anime: Blue Seed eps 1-5

[meganbmoore]

The myth goes as such:  thousands of years ago, the land of Izumo  was terrorized by an eight headed monster, Yamata no Orichi.  An old couple with eight daughters was left in peace as long as they sacrificed one daughter to the beast each year.  When it came time to sacrifice their last daughter, Kushinada, the exiled god, Susa-no-o, came along and made them an offer: he would slay the beast for them, if they gave him their daughter as a bride.  Beast got chopped up, girl got married off to a stranger instead of eaten for lunch.  I'm sure she viewed it as an improvement.

Fast forward to today, and the descendants of Kushinada and Susa-no-o are known as the Kushinada.  Yamata no Orichi also spawned descendants, monsters known as the Aragami.  When the daughters of the Kushinada die, they set off an electromagnetic pulse that keeps the Aragami asleep underground.  As you can tell, it always has and probably alway will really suck to be female and a member of this family.  The current generation, though, went and had twin daughters, Kaede and Momiji.  Kaede was adopted by a man named Kunikida, head of TAC, an organization that hunts and fights Aragami, and is trained to fight them, while Momiji is raised to be a normal girl, oblivious to her heritage.  (And somehow living in Izumo, but completely ignorant of a famous legend about it.  I'll let that slide.)

However, when Kaede sacrifices herself to stop the Aragami, they learn that the electromagnetic pulse was split between the twins, and her death wasn't enough to put the Aragami to sleep for a couple decades.  Realizing this, Kunikida takes off to get to Momiji before anyone else does.

COMPLICATION!!!

Somewhere along the way, the Aragami got tired of this forced naptime and they created Kusanagi, a young man with supernatural powers thanks to the seven magatami beads-the true form of the Aragami-within him, specifically to protect Kaede.  Somewhere along the way, though, Kusanagi fell in love with Kaede(look, you create a guy specifically to protect a girl, and it's going to happen) and after her death, he decides to finish the job for her and attacks the clumsy Momiji on the way to school.  I really need to figure out why the "I will kill you" here makes me go "Ooh?" while almost the exact same thing in Gundam Wing made me go "WTH? Tell me I'm reading this coding wrong!"  Probably because, while Relena seems to take it as confession of love or some such, Momiji has the much more sensible reaction of wanting to get away from the psycho.  The fact that it takes about 5 minutes for "I will kill you" to change to "I will protect you even if I'm kinda a stupid @$$ about it" instead of 40~ episodes probably helps, too.

Soon, Momiji has joined TAC and is helping them hunt the Aragami, with Kusanagi tagging along in the shadows, ready to play Knight In Shining Armor when needed.

Am in love.

Kusanagi seems to have taken lessons in "how to let a girl know you like her"  from a certain red eyed guy named Kyo.  It's received in about the same vein, too.  He seems to have a lot of bottled up angst, and is one of those "I'm so badass" guys who is, but is also a lot nicer than he thinks he is.  Momiji's a clutz and does her best to be friends with everyone(including a certain rude guy obsessed with her panties) and does her best to be a useful member of TAC, instead of a princess in a glass tower.  Kunikida seems to be trying to let Momiji choose her own path, instead of choosing it for her.  There's also Takeuchi, Kunikida's second in command, who seems to be in love with him, Matsudaira, a scientist whose devotion to her work cost her her family, a pair of nerds I haven't learned much about yet, and Koume, a prickly soldier who got transferred to TAC for being too fond of blowing things up.  I like Koume.  She's my favorite after Kusanagi and Momiji.  Maybe before or tied with Momiji.  (I'm currently being glad that Momiji is being allowed to do things so far, despite her character type.)  Actually, so far, I like them all.

I like stories based on mythology, and I've been wanting to watch or read something based on the Susa-no-o myth for a while now.  Though I'm saddened that there is no sign yet of his grass cutting sword.  Also, Momiji has a magatama in her chest, and it's what lets her detect Aragami.  Kusanagi gets his powers from the seven magatama inside him.  Eight is the magic number of the Susa-no-o legend.  Not too obvious, are we anime?  I do wish, though, that it wasn't so fond of panty shots.  (And again: Kusanagi.  Related to Kyo.)

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I suspected that about Kusanagi. I'm used to these "created to save the princess" types basically being walking weapons.

I really do need to figure out why the "I have to kill you" cracked me up there, but had the opposite reaction for me in Gundam Wing. Then again, Heero/Relena had a number of things where it works for me elsewhere, but not there. Of course, Kusanagi says it with ever so much angst and "I'm tough...TOUGH!" that you can't quite take him seriously.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the thing about Kusanagi is that he says, "I'm sorry, but I have to kill you." But you know he's really just an angsty woobie underneath -- I mean, they meet on a path through the forest and the wind is blowing dramatically and Momiji is all, "WTF is going on?!" The reaction is appropriate. She doesn't say, "I love you too!" Which, uh, I think we can all agree is not a normal reaction.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the set up for it was all "yeah, right, you know better" so you couldn't take the death threat seriously, whereas with Heero, he really DID plan to do it(ok, Kusanagi intended to, but was obviously going to wuss out) and tried several times, and kept it up through most of the series(and I swear he considered it in Endless Waltz, too) and it took five minutes for "sorry, but i have to kill you" to turn into "RARR! I will protect you fromn the world! No one touches! Oooh...girly parts!"

I think it also helps that Kusanagi is about a hundred times more charming than Heero(I know it makes me an outcast among GW fans, but outside of a few psychological aspects and the opportunity to mock him, I wasn't all that big on Heero.) I am also amused that the English dub for Kusanagi is also that of Duo.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, once Kusanagi started looking up her skirt (in a goofy "Har har, girly parts!" way, not in a "I'm a creepy stalker!" way), I'd say his Threatening Murderer Cred plummeted straight off a cliff.

I never got the Heero allure. I think it's the ultra-cold, efficient assassin thing, which theoretically IS a kink of mine, but Heero just didn't do it for me.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, actually, a lot of the actual elements for Heero, Relena, and Heero/Relena are set up for me to love, but the actual characters and pairing? Nope.

I think part of it with Heero is, that...well, all his cool qualities, Duo or Trowa do better.