Category: Shikizakura

While by no means one of the all-time great climaxes, I will credit the ending of Shikizakura this: it’s exactly the sort of end you’d want to see to the sort of show Shikizakura has been. Decent fighting? Check. Everybody’s infected by optimism and pulls together? Check. Some surprisingly decent emotional play? Check. Totally corny speeches that belong in the kind of campy hero show the creators clearly loved? Double check.

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Because it wouldn’t be a traditional action climax without a big twist and a moment when it looks like all hope is lost… here’s all those things I just said.

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This episode is again a very needed beat in the story, serving as the hero’s darkest moment before turning things around at the climax, and it comes at the exact right time, with two episodes left for everything to go crazy and resolve.

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So, I misread things last week – the smooth talker from Black Team wasn’t the big monster; he was in the scene already. In the first couple of seconds, said big oni proves itself final boss caliber, however, as it swallows the core of the defeated Shinja and one-shots Kakeru out of the fight, cracking (nearly shattering) Ibara’s power suit crystal in the process, rendering Kakeru powerless to transform again and Ibara silent, at least in a conventional sense.

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So, for those who wanted a darker and more serious episode out of Shikizakura, we have this one And, compared to the bits earlier in the show that have tried to go for more serious material, it’s fairly effective.

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So, after the big turn of last episode, it’s time for downtime! Actually, I think it is kind of the correct time for this… or at least, a correct time.

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All things considered, this show can be kind of charming. True, just about anybody who’s engaged with any sort of media has seen this plot a million times before, but for that one person who is experiencing the time-worn “plucky young outsider gets superpowers and steps up to save the day” storyline for the first time? They could have gotten far worse introductions to said tired outline that try less and achieve less than Shikizakura does. For the rest of us it remains the kind of thing where you can probably turn your brain off, but it’s acceptably entertaining in that regard.

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We’re back to standard form this week with a jolly beating of hard realities into Kakeru’s thick head, which oddly enough has things looking up for the show, at least in a small way.

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What the hell?

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I won’t say that Shikizakura exactly did well, but it did display a basic understanding of the facts I was talking about last week. To its limited credit, the show clearly knows at least some of what it needs to do, it just doesn’t do it all that well.

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