you feel alive for a moment. Now, you sped directly from a pretty high cliff, jumping down into a canyon. Now, the screaming got even higher-pitched as the car fell on the ground with a loud thud. Scooter started laughing as well once he caught his breath. It was nice to see someone was enjoying Catch-A-Ride, the thing he had created, as much as you did.

As you drifted along the endless desert, your favorite hunting playlist was blasting through the silence broken by the howling of your car's pneumatics and the loud roaring of the engine. As you turned the engine off and got on your foot so you could actually hunt the skags, Scooter surprised you as he stayed in the gunner's seat on his own - saying he's just going to watch you from the distance. And boy oh boy, did he got a good view of... Everything that was going on. Well, it was hard to decide whether he was a bit too turned on or if he was worried for his dear life. When you only shot at the skags, it was cool. But once one of the skags tried to jump at you from the behind and you caught it by the throat with your metal arm, Scooter realized that he might be in danger. You literally threw the animal on the ground, stepping on it to hold it down as you shoot the brains out of its skull. By the time four huge skags were tied up on the body of the car, you decided it's enough. Scooter condescendingly agreed with you, still having everything fresh in his brain. Quite dramatically, you drove your car directly to Hell’s Cauldron and stopped in front of Pintley’s pub with the smile of a winner as you got out. To finish everything, you put your huge hat on your head, dragging the bags with skags in.

"Top of the mornin’ to ya, lads." - You patted one of the local’s back and threw one of the dead bodies directly in front of Pintley. - "Here you go, freshly hunted, not even grilled at this point. Today, I’m taking only forty dollars for one. That’s almost charity work.” - You winked at Pintley, walking out to get the other one as Scooter walked in behind you, playing with his cap in his palms. That day couldn’t be more awesome in your opinion - you got paid almost two hundred dollars in cash and both you and Scooter even got a free drink out of Pintley. In the afternoon, Blindy and Rayray came to have a drink with you and to chat for a bit. Yet, every nice day usually goes to shit at some point, right? Why would this day be different?

The BUT of your day came by in the evening, just as you crawled on the rooftop of your cabin and swung your legs from the edge of it, looking at the stars. Scooter asked you for some cabled - he quite literally tore one engines out of his Bandit Technicals and planned on upgrading it, toying around in your kitchen - letting you be alone, which was nice too. BUT, here it comes, not even half-hour from that, your radio came to life. You turned your head to the machine because it stopped playing your favorite song. Now, you've been listening to one of the psychotics rants of the who-the-fuck twins. Carefully, not to drop your bottle of beer, you supported yourself on your elbows as you sighed tiredly. Fuck those guys. Why did they always choose the worst time to hit you up? Goddamn assholes, these two kids.

"Hello, hi, hey. Your favorite god-queen and god-king are talking to you right now! And we need you, right now! We need you to group up because the Maliwan ships are on their way? What are we doing, you might be asking? Oh, I'll tell you! We're about to attack the vault thieves because they’re trying to take OUR. VAULT. AWAY!” - The annoying voice of Tyreen Calypso could be heard nice and clean, just as if she was speaking right next to your fucking head. That girl was the worst and cringiest cult leader you’ve ever seen or heard. Sure, you could perfectly understand why she was a cult leader, but she wasn't a good one, ah-ah. You'd be a much better leader. At that moment, Scooter walked out of the house and gave you a concerned look.

"Ya hearin’ that bullshit?" - He mouthed in your direction and you nodded, turning the volume up.

"So, if anyone has any info on what they’re doing, give us a call! If you won’t… Well, don’t even think about the things I, the God-Queen you all know and love, am about to do to you! So see you all at Athenas. And don’t forget to like, share, and obey! Tyreen is ouuut!” - The annoying voice finally finished. What you didn't like tho was the gaze Scooterboy was giving. He was just looking as if he expected you to be agitated because of the news. As you still stared at him back, Scooter pointed at the radio, making you curious about what he had to say. Why would this radio message be somehow important? Tyreen and Troy were hunting someone’s throat every other day and each time a message like this reached you, it was about someone different. What were the news then? Should you be… Terrified or something? Ridiculous. That bitch didn’t cross your way once - why would you cross hers?

What Scooter said had left you dumbfounded for the following minutes. You stared at him, he stared back at you and both of you listened to the thing - "Man, I think these vault thieves are my friends.” - Scooter muttered out. At that moment you truly weren't far from shitting yourself. All it did for him was to hear about some vault thieves and he was ready to go. He was all set up to contact his friends, to find them, and to travel across the galaxy just to see them. Scooter was all set up to go on a suicidal mission. And now, there was this bit you didn't like at all. It was almost 90% sure you'd be forced to help him with all of this. Ever since the last evening, Pintley determined you to be Scoot's babysitter. Damn, you knew you were in for a treat (a long-ass argument if you will) as you looked on the car stand just a few yards away.

Sure, you didn't have much of life on Pandora - while other people on other planets were having families, kids, good lives, and jobs... You were just a skag hunter, really. You had very little to lose, maybe even less than that. But this wasn't any of your business. Any of that was your business. The VHs were not your friends. Scooter was the dude you saw once. Your place was here, in the endless loneliness of the desert, on your own and alone. Yet as you looked down on Scooter, you knew you better take him to Pintley's pub to discuss a plan. And if you'd decide to leave yourself out of that, Pintley would cross your name out of the pub's list of habitues - and for your information, your name was the only one on the damn list.

And sometimes Blindy's name was written there as well.

#borderlands #borderlands 2 #scooter bordelands #calypso twins #pandora #vault key #vault hunters #borderlands fanfiction #scooter x fem!reader #scooter x reader #borderlands 3

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panknationclub-blog · 5 years

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I have 2 frends. And they sometimes com in my house. We drink tea and more. And they like to take a big knife and "make harakiri" in my kitchen. I have a nice photos)0))

#storytelling #story #life story #friends #frienship #boys #original story #storytime #true story #my story #story of the day

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sleepythug · 6 years

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last quarter I was riding high after getting an A in my pop culture course and this quarter in a creative minds class (which isn’t about the creative process like i thought it was) i’m getting an F.

any regular class im fucking terrible at but history, art history, jazz appreciation, n pop culture I can coast by getting a passing grade without any stress over assignments or some bullshit. im like so close to transferring to an actual college but so fucked up over shit like this; its deflating

got to love how up n down my life is and how inconsistent a student I am within the confines of regular academia. if I had rich parents and went to art school for college i’d most likely be finished by now; and maybe at the very least enjoying some low level job or internship.

but nah im in the dregs n wondering if i’m some dreamer thinking I can ever go into a career which isn’t work but something I legitimately enjoy, and the reality is i’ll most likely conform/have to work 9 to 5′s every day until I keel over n never realize any dream i have

like im prob just being dramatic and i’m blowing things out of proportion but it’s so straining taking more time to finish school than anybody else, seeing everybody pass you by, and left wondering if this is really for you n then thinking “oh yeah this is for me because what else is there?”

anyways surprised i haven’t committed harakiri by kitchen knife yet

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alexsmitposts · 4 years

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What Russian soldiers surprised the samurai in the war of 1904-1905 During the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905, the troops Of the land of the rising sun first became intimately acquainted with the officers and soldiers of the Russian Empire, who impressed them with their habits.

Religiosity Russian soldiers impressed the Japanese with their religious beliefs, almost every time they were killed they found symbols of a particular faith and leaves with prayers. Unwillingness to go against the canons of Orthodoxy caused a riot in the Narasino prison camp, whose prisoners resisted going to scheduled work on the day of an important Church holiday. In addition, in June 1904, there was a demarche on the part of some prisoners-officers who considered it sacrilegious to order the camp authorities to sign an oath that they would not escape on excursions. Russian discontent was caused by the word "oath", which, in their opinion, was not appropriate to use in solving everyday issues. Those who decided not to escalate the situation, signed their autograph under the document and enjoyed temporary freedom, and those who did not renounce their beliefs walked in an escort.

Heroism and surrender The Japanese were driven mad by two contradictory habits of the Russians-desperate heroism and easy surrender. The samurai, whose military practice includes such a concept as harakiri, did not understand how Russian officers could choose to commit suicide as prisoners of war, even if they were referred to as "honorary prisoners"in the press of the time. The famous Japanese warlord Hironori Mizuno resented such individuals, believing that the commander who surrendered to the enemy in order to save his life, humiliated and dishonored himself. Along with this, during the war of 1904-1905, Japanese commanders repeatedly noted the valor, fighting spirit and reckless heroism of the Russians, whose patriotism was inextricably linked with faith, the sovereign and the Motherland. The enemy's respect was due to the "languages" that did not give out military secrets under the threat of death, and to the discovered scouts. Many flattering words were said by Japanese colleagues to the Russian military, who for 58 hours hopelessly defended Port Arthur, as well as the sailors who did not leave the sinking ships.

Good appetite The Japanese were surprised by the Russian habit of eating heavy, high-calorie food, and in huge portions, in the eyes of Asians. This problem was particularly acute when providing food to captured soldiers who did not eat enough of the military rations installed in Japan, complaining about their small volume. Making concessions to the Russians, who often staged riots for food, the leadership Of the country of the rising sun increased spending on their diet to 30 sen, and this despite the fact that the soldiers of their own army were content with 16 sen. The four-day meal was to include meat, if possible, without fish with small bones, and sake, which did not make any impression on the Russians. By the way, the kitchen budget for the maintenance of one Japanese prisoner in the Russian Empire was 14 kopecks, and the diet included bread, tea and liquid porridge.

Bath-Laundry At every opportunity, Russian soldiers did not miss the opportunity to wash in the bath, which was arranged in dugouts or crates, and sometimes in portable trench steam rooms, pitched in tents on the front line. Among all the mobile sanitary units available to the Russian army, the Japanese were particularly envious of the bath and Laundry disinfection train intended for the service of infirmaries and hospitals. In 1904-1905, this exotic train, which has no analogues in the armed forces of any country in the world, included 4 cars that plied the Far East.

Music The real outlet for the command staff and soldiers who fought on the fronts of the Russian-Japanese war was music. Considering it as an important factor for relieving tension and stress, the officers encouraged the desire of the military to sing, and very loudly, which caused confusion to the Japanese. As they sang, the soldiers remembered their home and family, and raised their spirits on the eve of important battles.

Son of the regiment Asians who believed that children should not be in the arena of combat could not understand the Russian habit of keeping a "son of a regiment" in military units. His role was usually played by an orphan or street child, who was taken care of by the soldiers as if they were their own child, while at the same time providing him with everything necessary for life.

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jgfiles · 7 years

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Re-watching Joker Game: Ep 12 XX Double Cross

So, as I proposed a re-watching, here I go continuing on doing the re-watching. Hopefully someone else will join! ^_-

Also, hopefully there’s someone out there that read all this stuff… as I know it’s pretty long… shame on me for analyzing things too in deep…

Mind you, what follows are my ramblings over Ep 12, comprehensive of my impression on how the frames were structured and so on with some occasional reference to the other Joker Game media.

Also, for personal comfort, I’ll use the characters’ names even if the anime hasn’t stated them yet. In short, as this is a re-watching and not a first watching, you’ll also get a telling that’s mixed with my knowledge of the future. Consider yourself warned.

And now, let’s start.

And we’ll start with a change compared to my previous ramblings for the previous episodes.

Instead than waiting for Ep 11 to comment the preview for this episode, I’ll do it here as otherwise it would be a random unconnected bit at the end of Ep 11. The same will go for future previews.

Now, the preview, as the one for Ep 2, takes part in an… unknown place with plenty of square tables. From the various previews we’ll see people go here often to drink, smoke, play chess, play cards, even eating. The tables and the chandeliers in it are slightly different from the ones in the D Agency kitchen so it’s a different place. It bears a resemblance with the place in which the spies go drinking together in a recent illustration. As Gamo could get in, we can speculate it’s outside D Agency (though the fact he had two chance meetings with two different spies, Odagiri and Jitsui, feels a little odd so it feels more like it’s just an out of canon thing).

Anyway, back to the preview’s plot. We’ve Amari and Odagiri drinking together. Odagiri starts the discussion commenting he heard Amari broke up with his woman again. Amari confirms and from Amari’s reply we can figure out that Amari didn’t break up with THE SAME WOMAN again but that this woman is just the last of a long list. Amari claims there’s no point in remaining with a woman for too long… which makes him sound like a jerk… but there’s to remember the D Agency boys can’t get attached to someone and this will be the core of Odagiri’s episode. Amari is acting like he’s expected to act. His relationships don’t last long because they aren’t expected to. He’s not supposed to find a girlfriend and remain with her.

Odagiri won’t openly express agreement or disapprobation but we can have the feeling he’s not really that comfortable with this and this is Odagiri’s problem. He doesn’t like how the others can manage to remain completely unconnected, nor he’s capable to do the same. In the preview, to Amari’s reply, he comments ‘We’re all beautiful in passing’ but he’s quoting someone and he’s doing so while staring to his own glass, the wine in it reflecting his image and actually, it’s his image we see talking and not him. All visually hints at how Odagiri isn’t reporting his own thoughts but what he’s saying is just… a fakade.

And now let’s dig into the episode.

We start with what looks like a blizzard… which nicely ties with how snow was also falling in the previous episode. Only it gets obvious soon that the two aren’t placed in the same time period or in the same place as, after showing us a line of people walking in the snow…

…we will soon realize those aren’t Germans but Japanese soldiers, and that their uniform is the one worn PRIOR to the Joker Game episode (which dated 1939) so we’ve to be in 1938 or prior to it.

Thanks to the novel (and to @kyuukancorbie who provided me with info about the novel ^_-) we can actually speculate we’re in September, 1936, watching a scene from the large scale Army maneuver in Sapporo.

The camera focus on the face of a soldier. It’s clear enough he’s not feeling well, that he’s ill and that needs to be supported by another soldier to stand. As we watch the face of this poor soldier, a face unfamiliar to us, someone, clearly a superior officer, is scolding him for ‘the way he acts when he receives an order’.

Why it’s a smart choice? The soldier isn’t obeying and this is bad… but the audience is brought to immediately side with him. We see he’s not feeling well, that he can’t stand on his own, it’s clear that the guy scolding him is asking him too much. Psychologically we’ve already decided his superior officer is the ‘bad guy’ and the anime will continue to work on enforcing this idea (LOL, situation will tie some nice parallels with Ep 1 in which we were helped to figure out immediately that Gordon was the bad guy, actually this episode will parallel Ep 1-2 more often than not, I could almost write an essay about this…).

The camera now pans on the whole soldier’s body, starting from bottom and moving toward the top.

Yes, he’s being supported by another soldier as he can’t stand on his own (don’t you feel sorry for him? Isn’t the one yelling at him a jerk? That’s the hidden message in the whole thing) and it turns out that the one supporting him has a familiar face… though his skin is a lot more tanned so one might not recognize him (evidently he doesn’t usually stay in that cold but was moved there from someplace sunnier) and it doesn’t help that the coat he’s wearing covers most of his head. Anyway guys let’s say hello to young Odagiri.

The scolding voice, which clearly doesn’t belong to Odagiri, goes around talking about how this is for their motherland and that the sick soldier should be content to die for the sake of it, yadda, yadda.

We don’t see the one doing the scolding. He’s just a voice for now, our visual attention is focused on the soldier that’s being sick, on how cruel can sound such words as they’re being said to someone who can’t even stand on his own. Not seeing the speaker is also meaningful because the speaker isn’t just saying his own thoughts. His words are the standard words a superior officer would say to a soldier in such conditions. We don’t really need to see him or to imagine him. Everyone will do, because every superior officer was supposed to say such things.

And here Odagiri speaks up. He seems the voice of reason to us and to our modern mentality but, back then, what he said was probably sounding like heresy. Odagiri complains it seems silly to him to die for what’s just an exercise and that the sick soldier isn’t fit to be a scout.

Sadly, while Odagiri’s words well embrace the modern mentality, back in the past soldiers were an expendable commodity for superior officers. We saw it previously, with Mutō planning to sacrifice Sakuma so as to cover up his mistake and get rid of D Agency. Sakuma was still willing to put up with it and commit Harakiri even if he knew he was being used and, in the novel, he’ll realize his disliking for being used as a pawn isn’t fit for a soldier (the anime will let us believe he’s all right with rejecting the idea… when in the original version he knew it was a thought that wasn’t acceptable for a soldier to have).

So, predictably, Odagiri gets scolded… and, while he’s scolded we hear the officer calling him by his true name. Well, surname. Tobisaki. Which in the novel was merely a name he took for a job. But well, let’s go on. We still don’t see the one doing the scolding, but we see Odagiri’s face shifting when he’s accused of claiming his superior’s orders are ‘foolish’. He figured he made a misstep but it’s too late to take it back.

And we continue with the parallels with Gordon in Ep 1. Remember how they made him look threatening by showing us his yelling mouth with his teeth well visible? Well, guess what? They do the same with Odagiri’s superior’s officer. Close up of his yelling mouth with teeth well visible.

Let’s face it, the visual is telling us this guy is going to bite someone and therefore he’s dangerous and, in short, bad.

You don’t even need to hear what he’s saying. Even if you don’t know Japanese and turns off the subs, it’s clear that this guy, who’s yelling to a sick soldier and to the one supporting the sick soldier, is a jerk.

Also, note the background. Not only the snow is heavily falling and the wind is blowing but the other soldiers are continuing to march. They don’t even dare to turn to watch what’s going on. And the sick soldier is too sick to do anything. The core of the scene is Odagiri. Fundamentally our eyes are focused on him. He’s alone here. The other soldiers are background. The sick soldier is so sick he could as well not be there. And his superior officer isn’t shown.

We’re pushed to focus solely on Odagiri. And now, when the superior officer becomes visible and rips the sick soldier away from Odagiri’s supporting arms, we’re all supposed to react like Odagiri. Get out from the frame, you jerk. We’d like to push him away… like Odagiri does. But this is a luxury Odagiri wasn’t allowed to have.

‘Gyakusei’ [虐政 Oppression] starts being played in the background and the title is rather fitting.

He only pushed away the superior officer and caused him to fall on his ass in the snow… but this is a crime in the Army. We see that now all the soldiers are stopped and staring at him. Even if we’ve no idea how the Army work, this is visually enough to let us figure out that Odagiri has committed something like a capital sin.

Even the superior officer (the credits refers to him as Dai taichō 大隊長 “Commander” but his grades are the ones of a Major…) seems to be shocked… his reaction almost unnatural as Odagiri has merely pushed him, it’s not like he’d tried to kill him… and all this helps to deliver how terrible it is what Odagiri did. Odagiri wasn’t supposed to react at all. Like Sakuma with Mutō, he was merely supposed to bow to his superior’s will.

Also, the fact that the man is finally shown, is a hint he’s actually going to become ‘relevant’ in the story, that we won’t be able to ignore him any longer, in fact, the next that happens is that Odagiri’s superior officer goes into a rage, his face getting red and his expression furious in an almost comical manner. This means he’s going to cause troubles, troubles Odagiri can’t avoid.

Meanwhile poor Odagiri is gazing at him in shock, which is a clear hint he acted out of instinct and not out of will to be disrespectful or to attack the other, the sick soldier lying limp in his arm, a clear hint that Odagiri was right, that poor guy couldn’t take anymore, they would have killed him if they had continued to force him to go on. In short the visual is all for supporting Odagiri’s side… as we hear his superior officer ordering to grab Odagiri because he ‘used violence against a superior officer (he gave him a slight push) and refused to obey (insane and cruel) orders’.

As the officer yells and waves his arm in emphasis, Odagiri evidently grasps the gravity of what he has done as he let his companion go and that one slumps on the ground, either unconscious or unable to support himself, while everyone else is standing still, watching the scene.

There’s to say the anime pulls out beautifully how really, the superior officer’s insistence for the soldier to obey order was asinine, the guy couldn’t move anymore, asking him to keep on going was really asking him to die for a training exercise, and how, despite this, for the Army, Odagiri’s tiny action of disobedience that was meant only to protect a companion and not to really hurt the officer, was so very grave that everyone is standing still around him in shock. The world had stopped around Odagiri because he had slightly pushed a superior officer.

A digression here. Well, two.

First. In this bit we could hear Odagiri talking. I’m not knowledgeable in Japanese but here, his manner of talking and his tone feels different from how he usually talk, he’s more similar to how Sakuma talked with Mutō. In short, he’s sounding like a soldier and therefore he changes his tone.

Second. The superior officer. Admire his design and the manner he moves. He’s ugly, shorter than Odagiri and since he’s wearing a coat this makes him seem even larger. He’s unimpressive and his reaction, which seems a huge overreaction, makes him almost ridicule. He seems a child throwing a tantrum. It’s clear he’s being unreasonable and making a fuss over nothing. This subtly increases the sympathy a viewer is meant to feel for Odagiri a lot. Fundamentally they constructed Odagiri’s superior officer so that we would feel like siding with Odagiri.

And now let’s go on.

The scene changes and the next with see is a construction likely made with wood. It’s not snowing any more but the roof is covered in snow and ice. Either it’s a jail or it just hosts a cell. Anyway, inside the cell, there’s poor Odagiri. They had taken away his coat and he’s wrapped in a cover, trembling, seated on the floor and curled up on himself, his face buried in his knees. He’s just trembling but, since we can’t see his face, we might even been lead to think he’s crying. He’s a miserable thing and I’m sorry for him.

Then, just outside the cell, a familiar cane held by a familiar white gloved hand appears. Yeah, this is Ep 12, and the anime by now know that we can recognize Yūki by his fake distinctive trait.

Yūki asks Odagiri if he’s the one called ‘untrainable’. Because yes, if you take sides with a poor companion against an insane superior officer all of sudden you’re untrainable even if you’ve managed to reach the grade of second lieutenant.

In reply Odagiri raises his head a tiny bit, enough to allow us to see his eye. We can see that no, he wasn’t crying and now he’s frowning hard at Yūki. Even though he has said nothing, it’s clear he doesn’t trust him.

Yūki asks him what he plans to do when he leaves the Army… because I take they’re kicking Odagiri out. Odagiri looks away… and the poor guy seems a little lost… and here I’ve to compliment the guys drawing the scene because we really see little of Odagiri yet they managed to give to that little we see ‘feelings’ it could transmit to us. Also, his cheeks seem a little sunken… did they fed Odagiri while they were holding him prisoner?

Odagiri comments that’s a good question and that he could move to Manchuria and become a roving bandit. From this answer we can guess how lost Odagiri is. Out of the Army he has no place to return if he’s considering to move to Manchuria to become a bandit.

The camera now shows, in reply to Odagiri’s answer, Yūki’s grinning mouth.

Note that we hadn’t seen his full face yet, but who cares, we know it’s him… yet at the same time, the fact his face was hidden to the view, is meant to give us another info. Odagiri doesn’t know this man. Yūki’s ‘lack of face’ is a hint that he’s unknown to Odagiri. Anyway at this Yūki smiles, moves closer and crouches down so as to speak close to Odagiri’s ear.

What Yūki tells him is basically an invitation to try to take his exam (of admission to his spy school).

A time break here. If the incident with the soldier happened in September 1936, there’s to remember D Agency was founded in Autumn 1937 (though its foundation was proposed in 1935). Sakuma joins D Agency in 1938, and watches the guys as they take their entrance exams as well as they trained there. So this should mean some time has gone by the incident and Odagiri’s meeting with Yūki… or Yūki is just preparing his moves knowing they’ll have to allow him to open D Agency. Who knows?

Now… Odagiri clearly had outstanding abilities as he managed to handle Yūki’s training (and the novel says he always graduates first place from his schools… which makes me think Sakuma should be older as they apparently don’t know each other yet Odagiri, being so good, should have been sort of noticeable if he were of his same age). Odagiri is also the one who decides to leave the school, it’s not Yūki that kicks him out. But what I wonder is ‘how did Yūki found him?’ Was he keeping an eye on the untrainable soldiers that were in the Army? To Odagiri in particular because he was pretty good at school? Does this mean that in the Joker Game universe it was Yūki who personally searched for candidates for his school? Did Miyoshi and the other meet Yūki and received the same proposition? Was Yūki searching for a certain type of people in particular? Were they all ‘broken’, rejected by their family, hence they’ve no problems to live completely disconnected by the others?

Anyway, at Yūki’s words, Odagiri looks at Yūki, really looks at him for the first time and we finally see Yūki’s face. Well, not the whole of it but enough of it to say we’re looking at Yūki’s face. Because yes, the visual is telling us now Odagiri is starting to be interested in Yūki and knowing him.

‘Kikan’ [機関 Agency] starts and we gets Odagiri telling us the same shortened version of Sakuma’s explanation of what D Agency is that he gave us in Ep 1. It’s worth to remember this summarized version is the version we hear at the beginning of each episode, each time said by a different spy.

Then this ends and we get…

…the opening. There’s not really anything to mention about it as it’s the same Opening we saw in the past. Odagiri is the third spy that appears in it and he’s walking with his hands in his pockets. Around the end of the opening we also see him removing the headphones he was wearing and that, were apparently, part of a machine to send messages.

Anyway the opening ends and we resume with ‘Joker Game’.

We start… with a scream. What we see (the first floor of a house) is clearly through the lenses of binoculars, a hint we’re watching things from the point of view of someone keeping under surveillance the place. The binoculars focuses on the woman who has just screamed and that was watching something inside an apartment through the open door before running away.

Next we see Odagiri removing the binoculars from his face with a surprised expression. Yes, he was the one keeping the place under surveillance. It’s interesting how the visual shows he was pecking from two curtains, another hint that no, he didn’t just happen to watch out with a binoculars, he was pecking at the house secretly.

The girl who had screamed meanwhile is calling for the police running through the street and under a house. As she passes in front of it, we can see that one is the house in which Odagiri was. Odagiri’s gaze focuses on her. He frowns then returns his attention on the house.

‘Suiri’ [推理 Reasoning] starts being played.

Note how, so far, we’ve seen Odagiri focusing on the girl. We could almost think she was his target when actually it was the guy inside the house. While Odagiri’s actions can seem normal, I’ve the feeling they’re a mistake for a spy as, in order to look at the girl, he’s not focusing on his target’s house.

The scene changes (though the musical background remains the same) and we’re in an apartment. There’s another girl sitting on the floor with an apparently shocked expression and there’s curious peeking from the door, near to which there’s a flower vase with, in it many camomile flowers, the ones Schneider bought.

We can’t see what they’re watching though we can guess something terrible has happened and this is good to keep the suspense but also because we, as viewers, more or less end up on having the same amount of info on the scene that Odagiri is having at the same time in which he’s having it. So, when Odagiri appears on the door as well and pecks inside, finally, we’re also allowed to see what’s happened inside. There’s a dead man lying on the floor and a note on the table. It’s in German but says ‘I’ve lost all hope. I want to die.’

We’re shown again the girl sitting there in shock, a subtle hint we should remember her, that she’s not like the other curious pecking at the door (also note how pretty is the glass behind her… I love Joker Game attention for details like this one)…

…then Odagiri’s surprised face. His voice comments that the target he was watching died, which makes his mission an inexcusable failure. As he thinks so we see again the inside of the room which includes Schneider’s corpse, the girl sitting there and the flower vase.

Note how strict Odagiri is with himself. If the guy committed suicide like the note says, there was little he could do to prevent it. Even if one of the girls had gotten in and… let’s say, then shoot him there would have been little he could have done. Yet he thinks this is an inexcusable failure.

The scene changes again (but we still have the same musical background) and we move back to D Agency. On the screen appears the writing 1939, Spring. Yes, we started this anime series with an episode placed in 1939, spring, and we end it going back to 1939, spring. It’s sort of coming to a full circle. Actually it will be a coming to full circle as we’ll discover at the end of the episode.

And now we’re shown a picture of the corpse, only in the photo he’s not a corpse yet. It’s a not so subtle way to tell us we’re going to talk about him now and yes, Odagiri’s voice starts to talk about the deceased. Also, the picture shows him clearly while he’s doing journalist work. Why this is smart?

Odagiri tells us he was a writer for Berlin Allgemeine. He doesn’t explain what Berline Allgemeine is, but since Schneider is apparently writing on a notepad info from an interview, other journalists around him making questions and taking picture we can easily figure this is not a… let’s say a cooking magazine.

And now we move from the photos (which Odagiri took) to Odagiri himself. It’s a nice visual choice, especially because we see Odagiri when Odagiri says Schneider was suspected of being a (double) spy… like Odagiri is a spy.

Odagiri now tells us what happened on the day in which Schneider died and his day seems normal enough only it’s actually all hints. Schneider brought flowers from a street vendor (and it’ll turn out the street vendor was actually one of Schneider’s spy contacts) and headed for the apartment of Nogami Yuriko, his lover and a theatre performer. And now we know who was the girl who ran away screaming. Odagiri tells us Schneider and Nogami met a year ago THROUGH A FRIEND OF NOGAMI (yes, the one who’ll kill Schneider out of jealousy).

Note that, as Odagiri speak, we see Schneider buying the flowers and Odagiri following him, then the man goes into Nogami’s house and Odagiri spies him from the opposite apartment.

It’s relevant to note how evidently Schneider spent a lot of time at Noriko’s since Odagiri took possession of an apartment in front of it. Well, Schneider isn’t just her boyfriend, he’s the one who even furnished Yuriko’s house so...

Odagiri goes on in his story and explain how Nogami was out that day but came back with her friend, Yasuhara Miyoko, after 3:00 PM as they had arranged to eat cake together. As he says so we see the two women walking closer and then entering in the apartment in a rush under Odagiri’s gaze, which, but maybe it’s just me, seems more focused on following Yuriko than Miyoko.

Let me digress a moment on Yuriko and Miyoko’s look. Note how Yuriko’s skirt is blue and Miyoko’s is red, how Yuriko’s jacket is clear and Miyoko is darker, how Yuriko has dark hair while Miyoko has clear one. They’re set up to be visually opposite. Remember how when discussing Ep 1 I mentioned how people found hard to distinguish the spies and how I commented this was a deliberate visual choice? Here we see how the anime was completely capable to make two relatively similar characters (women, with similar looking clothes) could actually stand out as different. We won’t mistake Yuriko for Miyoko and vice versa.

Next we see Schneider’s face. He looks clearly dead and this visually explains why the girls rushed in the apartment. Odagiri then comments that the police thinks Schneider’s death is a suicide. As Odagiri says so we’re shown the suicide note, which is a subtle way to explain us why would the police think so and then we see again the scene Odagiri should have seen when he went to see the inside of the apartment, Schneider lying on the ground, dead, and Yasuhawa Miyoko sitting on the floor, a subtle reminder she remained in the apartment alone with Schneider and could have altered the place. The vase with the flowers is also visible.

We’re back to D Agency the camera focusing on Odagiri and then moving away from him so as to include Yūki as well (and all the other boys seated at the table) as Yūki asks him if he thinks Schneider could have committed suicide because he figured out Odagiri was spying him and thought he had no chances to escape.

The camera continues to back walk from Odagiri as Odagiri shoots down this possibility, subtly including in the screen the other D Agency members, who’re seated at the same table at which Yūki is seated.

It’s a visual hint they’re going to start to be involved in the action as well. In fact they start with pointing out things. Miyoshi asks Odagiri to explain the suicide note (since Odagiri rejects the idea it’s a suicide) and Jitsui points out (for our benefit) to how the handwriting was Schneider himself. So Kaminaga asks him if Odagiri believed Schneider was killed by someone else and the note was forged. It might seems hard to believe for us (and has someone noticed this would be a closed room mystery?) but Odagiri’s reply helps us to put things into perspective so that Odagiri’s idea doesn’t seem dumb.

Schneider is a double spy, Germany or Russia could go after him. Actually we saw in Ep 6 how Russia killed people who were betraying them... and if we think that’s someone that powerful and possibly well trained, after 11 episodes seeing spies doing amazing things we can accept that yes, someone could have gotten in, killed Schneider and forge the note easily.

Hatano though reminds us of a detail. Odagiri, who’s also an amazing D Agency spy, was surveying the place. If a foreign spy/killer had tried to do all this, well, maybe he could have technically done it but then someone like Odagiri would have had noticed him trying to snuck in (or out).

A couple of words on how the scene is viewed. While the camera is over the D Agency students when they speak, it’s not so below to Odagiri (just barely) we can feel the anime is trying to remark a difference in moral position as it did in EP 1 with Sakuma and the D Agency members. The difference in placement is more because we’re meant to see things from Odagiri’s eyes, a bit like how, when we saw Miyoko and Yuriko, the visual was making sure to let us know that what we were seeing was the same Odagiri was saying through his binoculars.

So let’s go on. Yūki asks how Schneider died. There’s to note that, so far, even if Yūki has spoken, we never clearly saw his face. Even now, his question is made while the camera is showing us Odagiri’s face and, although when Odagiri will reply the camera will look in Yūki’s direction, the camera is high over all of them (Odagiri included) and Yūki is the farthest from it and looking down. We can’t really say we see his face. As for the visual… my feeling is that we get such shoot when Odagiri answers like that (Schneider died of asphyxiation from cyanide poisoning) because that’s a neutral info given by whoever did the autopsy that’s sort of looming over them.

On a sidenote… the big table around which the D Agency students are… is actually formed by four tables put together. I guess in the anime they’re still a bit short on budget so they can’t buy a big one.

And so now we finally see Yūki’s face. It’s his profile and not from Odagiri’s point of view and it’s on an even level. Yūki’s eyes are closed, a hint he’s deep in thinking. At this point Yūki makes the question that, to Yūki, basically answers to how Schneider died. Yūki asks Odagiri if he’s saying that, when Schneider died, he didn’t notice anything.

We’re shown Odagiri’s profile and, from the look on his face, we can see he feels as if this is a scolding. Remember how he felt his mission ended up with a failure?

In truth, Yūki likely isn’t so much interested in scolding him, just in making sure that’s the case. Yūki trained him so it should be technically not possible for Odagiri not to notice anything. If he hadn’t something had distracted him and Yūki knows the only thing that could have distracted him. Sadly, due to the many changes between the novel and the anime this point works on a different level compared to the novel, but it’s still worth something. Yūki, in this precise point, figured out how things went (in the novel he figured out only who was the culprit, but was missing some details, here he has them so he clearly figured out how things went).

Back to the story. After showing us Odagiri looking uncomfortable the anime shows us the other boys… or better only the lower half of their smiling faces. The eyes not only aren’t shown, but there are shadows that implies they’re also kept in the dark. We’re back to Odagiri’s perspective. The other spies are just faceless to him, people who’re making fun of his for his own inability. Though he held his ground during the discussion, the atmosphere is clearly oppressive to him and he feels nervous, inferior. They aren’t his friends, they’re there to judge him and make fun of him.

It’s a bit like how Sakuma saw all the spies smiling when he realized he would have to commit Harakiri because remember? This episode traces quite a bit of parallels with the ‘Joker Game’ episode.

Also something worth mentioning is how the room is filled with smoke. The three ashtrays are filled with cigarette butts, though we see only Miyoshi, Kaminaga and Fukumoto are smoking. Evidently the others had been doing the same previously. The room is as foggy as the kitchen was when Sakuma was playing the Joker Game.

Yet, I don’t think the others are there to really make fun of him and they hadn’t even figured out things like Yūki did as they don’t know about Nishiyama Chizuru and aren’t in Yūki’s league. Actually, later on, we’ll see they aren’t even there to make fun of Odagiri as some of them will try to find elements that can support Odagiri’s theory.

Meanwhile the camera is now high over everyone. We’re practically looking at them from a point high above them all. Enjoy the oppressive and still atmosphere as Odagiri doesn’t know what to say.

The music in the background stop abruptly and, while we see Odagiri’s eyes looking down, Amari starts speaking. He picks up a photo and asks if Schneider was fluent in English. The camera moves on the photo he’s looking, the one of the suicide note and we see that, on its corner, there is a really small sign.

The musical BGM is now ‘Seion’ [静穏 Quiet].

Tazaki wonders, like we could do, if it’s just from testing the pen.

Amari agrees it could be that but we get a close up of that small sign and so we can see that, as Amari will say later, that small sign looks like two X, side by side… which might not tell much to us and, especially to Japanese viewers but Fukumoto comes to everyone’s aid by pointing out that in English double-cross means to betray so it can be that Schneider betrayed someone or was betrayed by someone.

As Fukumoto says Schneider might have been the one who betrayed someone the camera goes on Yūki. Maybe this is a hint that Yūki figured out that Schneider dumped Miyoko in favour of Yuriko and this pushed Miyoko to kill him. Maybe not. The novel and the D no Maou manga can’t help us to figure out things as, in them, the solution to the case is pretty different so do your pick.

Amari asks Yūki what does he think in this regard.

Yūki finally opens his eyes, which is a hint he has finished thinking and has taken a decision and starts issuing orders. They’ll let the matter slide and prioritize taking control of Schneider spy network. He then assigns jobs to all the boys. As soon as he issues an order, the boy mentioned stands up and walk away to fulfil his mission. As the boys leave they pass next to Odagiri. They’re smiling.

To Odagiri, as he stand there, frowning, their smiles likely feels like malicious smiles of someone who wants to make fun of him but I’m not so sure that’s what behind Fukumoto or Amari’s smiles. After all they offered a possibility for Odagiri’s idea that Schneider was killed by someone else to be true, didn’t they?

To be honest though the audio and the visual are a little off as Fukumoto has already left when Yūki made his name… ^_^;; I wonder if this got fixed in the dvd release…

Anyway Odagiri ends up remaining alone with Yūki. The camera is showing him from a side. We can see that now his head is lowered, is gaze is downcast and he’s sweating slightly as he asks Yūki want he wants him to do.

Likely his frowning face was a mask, a way to hide his true feelings from the others. Odagiri is uncomfortable and clearly feels like he failed. He tried to be tough when the others were there but now… we can see he’s not so tough. He even hesitates slightly when speaking to Yūki…

Yūki is also shown by his profile. Him and Odagiri are sort of in opposition, though it’s not like we’re one against the other. It’s just they’re in opposite places, the spymaster and the spy under him who has failed to accomplish his job.

Yūki is shown with his eyes closed. This sort of hint he’s thinking. Since Yūki evidently came to a conclusion on what had happened he’s likely not thinking at the case, but more at what to do with Odagiri, how to shape the order he’ll give to him. We see him opening his eyes and, as the BG music ends, the camera shows us a close up of his face. It’s the sort of scene that tells us Yūki is in control here, that he’s the supreme boss. He tells Odagiri to investigate the woman that was at the scene. Note that he doesn’t make the name of the woman that was at the scene and that actually there were TWO women at the scene. Odagiri is surprised and starts with saying ‘but she…’.

We won’t know what will happen afterward as the scene will switch, but it’s clear that when Odagiri started speaking he had already decided to which one of the two Yūki was referring. Let’s note that Odagiri knew it was Miyoko who introduced Schneider to Yuriko so BOTH women had a connection with him, even if us, viewers, don’t know yet. It’ll turn out though, that Odagiri immediately assumed Yūki was talking about Yuriko.

While this could be due to the many changes between novel and anime, let’s pretend it’s planned. Overall this would mean that Odagiri instinctively defended Yuriko. Yūki’s sentence was meant to be ambiguous on purpose. Yūki figured the culprit is Miyoko but Odagiri is so focused on Yuriko he only worries about her. It would be a nice psychological touch. But well, as I said, the scene switched before Odagiri had the chance to end his ‘but she…’ sentence, so let’s see what happens afterward.

‘Tōryaku’ [韜略 River] starts being played.

Night or very late in the evening. While the camera shows us the Shinjuku Akakaze theatre, we can hear Odagiri’s thoughts and they tell us that Yuriko has an airtight alibi. It’s now that us, viewers, learn he was thinking about Yuriko. It doesn’t come as a big surprise to us as, while it was possible to assume that Miyoko was the friend that introduced Yuriko to Schneider, at the moment we’ve no idea about this so Miyoko feels unconnected to the case… even if actually, if we are to accept that Schneider was killed by a killer or another spy, we should suspect of her all the same.

Anyway, Yuriko was busy with a dress rehearsal when Schneider supposedly died and was never off stage for more than five minutes. As we hear this we see that Yuriko is at the theatre, acting. The BGM is the one of the theatrical piece, a violin playing a sad melody.

Her role is fundamentally a sad one. She’s a flower girl, the man she loves buy flowers from her to hand them off to another girl. He tells this other girl that, although he has to leave and might not come back, he’d like for her to wait for him and the girl, which is impersonated by Miyoko, says she will.

As they embrace Yuriko tells that she loved that man so much she is okay with him to be happy with the other girl and that she is willing to disappear from his life even if her life will be one of darkness and solitude as this will be a proof she lived. She says so smiling.

The story of the theatrical piece might seem irrelevant right now, just a sappy love story, same as Yuriko delivering her lines with a smile. We’ll learn of its importance later on.

Anyway the play ends and the scene switches.

We’re in what is a dressing room, which is filled with flowers of various types (this episode definitely has a flowers theme), and everyone in it is focused on Miyoko, praising her.

Miyoko thanks for the praises but claims Yuriko was the real star in spite of what happened. The visual shows us that Miyoko turns on a place that was likely Yuriko’s spot, only it’s empty and there are only the clothes Yuriko wore during the representation, a sign Yuriko has already left.

While one might assume from this that Yuriko has gotten over Schneider’s death, as Miyoko speak we see that Yuriko is actually standing in front of the signboard of the play with a sad expression on her face and a troupe member, who’s likely talking with Miyoko, wonders if Yuriko is all right.

‘Yōkō’ [陽光 Sunshine]starts being played, though at the beginning one might think this title isn’t really fitting…

The visual shows Yuriko’s sad face reflected on the signboard and, on the corner of the signboard that’s visible the tiny draw that represent the character Yuriko acts in the play. The connection between the two starts to get more obvious. Now that Yuriko has lost Schneider (even if not to another woman) now a life of darkness and solitude awaits her as well.

She leaves, her head lowered, and we can see Odagiri looking at her from behind a corner. Hum… okay, they might exchange him for a fanboy so it could still not be overly relevant but really, it’s quite obvious how Odagiri was staring at her here. That’s not good for a spy, Odagiri…

Odagiri’s expression is sad, as if he was sharing Yuriko’s pain.

The scene switches to show us a flower field and two figures walking through it, a woman and a child, holding each other hand.

We can’t see the woman’s face, a hint that so far she’s a stranger to us…

…but the child smiles adorably at the woman and then the two walk away. It’s here that the BGM title seems fitting. Also, the whole scene is honestly beautiful, one of the best of the episode.

As the two figures are about to disappear, a voice says ‘excuse me, sir’.

We comes back to the present to see that Odagiri is startled. The voice was speaking to him and now it’s clear what we saw before was his memory and he was the cute child. That person asks Odagiri if is anything the matter. Really, Odagiri isn’t acting at the best of his abilities as he let himself be caught on staring at Yuriko by someone who was behind him and that he didn’t even realize coming closer.

This is a HUGE hint that Odagiri might have missed clues on what happened to Schneider because too focused on Yuriko to take notice of everything else.

Anyway the person speaking to him is someone who works at the theatre and he’s carrying flowers that admirers sent to Yasuhara Miyoko. Actually, apparently all the flowers placed there (there are a lot and of many types) are for Miyoko so Odagiri hurries to assure he’s all right and quickly switches the topic claiming, while starting at them, smiling, that Yasuhara-san is quite popular.

The guy thanks him and claims that Miyoko got better and better until she became their marquee actress. Odagiri asks him if the flowers he’s carrying are for Miyoko too and bends down to sniff at them, claiming they’ve a calming scent.

The man confirms, stating they’re Miyoko’s favourite flower. He then adds that the flowers, after a while, are handed off to a nearby florist.

Note that Odagiri sniffed the camomile but those weren’t the only flowers the man was holding, there were also roses and other types of flowers… all for Miyoko.

All this discussion seems pointless and just Odagiri’s way to distract the other from how he was staring at Miyoko… but it’s actually all something we’ve to keep in mind as it’ll turn useful later on.

Odagiri leaves the Shinjuku Akakaze theatre while ‘Seion’ [静穏 Quiet] starts again being played in the background and we see him walking through the streets. When he stops to a crossroad someone that was seated there starts on speaking to him before walking away. It’s Hatano that reports him on his finding in regard to the suicide note, which he investigated as Yūki asked him. He’ll cross other D Agency members, who all will make their report to him in a similar manner (speaking as they cross him then walking away). We see that Odagiri grows uncomfortable at this.

In the end, when Miyoshi reports that nothing unusual is going on at the German and Soviet embassies but someone new might have taken over Schneider’s spy network, Odagiri snaps.

The BGM pauses as Odagiri grabs Miyoshi’s shoulder and forces him to turn, angrily asking him why he’s reporting to him.

It’s like he’s feeling mocked by their actions. Miyoshi is clearly surprised by his action, a hint that this was not the case and that he doesn’t even get why Odagiri is asking him that.

Then, he frowns and angrily pushes away Odagiri’s hand…

…informs/reminds him that this is HIS case…

…surprising Odagiri as he evidently hadn’t realized this is (still) his case.

As ‘Seion’ [静穏 Quiet] resumes on being played Miyoshi walks away, leaving a surprised Odagiri standing there thinking ‘my… case?’.

It’s either morning or afternoon and ‘Yōkō’ [陽光 Sunshine] is playing in the background. The florist is taking away the flowers from the theatre. Let’s give this guy’s back a good look. Isn’t he dressed in the same way as the florist from which Schneider bought flowers in Odagiri’s memories?

Anyway, attentive viewers might have noticed there was a car parked at a short distance, half hidden by a building, and that the car started moving when the florist left, a hint that the car was going to tail the florist.

Although we’re back on evening/night and to the Shinjuku Akikaze Theatre ‘Yōkō’ [陽光 Sunshine] continues being played.

We move to the dressing room and to Yoriko, already in her acting clothes, staring sadly at a photo of Schneider and herself together before being told she should get ready to go on.

We’re again in the theatre and they’re again playing the same scene we saw previously. At first it can seem an annoyance to see the same scene being replayed but then, as Yoriko is making her monologue, she stops talking, her mouth open and trembling as if she were finding hard to say what she had to say.

The visual shows us that the viewers are surprised and that Miyoko slightly opens her eyes. It’s a hint that something is wrong, that things aren’t going as planned. We see that a tear trails down on Yoriko’s cheeks and then she falls on her knees, weeping. She manages to finally say her line but we know that previously she saw them smiling so we know that her tears aren’t an act. She spontaneously couldn’t help but start crying.

The viewers don’t realize it as her tears too can fit the mood of the scene and start clapping.

A door open and someone is leaving the stall. It’s Odagiri, who’s walking alone toward the exit. He pauses as Miyoshi’s voice comments that Yuriko wasn’t the murderer in Schneider’s case.

We see that Miyoshi was behind him, leaning on a wall. It’s hard to say if Odagiri deliberately pretended not to notice his presence of if Miyoshi managed to surprise him because Odagiri was still distracted by Yuriko.

Anyway Odagiri agrees with Miyoshi claiming no actor could fake such tears. Then he turns to Miyoshi and demands to hear his report on what he found about Schneider’s accomplices. Odagiri is calm and in control here, quite a difference from his last meeting with Miyoshi.

Smiling Miyoshi tells him it was exactly as Odagiri thought.

Evidently he isn’t angry that Odagiri was right in his theory making even though when Odagiri reported to D Agency he questioned his suggestion and, later, he got angry when Odagiri asked him why Miyoshi was reporting to him.

But let’s go back to the story. As ‘ Yogiri’ [夜霧 Night fog] starts playing, Miyoshi explains he tailed the florist… so he was the one on the car which moved after he left the theatre. The guy stopped at what looked like a florist shop but was actually a secret post for Soviet spies to exchange intelligence. Miyoshi says they communicated in code using a specific flower. A flashback shows us it’s the flower Schneider bought before dying, the chamomile.

The flashback also confirm that the florist who took away the flowers from the theatre was the same that sold the flowers to Schneider.

Miyoshi goes on claiming two spies made contact with Schneider, one was the florist, the other was…

Odagiri ends the sentence for him, claiming it was Nogami Yuriko’s friend, Miyoko.

Miyoshi asks him what tipped him off and Odagiri turns away from him as he claims it was simple. He just connected the scent of flowers that was in Nogami’s apartment just after the murder with the one of the flowers delivered to Yasuhara Miyoko.

Now… allow me a little digression here. This connection is… a little cringe worthy. I mean… Miyoko had a lot of flowers delivered to her, not just chamomile. Chamomile was only the one Odagiri happened to sniff and her fave flower but she’s receiving so many different flowers that at this point the connection becomes a little too loose. Whatever flower could ‘draw a connection’, not specifically chamomile. At this point Odagiri could have said she was the only one connected to flowers… only not really because the guy at the theatre was connected to flowers too as he moved around Miyoko’s flowers.

There’s to say thought that, due to the many changes done by the anime, this part is a complete original scene (in the novel the culprit is Yuriko and there’s not flower connection or Russian spies involvement in Schneider’s death) so it’s possible that the problem is simply that the anime authors weren’t as good as Yanagi Koji at mystery writing and ended up making a choice that doesn’t work as well as his own. Who knows.

Odagiri goes on claiming that Schneider planned to become a triple spy, and hand info to the British so the Soviets decided to assassinate him making it look like a suicide. Odagiri is smiling as he says so, evidently liking this solution.

Odagiri explains that in order to make it looks like a suicide they needed Miyoko to be on the crime scene and have some time alone there. This bit too is a bit shaky.

According to Odagiri’s theory, after seeing Schneider dead Yuriko rushed off in panic to the police station… but this wasn’t something Miyoko could actually anticipate. Yuriko could have been so shocked she wouldn’t be able to walk away, falling sit like Miyoko pretended to do. Or, as the novel remarked, could have decided to use the phone to call the police a phone that is well visible in the anime and couldn’t be removed because it needed to play a part in the anime plot as well.

Anyway, according to Odagiri, Miyoko used her time alone to place the suicide note on the table and added the double cross as a message to the English-speaking side (as if to say that Schneider was killed for attempting to betray the Soviets for England).

Miyoshi, still smiling, asks how she got the note as she surely couldn’t have him write it.

While all this is for our benefit, so as to explain things to us and let us see Miyoshi as he was killed off in the previous episode and we were all mourning him, it feels a bit weird Miyoshi hadn’t figured out. We’ve otherwise to assume he figured out but, for his own reasons, Miyoshi wanted Odagiri to voice it out. Note also how they’re talking in a public place and, since the play has just finished, people should actually get out now… unless a lot of time has passed and Odagiri was the last to leave after everyone has left? Still, people working in the theatre could and should be around. They could be overheard easily. In short although I’m happy this extra scene let me see Miyoshi again… well, it’s not really well planned.

Back to the plot. Odagiri claims it was a hint for the next code they would use… which again is shaky as writing down such code would be risky for Schneider… and, as a spy, he should be capable to remember it without writing it down. Really, for this to work we’ve to assume Schneider sucks as a spy.

Anyway the logic is that Miyoko knew Schneider would be in that apartment (let’s assume they agreed to this previously), called him and told him that what was written on the note is what she would tell him at their next meeting… and that Schneider felt compelled to write it down. Then, Schneider would decide he’ll have a glass of wine… which we’ve to assume Miyoko or someone else managed to poison… and here too the logic is shaky again because Miyoko couldn’t be sure Schneider would drink wine after talking with her at the phone, unless it was a habit of his but we’re never told about this.

Anyway the explanation ends here.

We’re back on D Agency.

We see Odagiri’s profile as he’s standing in Yūki’s office, likely staring at Yūki as the man says he was informed Yasuhara Miyoko confessed murdering Schneider and that the police thanks them, which is quite a rare occurrence. Odagiri seems… just there, as if his thoughts are actually distant. He doesn’t look firm or determinate. He’s… maybe sort of sad, tired, an inner sort of tired, lost in his own thoughts. It’s like he’s looking at Yūki but not really seeing him.

Yūki then asks if Nogami Yuriko resembles Nishiyama Chizuru.

As Yūki says so, we’ve a close up of Odagiri’s eyes. His gaze, that seemed unfocused and emotionless, changes abruptly as his eyes widens in surprise…

…and then he lowers them sadly as ‘Hifū’ [悲風 Sorrowful wind] starts being played in the background.

Odagiri remembers that, when ordered to monitor Schneider and Odagiri first laid his eyes on Yuriko he couldn’t believe how much she resembled Chizuru. As he thinks so we see a flashback. Odagiri is outside a house, peeking in it from behind a tree through the window. Odagiri must have good eyesight as he doesn’t seem close enough to see the people inside well.

Anyway, Odagiri sees Yuriko seated on a couch and Schneider coming close to her and kissing her. At this Odagiri’s eyes widen. It’s actually the surprise because that woman reminds him of Chizuru but, since he notices this only when Schneider kisses her it feels as if he was affected by the kiss.

Another flashback starts, one with little Odagiri who’s busy drawing or writing something. As we see him doing so we hear Odagiri admitting he never knew his parents’ faces, that he was left with his paternal grandparents but they were so old they couldn’t be expected to care for a child. As he says so we see the grandparents, who’re actually glaring at little Odagiri.

They don’t look like grandparents who would have a hard time looking after a quiet child like Odagiri seemed to be but as grandparents who do not want that child around… which is exactly how they were in the novel. I wonder if their expression is due to some change in the original script for the anime scene.

Odagiri claims due to this it fell on the young daughter of a nearby family to raise him. That girl was Nishiyama Chizuru, the girl we saw walking with him in the previous flashback. She calls little Odagiri ‘Hiro-chan’ and, as soon as little Odagiri sees her, his face lights up. Her face is finally shown and we see she has a striking resemblance to Yoriko.

For Odagiri she was the only one person in the world who accepted him… which hints that the rift between him and his grandparents was a little bigger than them just finding hard to raise a child.

As we go back to the previous flashback of Chizuru and Odagiri walking together, Yūki comments that Chizuru practically raised Odagiri, then eloped with a man who abandoned her and she never returned to her hometown but died of tuberculosis.

Yūki goes on and says that when Schneider died Odagiri said he didn’t notice anything wrong. At this Odagiri raises his head and looks outside the window, to the sky. His expression is… I don’t know, a little dead on the inside, as if he’s longing for something he can’t have, as if he were a trapped man.

Yūki goes on claiming the only thing that could distract a man trained by D Agency is Chizuru’s ghost so it was a simple deduction.

Odagiri agrees as he claims that he was so focused on Yuriko he didn’t notice the other woman in the equation, Miyoko. We go back to the flashback in which Yuriko and Schneider kiss. The camera moves away from them and we see, among the many people there, there’s also Miyoko, frowning angrily at them.

Yūki then asks Odagiri if he won’t reconsider. The camera shows us Odagiri’s resignation from D Agency.

Yūki’s sentence in a way it implies Yūki knows Odagiri won’t reconsider but still he’s offering him the possibility to change his mind. Odagiri merely nods to confirm his decision. At this Yūki asks him if he knows why they don’t accept women and explains that’s because women kills when it’s not necessary.

This too is shaky in this setting (and misogynist as hell as there’s plenty of men who kill for reasons similar to Miyoko or worse and therefore unnecessary… Wind Agency anyone? Oikawa anyone? Yoshino anyone? SMERSH killer anyone? but well, that was a misogynist time…) as Schneider’s death was decided by the Soviets. It might work if Miyoko wasn’t a spy previously and decided to become one only to kill Schneider, like Synthia Grane did (she became a spy… or better an assassin, to kill the man who caused her husband’s death even if this meant betraying her country and risking of losing her child)… but we’re actually told Miyoko WAS a spy working for the Soviets, which decided on Schneider’s death so it’s not like she killed unnecessarily… she obeyed to an order, like Gamo would have done in Ep 9 when he tried to kill Jitsui. The fact that she also found pleasure in that order because Schneider dumped her for her friend is secondary. She would have to kill him just the same.

This sentence would have worked better in the novel (no idea if it’s in it) where Yoriko is the murderer and she killed Schneider because he betrayed her with her friend when she had no problems accepting his other lovers. In that case it was no order that moved her, nor job, just personal feelings.

Odagiri reasons that being completely unencumbered requires not believing in anything else in the world and abandon trivial things like love and hate, betraying what’s in your hearts that supports you and casting it aside and this is something he can’t do as no matter how hard he tries, he can’t rid himself of Chizuru’s memory… or better, if he were to abandon it, he would no longer be sure of his reason for living.

He remembers the other D Agency students and Yūki as they were seated on the table discussing Schneider’s case and admits that in the end he couldn’t become a ‘monster’ like them.

‘ Yōkō’ [陽光 Sunshine] starts playing again and we see that the signboard at the Shinjuku Akakaze theatre is being covered with a writing that says they’ll reopen soon with a new cast. The guy doing this is the same that was carrying Miyoko’s flowers around. Odagiri appears behind him, holding a suitcase in his hand and asks him if Yuriko will not perform any longer.

The guy recognizes Odagiri and then inform him Yuriko quit because after losing her boyfriend and having her friend arrested… well it was a little too much to bear. Odagiri is surprised then lowers his head sadly as he says he understands but then the guys goes on, surprising him when he says they won’t see Yuriko perform again in Japan. Odagiri can’t help but ask where is she going with quite a bit of interest. Turns out Yuriko is going to Manchuria, which surprises Odagiri greatly.

Flashback back to when Odagiri was in Yūki’s office. Yūki tosses an envelope on the table (Yūki’s table too is scratched, I’ve to admit I love those little details in Joker Game)

…and claims that’s Odagiri’s dismissal. Odagiri bows slightly (nowhere as deep as Sakuma did as that’s not a ‘saluting’ bow) and Yūki tells him he’s assigned to be a First Lieutenant (he got promoted as previously he was a Second Lieutenant) in Kwantung, Manchuria. Yes, the same place in which Yuriko went. In short it’s not like Odagiri is free to go now, he still belong to the Army, just not anymore to D Agency… but apparently Yūki at least had him assigned to where Yuriko went.

Odagiri takes the letter and moves to walk away, and maybe it’s just me but now he’s walking like a soldier.

Yūki calls him ‘First Lieutenant Tobisaki Hiroyuki’ making him stop and turn in surprise…

…then Yūki basically orders him ‘Don’t die.’ The scene loses a bit of its importance as while it’s copied from the novel, in the novel Odagiri was assigned to the first line because the Army deliberately used this method to kill off the ones that left D Agency as they knew too much… so Yūki saying so was much more meaningful since Odagiri in the novel faced a concrete risk to die… while here he’s not put in such a dangerous situation… at least at the moment (fights in Manchuria will start in May and this episode is placed in April), so it seems he’s just reminding him part of D Agency’s motto.

Odagiri turns to him, stands at attention and then bows in what is the Japanese military salute, a sign he still took Yūki’s words like an order.

Yūki asks him if he’s stupid and then asks him who bows while wearing a suit. I take it as a hint he still views Odagiri as one of his men, of his spies, even if he’ll be assigned somewhere else.

Of course, for us viewers, the story of Joker Game came to a full circle. Those words were the first that Yūki said in Ep 1 to Sakuma, who just came to D Agency from the Army, and now they become the last Yūki will say to Odagiri, who’s just leaving D Agency for the Army. They’re an anime addition but they make sense in the anime contest as give it a good sense of closure.

And with this scene ends ‘Joker Game’ Ep 12 and the whole ‘Joker Game’ anime series… which I truly hope will be continued anytime soon.

Ending theme.

Overall, while Odagiri’s episode is a good episode… well, I think the changes to the plot didn’t really help the mystery story in it. I still enjoyed the many parallels with Ep 1-2 and the whole idea of coming to a full circle but maybe this episode too would have worked better if they had turned it into a two parts story. But well, I guess it couldn’t be helped. What I seriously mourn in this episode is the absence of Sakuma. This episode takes place short after his own… and in his own it wasn’t said that Sakuma would be assigned elsewhere, so it feels weird to have him completely cut out. Sure, Sakuma wasn’t in this episode in the novel, but with the many changes the plot of the novel underwent adding Sakuma in the background, maybe just standing there during the boys’ reunion or being the one who hands to Yūki the letter that says where Odagiri would be reassigned… or just being there in the study, wouldn’t have changed things drastically. Instead the anime merely had Sakuma go just ‘POF’ and didn’t even include him in the OAV, even if his voice actor is willing to work in Joker Game some more (in the OAV he dubs the cat, Yoru) and Sakuma is sort of an iconic figure in the series as he gets included in all the drama cds (excluding the first as that one focuses on Hatano only) differently from Gamo who’s not part of the drama cd.

So… well, I’m sad he just disappeared without an explanation.

On the opposite side, I’ve to say the anime was a lot nicer with Odagiri than the novel so at least I’m glad for him.

I’m also glad they give Miyoshi a role as our poor Miyoshi didn’t really get to do much in what was supposed to be his episode… and well, it sort of helped us to mourn him, showing his still alive. Sure, we know that this episode is chronologically placed prior to his death but well… it’s still nice to think that ‘Joker Game’ ended with Miyoshi still alive.

And this was Joker Game Ep 12. Thank you to everyone who was brave and patient enough to sit through my long, long ramblings for the whole episode. I hope other people will feel like sharing what they had observed while watching it!

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