#uncanny encounter ep 11

[whywontuluvme]

Season 1 ep 11 of Uncanny Encounter had me sobbing for Ms. Chu and Soho.

[quarterette]

Utawarerumono: The False Faces ep 1-12

A slapdash gathering of my thoughts of the show; I had originally watched up to I think about episode 11 when the show first aired back in 2015 before getting bored and watched the 2006 anime instead.

Now that I’ve gone through the all the VNs, gonna try and understand why TFF is panned by VN fans. And also why people seem to enjoy the Mask of Deception more on a second playthrough. Seeing all these characters not suffering is nice.

The Good:

- The twins aren’t shown to be following Haku around in the mountains. This always seemed a bit strange to me even with the mystical powers they have. Removing Mito’s evil laugh was also good; that felt out of place in the VN given his general disposition.

- Wow the coloring for this show is beautiful. Punchy but subdued at the same time, I think they did a good job recreating the palette of the VN. The line art itself is a bit more variant in quality, but I was pleased with most of the movement in the show (kinda want to watch the BD version to check for any edits). The nekomimi emoting was great to see after staring at stills for the VN.

- Likewise the framing/storyboards surprised me every now and then with how nice they were. I’m no film critic but there were multiple scenes that decided to use long shots to establish the environment and use full body language to convey the action which was nice.

- The Karura/Touka episode was compressed nicely. TBH prefer Haku meeting Karura in the hot springs compared to finding a secret room in the attic.

- Cocopo gags never overstayed their welcome for me. A great addition to the show; that Hororon is adorable. It’s friendship with Mukkur is even cuter.

- The CGI has aged pretty ok for the most part.

- In general Anju came off as less of a brat to me. That lecture Kuon gave in ep 7 must have done its job. Having her wear commoner clothes also helps.

- I actually enjoyed the kidnapping plot more in the anime, even if it resulted in skipping over most of the consequences that the VN has play out. The visual gags with the udon cart just make it that much more farcical (granted, with this particular telling it makes me much angrier at Ougi for going along with this whole thing). The Oshtoru/Haku fight was fun to watch, even if contrived and they gave no reason as to why Haku suddenly gained such competency.

The OK:

- Dropping the blond pretty boy that Atuy was chasing (I can’t remember his name - edit: it’s Chafurun) worked fine. Kiwru’s introduction suffering because of it was less so. Wearing a mask didn’t seem in line with his character IMO.

- could they not spare 1 minute introducing what Kurarin is?

- Retooling the encounter with the erotica writer Raurau (Woshis) was meh to me. The scene works fine, but loses the hint that he leads another life w/o Nekone to comment that they know each other. I get the feeling we won’t get more hints to it.

- Making Nosuri seem more serious during the bandit raid made the show seem more serious overall. If only they had gone with that tone longer... it made the several following slice of life episodes that much harder to slog through.

- Hell just having Nosuri seem more competent in the beginning was a nice touch imo.

- I didn’t think it was necessary to have the Atuy on the Dekopompo’s boat raid episode. Same with the masks. Kinda wish they kept the context that Oshtoru brings Haku out on cases with just the two of them.

- Haku’s complaining. Due to the lack of inner monologue we had to end up with a lot more vocal complaining. Makes him come off more tactless than he really is.

- The muscle definition of the guys. Personally felt Oshtoru went into uncanny valley but hey I’ll take the eyecandy from both sides.

- Conversely was it just me or were the boobs in the anime more manageable-looking than the VN?

- I take that back the twins look ridiculous.

The Bad:

- The show in general tackled one or two character introductions per episode. Given the huge cast, I think it was a choice that kinda made sense... but it didn’t have enough episodes to be that lax about run time. IIRC I gave up around episode 11 the first time watching it because it felt like the show just wanted to have a harem now, even with the action in episode 8. Episode 10 was like 80% superfluous gags.

Basically, It feels like the action episodes and the SoL episodes are from two different shows at times and the fact that episode plot lines were fairly self contained didn’t help. They really should have included more of Haku’s oddball jobs instead of showing him managing manure. The boat episode was not enough.

- Kiwru’s got shafted in this adaption pretty hard. Why did no one mention Kiwru was a prince in episode 7? Like he should be up there with Atuy and Rulutieh during Anju’s presentation. And his stomach butterflies gag is nowhere to be seen. Or the Shinonon gag. (Yes I’m a Kiwru stan why do you ask)

- WHY oh why did they make Ougi’s eyes open? And have a hat? Greatest mysteries of the universe. In general they just made Ougi more of a gag character I guess.

- Atuy’s fear of bugs was unnecessary. Kinda clashes with her general bloodlust.

- IMO the Aruruu and Camyu cameo overstayed its welcome in the VN and i stil dk if it really needed a whole episode.

- WTF was the “dancing” that Uruuru and Sarana were doing in episode 12? i don’t understand.... in general the court scene in ep 12 was too lax. There was not enough gravitas.