Kagerou Days Update

Takane meets the snake with "Eye
Opening" power

Konnichiwa~

I haven’t posted in forever! I mean, it’s already 2014!!! I literally haven’t posted since last year.

For my first post of the year, I’m going to a Kagerou Day’s update. Since I stopped posting, chapters 17-19 came out and they were amazing! I freaked out reading each and ever chapter!

Let’s start with chapter 17

The Ene’s mysterious past is completely revealed, and now its certain that she and Haruka have been experimented on. Kenijrou-sensei has betrayed both of them, he’s been planning on using them for experimentation for the past year, possibly longer since he states that preparation took a year, he never mentioned how long he spent planning it.

From my understanding, their experiment on Takane seems to have failed and she’s lost her body because of it. That’s just my theory, I could be wrong. Nonethelesss, the experiment on Haruka was a complete success and they now have a “key” and can open the next Heat Haze. What does this mean exactly? I’ll go over it in chapter 18.

Ene is born

Anyway, in this chapter we see Ene enter the Heat Haze, for the first time we see a character’s experience when obtaining their eye ability, and it was amazing. Entering the Heat Haze had always been a rather obscure idea. I loved the art for this scene, it was intense and beautiful, made even better by the simple line “Open your eyes”. You have the power, its there in front of you, you just have to open your eyes and accept it. Plus there's the fact that her snake is possessed by the "Eye Opening" power, referring to Takane's desire

for knowledge, to escape the shadow. Anyway, after accepting her new power, Takane recreated herself as Ene, and she began her virtual journey for knowledge, for a home. I love how after she opens her eyes, she says her eye burns. Knowledge is often symbolized as light, but when you've been in the ignorance of darkness, the light can burn. Beautifully written Jin! A great allusion to the Allegory of the Cave

Her flashback ends at the end of the chapter and we see the Mekakushi Dan heading to the base after their fun day at the amusement park. She doesn’t have all the answers, but she’s rather content.

Then we see Kuroha.

                                                                                                                                   

Now chapter 18 (oh my god, even thinking about it makes me freak out)

Kuroha is one the most frightening
 characters I've ever met.

Kuroha’s sudden appearance at the end of chapter 17 gave me a heart attack. I’ve only seen him in Outer Kano as “the ‘Deceiver’ from that time”, and tells him he’s gotten better at using it, ‘it’ being his eye ability of course. I might write too much about Kano, but my heart broke when he pointed the gun at him and said “Those wounds you hate so much are going to increase again” because I really think it’s a reference to the bruises Kano’s mother’s abuse created when he was a child, the bruises he desperately wanted to hide. The next scene: Kido screaming and rushing to his side, Seto charging bravely towards Kuroha, Momo blocking Mary, and Shintarou protecting Momo. The Mekukashi Dan takes care of each other, they are a family, even if Momo and Shintarou have only been there for a day, they share a bond. But, like Outer Science, their defenses are futile; he kills Seto, Kido, and metaphorically kills Ene. I know she wasn’t really dying, since the phone isn’t her body, but her crying as he crushed the phone was tragic.

Science (plus a few brief appearances in the other MVs), and all he did was murder my precious Mekukashi Dan members and mentally torture poor Mary. Anyway, he refers to

Before he can continue killing, Mary resets time.

What does this mean?

Well going back to Konoha being the key, I’ve come to a new understanding of Mary’s special powers. Mary has the ability to combine the snakes, which I believe will be key to the resolution of this series, but from my understanding of “Mary’s Fictional World”, the song and the bonus chapter, Mary has the ability to reset everything. Konoha is the key to the current timeline, but once he arrives he’ll become Kuroha and kill the Mekakushi Dan, forcing Mary to reset everything once again. This leads to alternative timelines and time loops that trap others.

Outer Science supports this with the scene of Kuroha suddenly appearing on the roadside, pushing Hibiya in front the truck.
I think it’s very likely that Seto and Kano are aware of the other timelines; Kano since he seems to be on top of everything and Seto probably has an idea of it because he’s so close to Mary and very aware of her.

I feel like Mary isn’t fully aware of what’s going on, I feel she resets time like an instinct to seeing her friends hurt.

Anyway, back to the chapter, we see time is reset, entering Shintarou’s nightmare full of regrets about Ayano’s death, very similar to the dark Shintarou in Lost Time Memory. Then he wakes up and we see chapter 1 again. It deviates from it though when Momo enters the room.

An alternate time line from my understanding.

Indifferent Hibaya
and fangirling Hiyori
appear.

Chapter 19

Hibaya and Hiyori enter the story and we see the 5 of them enjoy a shopping trip, well mainly Hiyori and Momo who quickly become friends. We get to see Hibaya be adorably shy about his feelings for Hiyori too~

A pretty pleasant chapter until the ending, when we see Hiyori asking for help as a truck comes towards her.

We’ll have to wait for the next chapter to see where this continues. I wonder if we’ll continue in this timeline or if we’ll move to a completely different one. It’s hard to say where this story will go. After all, for 18 chapters we thought we were in the main timeline, and then Kuroha appeared.

Which I have to say is genius. Jin made us comfortable, stable. Then suddenly Kuroha appears and everything shatters, it’s exactly how Mary feels; happy and content, surrounded by her precious friends, then she’s watching Kano, Seto, and Kido be murdered.

Genius, Jin knows the art of story telling.

Speaking of Jin, he’s a little liar!

Moving onto a completely different note, after Outer Science came out, he said he wouldn’t be making anymore videos, then Summertime Record (which I’ll review in a different post soon) came out. He announced once again there would be no more videos, stating a Shounen Brave MV would have too many spoilers and that they needed to focus on the anime (Mekaku City Actors), and I was heartbroken because I love the song Shounen Brave, its so sad and cute, its fits Seto perfectly.

But then on December 9^th, he announced it would be included in Mekakcuity V’s. On Christmas Day, a screening of the PV took place in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka.

And now, we have a Shounen Brave MV!!!!

I was happy when I saw it, I was freaking out and texting Ms. Lee Min Ho.

I love how older Seto was watching his younger self, remembering his painful past and how he met Mary.

Anyway, here is the PV, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. That’s all for now, bye-bye

 ~Nadeshiko-chan

Kagerou Days: Kousuke Seto

Konnichiwa~

Reviewing another song from the Kagerou Project! Today its Seto's song Shounen Brave. I was planning on saving this song for when the PV came out, but Summertime Record is officially the last PV Jin is going to make. It was an amazing video and a better ending to the project than Outer Science, but I really wished they had given Seto his video! Apparently Jin had planned on making the PV shortly after the album had been released, but he cancelled it because the video would've had too many spoilers. But song itself is still amazing, so lets begin:

Seto has been bullied since he was a young child; he was small, timid, and an abandoned  child. The first few lines are about him being bullied, about how scared he was and how he felt he had no courage. The next few stanzas are about an abandoned dog, a dog he feels can sympathize with him. He was his only friend, hugging him was probably the only warmth and affection he had as a child before meeting Ayano and the rest of the early Mekakushi Dan. He loved this dog, he wish he could talk with it; since dogs can't talk he wished he could somehow communicate without words. "But there was a tragedy waiting for me": Some sadistic, idiotic kids threw his dog friend in a river. Seto dived in and attempted to save him, that's when he came into contact with the Kagerou Daze and was possessed by the snake of the "Stealing Eyes", meaning he's more or less telekinetic, he can hear people's thoughts and feelings just by looking at them. But when you have that kind of power, you're head becomes crowded with noise. "They're so dirty", "Let's play a trick" "I hate you" "Just die already" Those types of thoughts yelled inside his head; Suffocating, loud, and frightening. One day he can't take the hateful voices of the crowded city anymore, so he begins wandering a quiet forest. Then he hears Mary, Mary who wants to change tomorrow, Mary who's lonely and wants someone to help her. So he approaches her cabin and enters. When he see's a cowering Mary, he wonders if he could save her, just like heroes do in pictures books. He decides to protect her, to save her. He wonders if having a "heart that rescues hearts, could be called 'courage'". At the end of the song he says:

"As I start to move forward today, as I do every other day, 

I can longer hear the voice from outside the door"

Since the day he met Mary, he can block out the voices that had tormented him. Since he's met Mary, he's had the desire to protect someone, the desire to become strong so that he can protect her. They saved each other which I think is very adorable! I love them as a couple, both of their personalities are just so cute! And I really love that this song shows how similar they actually are. I really wished this had been made into a PV, but hopefully it'll come out in anime and manga. Alright, bye-bye

~Nadeshiko-chan    

Kagerou Days: Momo and Mary

Konbanwa~

Today I'll be doing another Kagerou Day's song review. The songs aren't really connected, well they sort of are but that's not why I put them in the same post. Imagination Forest and Kisaragi Attention are both rather straight forward, simply going over the stories of Mary Kozakura and Momo Kisaragi, so I figured a post going over just one of them would be too short. Alright lets begin with Mary-chan:

Mary has been living in a small house hidden in the woods with her mother Shion for years. Since she was very young, her mother has explained that they are Medusae and must never make eye contact with someone, or they'll turn to stone. One day while playing outside a group of humans attack young Mary. Shion rushes to her daughters side and attempts to turn the attackers into stone, but instead is killed by one of them. Mary is traumatized by this incident and grows to fear her power and the outside world. She spends years and years alone in her little cabin, when one day Seto knocks on her door. Imagination Forest was my first Kagerou Day song, it was actually the one that introduced me to the first series. Its sad, but adorable and really suites Mary-chan

Next is Momo's song, which actually covers chapter 3 of the manga. Alright lets begin:

Momo is a popular teen idol, mainly because she has an ability to grab people's attention. But she hates this attention, it alienates her from people and she can't live a simple life. One day she tries to undercover and walk the treats like a normal person. But her covers blown and people go wild trying to find her. She's gradually become more and more depressed about her decision of becoming an idol and hating her strange ability. Then Kido appears. She offers her a membership to the Mekakushi Dan, Kano telling her that her power can be controlled. She meets Mary as well, who was brought there by Seto. She finds people she cares about, she finds friends. And having fun with a group of friends is what she's always wanted. 

~Nadeshiko-chan