Episode 1
This episode and the next combine elements of the first three chapters to create a two-part imtroduction similar to the original oneshot, which was a two-part oneshot. Yeah. Oh, and weird introductiory scene based on Chu ch 7. That too.
Notes[edit | edit source]
Prologue[edit | edit source]
- The very first shot we see is... cherry blossom petals floating in the breeze.
- ... And of course, the boys' transformation scene. And those Powerpuff Girls energy trails. No amount of screenshots will be sufficient to capture this insanity. Fortunately, I don't think the details are that important- just note that they seem to have a certain form/template, compared to the semi-varied transformation catchphrases and sequences seen in the main show with the first set of rings (and in the manga?). Karin still uses her good old "I am God" line, though.
- Unique to the anime is the boys doing a group attack without Karin's help. It's apparently weaker than Karin with one of the boys, though. We'll later see Micchi and Jin fighting on their own in episode 8, implying that the boys at least have their own seperate combat abilities. The Seed throws their attack back at them.
- Apparently Rika can now observe whats going on through a Seed she's planted, and send other seeds through it.
- The person with her is definitely Kirio ("onii-chan"), wearing the junior high uniform rather than the high school one (I think this would have aired before the chapter where we saw the uniform). Not sure if it's Kirio or Kirihiko talking.
- Suzune's only scene here after Karin transforms has him holding Nyake in front of his chest, so we can't see whether he's still got his Chronos Clock or not. That being said, given later events and episode 8 he has to have kept it, so apparently Karin's Aphrodite transformation comes with its own clock in this verse.
- When the seed hits Karin's Clock, and a bunch of different things start happening at once. It's rather difficult to piece together what's happening.
- Mpc-hc 2014-03-24 20-03-12-09.png
d
- Mpc-hc 2014-03-24 20-04-39-26.png
a
- The house is the Kujyou residence, and the laughing kid is... Kujyou Himeka? This flashback is minor, but never given any context that I noticed.
- The scene with the shadow has it turning counterclockwise around Karin while a ticking sound plays, a set of effects reminiscent of a clock running backwards.
- The effect on Karin's detransformation looks similar to the effect from her transformation earlier, but in reverse.
- The last shot of the sky doesn't match the sky where past Karin ends up- it looks like the sun is just setting or maybe rising, while it's nearly night where(when) Karin is. That shot matches the sky when Karin's transformation begins to revert and in the house flashback. It's used later, if I remember correctly... Might be from the time Karin just left, where(when) it appeared to be sunrise.
- More petals, our very first Suzuka flashback, and the weirdness censor kicks in. Karin seems to forget everything that just happened but is still a bit confused about what she's supposed to be doing, which is the prompt for her recap of her life and Shii-chan's death here.
- Kazuto: It'll be okay. We'll definitely meet again.
- By the way, the bridge is Tower Bridge.
Normal time[edit | edit source]
- Karin's Athena ring glows a bit and then settles down, probably because of the time travel thing. It's probably not reacting to Kazune's ring, since otherwise it would keep glowing.
- Kazune's ring is either active when he shows up or just catching the light, it's hard to tell... It might be reacting to the time travel, like Karin's was, or it may have been reacting to her ring, though later on he's surprised she has a god ring, so if that was it, he never noticed.
- There's lots of early installment weirdness still in here from the original oneshot over what Karin's goddess powers can do. The Athena ring activating when Karin's upset seems unique to the first chapters/episodes, too. There's more references to these events in the anime, but no real attempt to make them less... weird.
- Karin's signature olive hairties are now visible in the contents of Himeka's bag; they weren't in the manga.
- And second flashback. Karin's ring doesn't react to this. Not much for Karin to react to, either. This basically confirms that her ring's reaction during the first scene was to the time travel rather than the flashback, which I don't think ever caused a ring to shine by itself.
Notes/Analysis[edit | edit source]
- The opening scene is apparently a "prologue", going by the ost.
- I can't help but wonder if the Seed attaching itself to a clock at the begining is supposed to mean anything. It was that was in Chu as well, but even less attention was paid to it.
- It's possible the flashback appearing pensieve-style was meant to confirm what happened as mental time travel, though Karin still apparently physically left the future. See time travel for more speculah on what exactly happened there (eventually).
- The same shot appears in the last episode when Karin returns to the future, making it look like memory!Suzuka and Kazuto are residents of that time tunnel. Actually, maybe there's a "time tunnel" here that's actually separate from the labyrinth? Is that why they couldn't just bring her back through there?
- Picking apart what happened when time turned back: Either two mutually exclusive things are happening simultaneously (due to Karin being split mentally and physically or something), or scenes here are out of order.
- Things that seem to be happening:
- Karin stands behind Kazune and is pulled away from him as the clock lights up. The clock's light fills the entire screen, and the shot transitions to her in a white space (see below). One last shot of her reaching for Kazune's hand and being pulled away happens after she seems to be pulled into the white space.
- Karin stands in an empty white space... this is seemingly randomly inconsistent. First she stands in the white space with cherry blossoms floating around her while still transformed (this is also the only shot where she's not directly facing the camera). Then she's on the yellow sunset background, and the background becomes pure white with her detransformation. The last shot of this sort (prefaced by cherry blossoms on a white background) shows the Suzuka flashback at the bridge on the white background behind Karin; she turns slightly in their direction while Kazuto talks but doesnt actually face them at all.
- Remember that the episode also opened with those cherry blossoms on a white background, whatever that means...
- Shots of the Chronos Clock from head on. Seem to be related to the white space scenes due to the camera angle, but the first two at least seem to take place in normal time/the first bullet point here- the first has Karin reacting to the Clock acting strangely, the second shows the vine-choked Clock lighting up right before the scene where Karin is pulled away from Kazune while the clock lights up further. The last, showing the clock powering down and turning grey/to stone, is shown after both Karin is pulled away from Kazune in one scene and detransforms in another.
- A flashback of a little girl (Himeka?) in silhouette running and giggling. No context, but the giggling "bleeds" into the scene before it of Karin and Kazune from behind before the clock starts going crazy, However, this is a common trope used for scene transitions (see the fireworks in episode 6) and might not mean anything.
- A shot of the Kujyou residence with the sunset sky.
- A few closeups of Karin's face that're hard to place in any of the other scenes because they show so little. One transitions into the above flashback via a zoom into Karin's eye (an effect used in a couple other scenes).
- Seemingly random shots of clouds on a blue sky that might just be atmospheric... This is stock footage the show uses on quite a few other occasions.
- One last shot of the sunset-y sky before we find ourselves at night by Shii-chan's grave.
- The sunset/sunrise sky also resembles the background seen when Rika sends the Seed to Karin's Clock, though that seems to be a generic gradient background.
- Throughout this episode an the next, streetlights flicker or turn off when Karin is alone, but are steadily on when Kazune or Himeka are with her. I don't think the motif continues into later episodes, though still shots of lights are common.
- Flickering while Karin muses over her dead cat, but become steady when Kazune shows up.
- Streetlamp on (in the middle of the day, no less) after Himeka gives Karin her makeover, before the two have their conversation on the bench.
- During the whole farewell scene, the streetlights are steady, but they start flickering seriously before Kirio shows up and drop dead when he sets foot on-screen.
- Speaking of motifs, in these two episodes, there's multiple shots with petals from the plum blossoms floating around like the cherry blossom petal shots from the flashbacks.
Preview[edit | edit source]
Since the preview for episode 1 wasn't stuck on the end of an episode like the rest of them, it (as far as I know) wasn't included on the DVDs and is fairly obscure. Fortunately, I have a terrible-quality copy of it downloaded from Youtube. It includes a very pretty shot of Karin in her Athena dress that was never used in the show proper (and Karin doesn't even go Athena in this episode). Here's my old Youtube upload of that Youtube download. This preview is also the only one to use the vocal version of Ankoku Tengoku rather than the instrumental.