A little detour happened not long before this entry mysteriously typed by itself. It would have been quite troublesome for this one blogger if he had not procrastinated with his entry. Really, to think the subtitles for episode seventeen will come out less than twenty-four hours after subtitles for episode sixteen was released. Shadow Dreams released the next one just yesterday, so go check it out if haven’t noticed. PabloDSZ and I had this short conversation about that group today actually. It’s either a speedy team as he puts it, or an awesome one-man (probably woman actually) show from what I can observe on the link provided on AnimeSuki. Whatever, good times. Now this can be a full-length entry on the Kinjirareta Asobi arc with only screens from episode seventeen.

Not much to complain about the predictability on this one since it was not designed to be a puzzle like the previous stories we had. Heck, they just throw in on who caused all this mess right at the start this time. Boom! Right on a silver plate. And of course, not scary at all. At the very least it would have given the people going through adolescence some thrills with Sakauchi’s, “I want to slaughter them all,” attitude in Mai’s dream where he was watching from the school rooftop. Then again, I’m one of the people who are buying this all for the occult lessons. Some people like to hate on them, but I think it’s interesting. It’s kind of like learning about the different cultures. This week’s happened to be something called kodoku, which does seem awfully familiar from somewhere to me for some reason. Maybe it’s just because of the mention of worms since they are used a lot in horror genres. Now I really didn’t get the deal with how the kodoku effect worked in a school. Maybe I’m just a lost soul who did miss a line while watching, but all I know now is that the school was coincidentally located where spirits are sealed in. What am I asking is (if the anime really didn’t explain this), what is acting as the seal? Would it be the nearby shrine that’s acting as a barrier? Yes, I’m hungry for all this “useless knowledge” as Matsuyama put in front of Sakauchi. Guess this is the right time to say fiction is free for all and anything can easily claimed to be the way it is due to sheer coincidence. Guzen dayo ne?

I already said this in that catch-up post I did on the series, but Mai is now starting to show some bad sides of her character. It’s nothing serious enough to make me stop watching it. The issue is just that she’s turning out to be one of those typical naive characters. Hopefully we can forgive Mai and she makes up for it by using her head next time. Hell, I actually talk to my computer screen while watching Ghost Hunt because that girl keeps putting herself in dangerous. “No Mai-chan, don’t go inside the classroom. Abunai desu yo!” And please, no Buddhist chanting Mai in the next story. That just doesn’t suit her character. How about if she uses her precognition abilities to just avoid danger in the first place. Mai is lovely indeed, except that girl sure knows how to drive everyone crazy. We understand you Naru-chan. One part I did agree with her on though. Naru did give an answer, but some stupid short answer like that isn’t enough to explain that huge question. Why did they go through the trouble of making those replacement dolls for all the students when they can just make one for Matsuyama and wait for the beast to kill the replacement? Now, unless an effigy doesn’t fully protect you in some cases that will be understandable. If it is, they should have explained that part. Great, now it’s a conspiracy. Ghost Hunt wants the watchers to do some occult research on their own. Beautiful, my future career as an onmyouji is set. I shall use to it curse all those Shiori-haters.

Kudos to Bou-san who probably went through the most to keep that silly girl safe. He used some new move this time. Good to see they’re not always playing the same old record from the chants in the first episode and producing some new stuff. John started that exorcism variation trend from the previous arc to be precise though. If my eyes weren’t deceiving me, he used a double-sided kunai to do some weird sealing. Don’t ask what the heck the rest of the team was doing this time. Ayako really needs to move it and get something done since the joke on her got old the moment it started. Addition of Yasuhara was a nice change in this case. It keeps the atmosphere lighter when the client is actually someone who fits in well with the main cast. Silly Impz suspected he was the culprit due to too much thinking on his part. It won’t be bad to be on a look out next time though. People aren’t really worth the trust realistically. Fortunately there weren’t any twist this time as I foresaw using my own extra-sensory perception. Okay, that was a lame joke. Ignore that and stare at blushing/crying Mai. There was exactly two of that unless I suddenly got retarded at counting too.

Awesome scene with just Mai and Naru for the shippers including me. You still got to think though. I mean, ignore favoritism and think realistically as I said it earlier. That was just some serious miscommunication between the two of them. It’s like as if their chemistry doesn’t mix at all. Mai is the typical main character’s role to act naive with a dash of the Emiya Shiro’s “protector of justice” sort of attitude. Simply put, she doesn’t really go deep into things and thus the reason why she didn’t stop to think about trusting Naru on this. It’s in her character to misunderstand the complex characters like Naru. No, he didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not like he lost his mind or anything, that’s just the way he is all time. Mai’s reaction is what a normal person would show indeed, and that just shows how much apart their worlds are. It’ll take them quite awhile to really understand each other. Naru already caught on to Mai’s habits and mood swings I guess. How about on to her way of thinking? Eh, I wouldn’t bet too much on. He probably doesn’t know her completely even after this episode. Whatever, there’s also that option to be an ass and argue that opposite attracts works out just as well. I say they still have a lot more to find out about each other and settle out. Yeah, Masako might still have the upper hand if you look in a way. Never mind if you don’t follow, this is just something I typed at midnight to just increase the word count. Anyway, did I mention I love turtlenecks on girls for some reason? I draw girls wearing them quite often myself when I doodle on papers actually.

These two screenshots are practically mandatory on any Ghost Hunt entry involving episode seventeen. Likewise to when Naru complimented Mai for her good taste in her choice of men, I thinks Naru does have one aspect that doesn’t make him any different from “normal people”. Who the heck in this world wouldn’t smile at a girl who goes from sad to flushing semi-angry/semi-genki while yelling at you for always stealing the “oishi doko”? Let me knock myself out from the Mai overload now. She’s not normal I’m telling you. Normal girls can’t blurt out dangerously moé lines like that.