Casshern Sins 5-8

I’ve got nothing witty to say. Really.

Episode 5

I was surprised at how typical the Ryuze’s story was; she just wanted to kill Casshern for justice and revenge, but no so much for her sister as for herself. Hell, that time all her sister said before she was ruined was “Casshern wo…”; it could’ve and most likely was (for what is anime without misunderstandings?) more of a plea to save “the calamity if this world” then kill him. Ryuze’s gone from slightly mysterious to simple and uninteresting (even more so in the next episode). We all know she’s not going to kill Casshern no matter what she tries (if anyone should’ve been the one to do that, it should’ve been Crazy Eyes Sophie) so beyond this I don’t exactly get her poin in this show anymore. Thankfully, we have the introduction of more characters next episode to pick up the slack.

Episode 6

First off, that was an excellent fight scene, smoothly animated, with passion and power behind every blow. It’s nice to see someone fight on equal ground to Casshern; I was kind of getting tired of him pwning all the robots he met. Dio’s both a bit of a megalomaniac and a visionary, which is always a good combination, though the way he looks up to Braiking Boss (who I’m assuming os the hooded man we saw only in the first and second episodes) makes me wonder just how powerful the Big Boss was. If he is still alive, then it’ll be interesting to see him fight Casshern (we need more awesome showdowns in this series).

We once again see that all beings wish to survive, no matter how much they seemingly accept death. Eveyone’s willing to jump on Dio’s wagon of salvation, even if it means killing Emo Casshern (who I think would be fine with it, actually). It raises the questin of what Casshern actually did to Luna; the old man said that she was immortal, but now that Casshern’s immortal, I’m thinking that there may have been some DEVOURING going on at that time, a distrubing but plausible theory. The introducion of that random woman akin to the race of Casshern and Dio means we have two more antagonists (yay this means more fighting!) for the road, but this is kind of offset by the way Ryuze interfered with Casshern’s fight; the whole “I won’t let anyone kill you until I can kill you, justly” thing is just trite and irritating. I really hope that she dies soon.

Episode 7

Very subtle and emotional episode. I personally think that the bell was representative of hope within the decaying world that’s all around Casshern. That woman, though she was freaking crazy (Ding dong, ding dong = mantra of a crazy woman) had an inherent urge to show that there was still beauty in this world through letting the bell ring fo all to hear. There was no longer a purpose for her existence, and rather than waste away to nothing through meaningless gambling she’d prefer to, in a sense, look on the bright side of things. Though how this had any relation to shoving Casshern into a giant press to use him for making a better bell is beyond me. Once again, beautiful, but bloody insane. At ther very least Casshern seems to have found a reason to live now (other than that crazy berserker switch which turns on whenever his life’s in danger); the people he meets on his travels profoundly affect him and he’s growing as a person (which is fantastic. Please, no more Emo Casshern). Ringo seems to exist just to hammer in ever so slightly more the feelings portrayed in the episode, and that’s great, as she stands testament to the fact that int his bleak and rotting world, innocence and beauty still exist.

Episode 8

Quite frankly, I’ve had enough Songstress’ of Hope to last me a lifetime through a single serving of Macross Pie, so this episode wasn’t nearly as powerful as any of the others. On the other hand, it probabaly wouldn’t have felt meaningful even if I hadn’t already known of someone singing to the ends of the galaxy. If the entire plot wasn’t weird enough, the writer’s decided to use Engrish songs, which just made the whole thing a joke. If there’s one thing I know about Japan, it’s that there can be really meaningful/convoluted lyrics embedded in music (mostly due to the lack of rhyming which is common in english), so why they’d choose to use something that was incomprehensible by most viewers is beyond me. I don’t even get the point of this episode; Casshern meets a singer who’s singing for hope or whatever and then they travel to a village for one last song, she sings the song (complete with backing track!) to another great fight scene (with some choice shots) and then they leave. Why? What was the overall message? Weakest episode so far, and I hope we can return to the main storyline next time, rather than focusing on the “LISTEN TO MY SONG!” aspect of the series.