At the Turn: Da Capo

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The power-run of the world's oldest anime (2003 is ancient when you're a blogger, unless you're talking about Cardcaptor Sakura) continues as Da Capo reaches its halfway mark - hopefully, of the halfway mark; I'm not sure if D.C.S.S. will turn out to be another useful segment or just another Shuffle! Memories.

In any case, there are 13 episodes to go in the series simply titled Da Capo, and the series continues to defy expectations as it did in the wonderfully unpredictable first episode.

At the first look after one episode, Da Capo looked to be an wild ride which set up cliche scenes only to smash them, and it seemed to be the rare even fight between haremettes for the win.

A third of the way in after eight, D.C. fell back into the trap of being predictable, of being the harem show everyone's seen before, not to mention strongly listing towards one character.

Now, it's both. If there's one thing to say about D.C., it's predictably unpredictable.

Perhaps a statement said just for the sake of sounding cool, but the series at this point is doing a remarkable job at switching back between it's two states. One episode it'll be ridiculously off-the-wall, yet still somehow quite entertaining; the first 5 minutes of the episode 9 (Nemu's stalker) was brilliant, what I've been missing. The next episode, or maybe a few down the line at episode 13 it'll be all back to hay look Moe has boobs lolz and generic harem comedy.

Although, I found it amusing that Jyunichi and Moe have a similar dynamic as to Kyon and Mikuru.

Still, we seem to be making forward progress as all the characters continue to expand; at least in the obsessed-with-Jyunichi direction. Oddly enough, we still haven't hit the arcs typical of a show like this, but rather it seems like another round of character episodes. Mako's false-boyfriend episode was quite enjoyable, especially in stirring up hell in the harem. Kotori proved to be more than just a predictable Perfect Idol; previously I had forgotten about her mind-reading ability, which really makes her an interesting (and oddly submissive) character and opens her up to all sorts of sticky situations.

Sadly enough the episodes are still only 15 minutes long, with the remaining time devoted to 'side episodes', which feature the harem characters in random situations; one of the most amusing being Miharu's computer adventures. I wonder however if longer episodes would really mean better, because at this point the episodes are highly self-contained, in that there's not an over-arcing plot. I anticipate this to change, although when and why is a big question.

Nemu and Sakura's competition for Jyunichi still seems too close to call; Nemu as stated last time has been getting the most attention in each episode, but Sakura's pulled close with a similar scene at the end of 13. Overall, I think the X-Factor of Sakura will be the decider; it feels like something is up with Sakura (after all, loli-bait such as Ayu, Primula, maybe even Michiru (AIR) have had checkered pasts), although this can tip the scales both towards and away from her. This is one of the main reasons that Da Capo remains interesting throughout the middle half, in Jyunichi's minor advances with the main two heroines; although shows with clear winners (hello, TokiMemo) can be interesting, it's always better to leave the viewer confused.

At least, that seems to be my trend, liking things I don't get at all.

Not much else to comment on at this point until things actually start happening, per se; it's equivalent at this point to blogging something like Azumanga. You can post all you want about all the funny that happened, but there isn't really anything to write about, analysis-wise, aside from "Osaka is awesome."

And D.C. is still missing a halo character, so I can't really do that either. In that case...uh...Miharu is crazy about bananas?

-CCY