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: Hibaya Amamiya

Konnichiwa~

Time for Hibaya’s story! His story begins in Heat-Haze and continues in Moon-Viewing Recital. Hibaya came to the city to attend a summer school with his childhood friend and crush Hiyori. Now there’s something I need to explain before I continue. When Mary left her little house in the forest and met the Mekakushi Dan, she began changing the present reality. Mary, besides her “Eye Contact” ability, has the “Combining Eyes” ability, which is the ability to “unify” all of the snakes. How that’s going to affect the Mekakushi Dan and the present reality is unknown. But we do know how its caused several time loops on August 14th. Now lets continue with Heat-Haze. Hibaya on August 14th is spending a summer day with Hiyori. She chases after a cat she was petting and is hit by a truck. Hibaya looks down at her bloody dead body in horror before someone whispers “This is all real” and wakes up on August 14th. He feels troubled by how similar things are to his dream, he stops her from getting hit the truck, but she still dies. He wakes up again, see’s her die again, wake up again, and so and so forth. He relives that day again and again, as he says “This cycle has repeated for decades. I realized that a long time ago” He comes to the conclusion that the only way to end this cycle, is to sacrifice himself. As he dies, he see’s a white figure, similar to the black one that had been haunting him, behind Hiyori. Hiyori wakes up crying, saying she’s failed once again. From my understanding, just like how Hibaya has seen her die again and again, Hiyori has seen him die again and again, but they only have memory of the days when the other died. They are just like the dark Shintarou from Lost Time Memory, trapped in a painful time loop. Out of all there songs, this is the most intense: the agony of having to watch the one you love die again and again, its frightening just thinking about it. I showed it to Ms. Lee Min Ho and felt a little guilty because she looked so sad throughout it.

Now lets move on to Otsukimi Recital, one of the newest Kagerou Day’s videos. Now in the story timeline/universe, Hibaya and Hiyori were involved in an accident. Both of them died, but Hibaya entered the Kagerou Daze, gained the Eye-Focusing ability, and came back to life with his new red eyes. His ability allows him to see things from a “bird-eyes view”, which I now think is because if he can see from that angle, then maybe he’ll be able to catch dangers before they take someone else from him. After the accident En spots him with Konoha, I”m not sure how much time passes before he joins the Mekakushi Dan, but when he does he catches the attention of Momo. Hibaya has a huge emotional scar because of Hiyori’s death. The fact he couldn’t save the girl he loved haunts him. Though Momo doesn’t know all the details, she wants to cheer him up. The song and video are super cute and touching! Compared to Heat-Haze, the mood is obviously a lot lighter. Its also quite touching because there are sad moments: Hibaya’s guilt, grief, and fear. But he’s determined to become stronger. I was captivated by Heat-Haze, but Hibaya’s character has been a sort of mystery to me. Since he hasn’t come in the manga yet, I didn’t really think about him and his connection to the Mekakushi Dan. After watching this though, I’m eager to see his chapters and his story!

That’s all for today. Though there is a reference to the accident in Konoha’s State of the World, I’m saving that song for my En and Konoha post, along with 2 other songs. Look forward to it.

Bye-bye

~Nadeshiko-chan