Random Curiosity

OP Sequence

OP: 「perfect blue」 by ATSUMI
Watch the OP! Mirror 1, Mirror 2

Summary:

At a spaceport, Kamishina Jin is getting ready to board a shuttle piloted by his father that’s headed for space, but before departing with his family, he says goodbye to his friend Tachibana Kazuki. Unbeknownst to them, a large asteroid-like object has just shot three projectiles at Earth, and one of them hits the shuttle just seconds after it takes off. Jin somehow survives the explosion and gets thrown down back towards the planet. Two years later, Jin leaves for school, and as he looks up at the clear sky, he thinks about how he’s alone. During this time, Laina Cromwell, the leader of the Lindblom Unit of the International Solarsystem Development Agency (ISDA), is being interviewed on TV about the Thanatos asteroid. He explains that Thanatos has stagnated in the old Pluto orbit, but it’s not impossible for it to approach Earth again, so they started up the D-Project. Listening to the broadcast is a man named Yonamine Kou, and he notices when Jin walks past his car. He gets Jin’s attention and points out an article about Jin returning alive, but Jin ignores him and keeps moving.

Not giving up, Kou persists with talking about how Jin was the only survivor from two years ago and the son of the pilot who made an error, so Jin tells him to leave him alone and runs onto a bus. Shortly after this, Kou notices a certain girl standing across the street, but by the time he grabs his camera to take her picture, she’s gone. On the bus, Jin hears the other students whispering about him, and he decides not to get off when the bus arrives at school. Kou meanwhile shows a very fuzzy picture of the girl earlier to Kitajima Yuuri, an ISDA researcher, but she can’t tell if the girl is a Communicator or not. When she gets up to leave because she doesn’t have time to waste, Kou calls her cold and holds onto her coat, so she makes him let go. Returning to the ISDA base, Yuuri heads deep down special chamber where she finds her boss Nozaki. After informing him that they’re doing a new Resonance tonight, she also reveals that coming here makes her think that all meetings have meaning.

For the Resonance, the ISDA has Jin’s old friend Kazuki strip down and approach a dragon embryo. The tentacles that suddenly sprout out from it and attach themselves to Kazuki cause him much pain, but it’s soon over. Yuuri tells Kazuki that the Resonance was a success, meaning that he has a dragon now. Elsewhere in the city, Jin hears a woman screaming and finds her being feasted upon by a brute-ish creature. When he realizes what’s going on, he runs away screaming, but the creature chases after him. Escaping into a nearby building still under construction, Jin realizes that even hitting the creature with a metal bar doesn’t have any effect. He then heads up to one of the upper floors, however the creature still corners him and tries to smash him. This sends Jin flying out the window in a free fall that reminds him of when he fell out of the shuttle two years ago. He had seen his mother and sister’s bodies falling beside him back then, but they got hit by wreckage, and Jin had been saved by a bright light. This time however, it’s a girl who leaps through the air and catches him.

The creature jumps after them and eventually catches the girl, so she’s forced to put Jin down and fight. Able to hold her own, the girl kicks the creature in the face and sends him reeling long enough for a truck to come over the hill and hit him. She then takes Jin and leaps away again, but the creature emerges unharmed from the flaming wreckage. Not pursuing this time because he sees another car coming - one that is carrying an old man named Amadeus and a girl named Sieglinde - the creature decides to go the other direction. Jin meanwhile wakes up on a hill overlooking the harbor, and he remembers what happened. Standing nearby is the girl who saved him, and she introduces herself as Toa. The two link hands as the sun rises, and Jin recalls that at that time, he felt that he wasn’t alone.

ED Sequence

ED: 「Rain Of Love」 by福井裕佳梨 (Fukui Yukari)
Watch the ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2
The name Fukui Yukari may not ring a bell, but her voice certainly does - she played Nia in Gurren Lagann. It’s a decent song, thought I think I like the OP a bit better because of its chorus part.

Preview:

Well it wasn’t too hard given the shows I’ve watched, but this is easily the best show of the new season for me, based on first episodes alone. There’s plenty of action, lots of plot potential (they introduced a lot of concepts and explained very little), a romance being set up, and Hirano Aya in an antagonist role. Actually, pretty much the entire main cast of Suzumiya Haruhi was in this, though I had to listen closely to realize that Kyon/Sugita Tomokazu was voicing Jin’s father and Mikuru/Gotou Yuuko was the big breasted lady (Makina) in the car with Kazuki. And as expected of GONZO, the first episode’s animation quality is very, very nice. The 3D looked a lot better than I thought it would from the trailer, but there weren’t any actual Dragon battle this episode. It also remains to be seen if that holds up for later on in the series.

If the OP is any indicator, then it would seem that they’re setting Jin and Kazuki up to be on opposite sides of whatever conflict is coming, which I guess would have Jin taking Toa’s side and Kazuki staying with the ISDA. This wouldn’t be the first time that we’ve seen old friends split apart like that, but we’ll have to see if they can develop it in an interesting way. For now, I’m getting some good vibes from this show and look forward to seeing next week’s episode.