sola - Episode 8 Discussion / Poll

[Mueti]

Originally Posted by Sorrow-K

I just think the deadline for it to act and give us the necessary things we need to appreciate its attempts at drama such as character background is very quickly approaching.

Yes, it sure is. Admittedly so far I patiently waited for them to provide those little pieces of characterbackground. If that won't change very soon though (I think the beginning of the next ep - Yorito interrupting Matsuri and Aono - would be a good chance), I won't be interested in the characters anymore by the time they choose to inform us about what motivated them all along.


btw, who's at fault for the stupid tranlation of this episode's title at anidb? Lunar?

[Overture]

Spoiler for Matsuri vs. Aono:

Which one dies becomes fully human~! Right?

[Skyfall]

Originally Posted by Sorrow-K

The thought of this makes me lol. I could see a certain recently-crowned mod and overly-enthusiastic Matsuri fan eating serious humble pie if this turned out to happen. And it's certainly not completely outside the realm of possibility.

Oh, i will eat my hat if that happens. Not willingly, but i will. However, the chances of Matsuri turning out "evil" (let alone doing something that would surpass Aono's actions, meaning mindraping and killing intent) are quite slim. Sure, it is not out of the realm of possibilities, however i think that my chances of seeing you trip over these words are higher than you seeing me eat my hat.

Originally Posted by Sorrow-K

I just think the deadline for it to act and give us the necessary things we need to appreciate its attempts at drama such as character background is very quickly approaching.

I will agree on this notion. But i fully expect some revelations brought by the next episode - all the gang will be together, and perhaps even Takashi will turn up for a good measure, so i think the time is just about right for the story between all of them to reveal itself.

[andiyar]

I agree with both Sorrow-K and Pellissier. The timing is starting to jar a bit. That said, I rated this episode rather highly, largely due to watching it and episode 7 in succession, to make sure everything was fresh for me. As such, it works better, as a standalone, it needs work.

There isn't really much for me to add - I felt the music timing wasn't too bad, although the cues when Mana was invading the house were a bit odd. The character development, as such, was limited almost entirely to Mana and Aono here - Yorito effectively showed no change, neither did Matsuri, or any of the other supplementary characters. And since this is a show that is thriving on its characters alone, not on any form of elevated or highly original plot, this was disappointing.

It would have been better to space it out more - this scene could have easily still occurred in this episode, but with more backstory for us to understand why Aono is so angry and homicidal towards Matsuri, and so clingy towards Yorito, why Matsuri is so willing to simply take Aono's instructions and try to fade out of their lives. Motivations are sadly lacking here, and I fear that sola might be racing past the point where it can be brought back under control.

Hopefully I'm wrong. I've highly enjoyed the show so far, and am looking forward to the next episode - it wouldn't surprise me to see Aono and Matsuri's fight/argument interspersed with flashbacks in sequence before Yorito arrives, giving us some much needed additional tension, before he leaps in front of speeding paper missiles to save Matsuri, perhaps, thus cementing Aono's failure in her own mind and giving Matsuri something to ponder... speculation aside, I hope that the next episode manages to give us some more substance.

That said, I don't want to see an episode of "fight scene with Yorito appearing to finish, flashback for five-ten minutes of exposition, aftermath of fight scene in future". Although there isn't enough detail here so far, we can't have it shoveled onto us now, or else it'll simply bring everything else down. Here's hoping.


-Andiyar

[Pellissier]

I don't know if Matsuri could be the villain, however, there's something that is not making sense. Matsuri's actions have taken a 180° turn from a very specific moment of the anime: when Yorito mentioned the name of "Aono". From that time, Matsuri has been mysterious, incomprehensible and then fleeing without a valid reason among the field of certainties that the series has given us so far. There must be at least a BIG secret on her past, that we still are not aware of. A secret related to Aono.
I also want to give Aono the benefit of the doubt, for being - as Andiyar said - so homicidal towards Matsuri and so clingy towards Yorito.

Matsuri on episode 8 said: "I broke a promise, so I deserved to be stabbed". I don't believe she's talking of the promise she made to Yorito (episode 2) of not running away.
As mentioned already, it's more likely that the mentioned promise is one that she made long ago to Aono. Like "I'm going to stay away from Yorito, forever" , or "I'm leaving you Yorito" , perhaps as an apology for the fact of having saved Aono's life, turning her in a Yaka.
That would explain quite a bit, and perhaps even next episode's title, whereas the "ending of a promise" might be Matsuri's decision to not give up anymore on Yorito, deciding to accept fighting Aono for the sake of her love (yes, it's the romantic me speaking here ^^ )

[orion]

Aono's pretty wacko now.

Spoiler for ep.8:

Well, at least she admitted to being the cause of Yorito's suffering and causing him to stab Matsuri. I know that Matsuri does have regenerating powers but a stab to the abdomen is meant to kill someone. She probably couldn't do the rest because of what it might do to Yorito if he remembered. Hence, her little attack at the end of ep. 8 to finish the job imo.

No one deserves to be stabbed, shot or anything other than a good yelling for breaking a promise. Matsuri is having a lot of guilt about the past that she needs to resolve imo.

Well, the next ep. title could mean that..

Spoiler:

Load of possibilities here. Either...

1. Matsuri tells Aono, "Stuff it! I'm staying." She's got Mayuko to take care of now so she's probably going to fight seriously now. We finally get to see the full range of Matsuri's abilities and get a clue as to how she survived those hunters in the past.
2. Yorito sees the fight, sides with Matsuri and tells Aono "Stuff it! I'm leaving." He goes off with Matsuri and Aono goes insane.
3. Takeshi sees the fight. Mayuko gets injured causing him to go ballistic and to take out Aono first. He then tries to take out Matsuri but Mayuko intervenes in time.
4. Yorito dies as a result of the fight.
   or...
5. Yorito sees the fight. Aono's little charade is over it and she withdraws from the battle temporarily causing a brief interlude where we actually get to see what happened in the past from both sides. (most likely scenario imo)
   
   Besides, this isn't a crying game based anime so I don't think that Matsuri will die. I think that the promise that's ending is Matsuri's promise to stay away from Yorito. Yorito is just too stubborn to let that happen and Matsuri is too injured to escape plus she has Mayuko now. She can't move as fast with the kid tagging around.

I also thought it was interesting that Yorito read Aono the riot act about being blood related brother and sister.

Oh yeah, after ep. 9, we'll be in the range of the first DVD only episode supposedly on DVD volume 4.

[Skyfall]

Originally Posted by Pellissier

Matsuri on episode 8 said: "I broke a promise, so I deserved to be stabbed". I don't believe she's talking of the promise she made to Yorito (episode) of not running away.
Couldn't it be that the mentioned promise is one that she made long ago to Aono? Like "I'm going to stay away from Yorito, forever" , or "I'm leaving you Yorito" , perhaps as an apology for the fact of having saved Aono's life, turning her in a Yaka.
That would explain quite a bit, and perhaps even next episode's title, whereas the "ending of a promise" might be Matsuri's decision to not give up anymore on Yorito, deciding to accept fighting Aono for the sake of her love (yes, it's the romantic me speaking here ^^ )

I think it is pretty certain she is talking about the promise she made to Aono just a few days back: that she will never appear in front of them again. This also why she doesn't want to heal her wound (apparently it is nothing for a Yaka to do so, according to rozen-loli) - she feels guilty. Though i agree - her guilt seems a bit extreme. Something else must be there... unless she is really timid despite her appearances, and self-sacrificial.

As for your explanation of the "ending of a promise" - i had never thought of it in this way, but it does make sense Much more than the other promise we know about, which would be Yorito showing Matsuri the blue sky

[Ascaloth]

Watched the Lunar sub. This one was creepy as heck.

Well, I'm not sure how to put this, but I wasn't exactly comfortable with this episode this time round. I can't really put a finger to it; perhaps it's the fact that the direction of this series has taken a turn for the downright surreal all too quickly, or maybe because there were some inconsistencies in the animation that I can't really point out, or maybe it's simply because Aono's behaviour creeps me out big time.

Or maybe it's just me being hamstrung by the fact that I have a lot of work to do tomorrow, which means I may be too stressed to enjoy this one fully. Sigh.

In any case, what I felt was that Episode 8 was running on high-tempo throughout its 24-minute run; very tiring, to be sure. I don't know who it was that said that plot took a smoke break, but I'm inclined to disagree; there's so much going on in this one that I almost feel choked by it. Few, if any, light moments to lift the tension even just a bit; for a while, I was wondering if I was watching the same show I've been watching for the past few weeks.

Aono....is sick in the head, period. I mean, what the heck is she doing to poor Yorito?! And the way she's been behaving throughout...classic paranoid overpossessive behaviour. She scares me silly; that girl's a few centuries overdue for a pshrink. No wonder Sora-baka prefers the overconfident, but well-adjusted Matsuri...I hope Aono can redeem herself in the end, but as it looks, she's digging herself deeper and deeper into a pit from which I can't foresee her getting out of.

On another note, the seiyuu performance is top-notch this episode. Is it something about psycho-episodes in the characters they play that brings the best out of the seiyuus? I have increasing respect for Nobuhiko (Yorito) and Nakahara (Aono), Honda (Mana) is coming into her own, and even Koshimizu (Sae) wasn't as grating on my mind as she had been. On the other hand, Mamiko (Matsuri) seemed a little subdued this time round, and Kaneda's (Mayuko) remain as much of an enigma as it had been since the beginning.

I also really enjoyed the BGM in this one. They had better release a piano album for this, because they're songs I want to add to my repertoire.

All in all, I think I didn't quite enjoy this episode as much as previous ones because....alright, I'll admit a guilty pleasure here. Because I'm suffering from Matsuri withdrawal. I mean, it's almost as if everything good about Sola hinges on her; with her in the background and absent for most of the time, it's like a certain magic has disappeared from the story along with her. In return, we're getting more and more tension as befits a mystery-drama like this, but it's getting to the point where I'm just wishing for a simple light-hearted sequence with Matsuri.

So....I don't know. Just because I don't feel comfortable with this episode doesn't mean I think it's bad, although I'm sure it could use some work. I'm fully in tune with the fact that a story like Sola needs its characters to have mysterious backgrounds to work, but I think the point has come where it's time to feed us, the audience, the answers we crave. Not a crapload of it all at once, of course, that would be a cardinal sin.....but the time for baiting us is past, I think.

I'll throw this one an 8, for lack of good reason to vote any higher, and for lack of good reason to vote any lower. I'm just confused enough as it is.

[kct]

Ascaloth: I basically suffered the same thing last week with exams last week, and there is simply too much developments with huge impacts in the animes I'm watching (Matsuri getting stabbed in sola without warning, and

Spoiler for huge plot twist for the show Gurren Lagan:

mourning over the the death of Kamina in Gurren Lagann

, so I do understand your predicament in a way (I put off everything until the exam is done over with).

As someone have said on a page or two back, we see the drama coming to us. Only that we do not expect the drama to be fired at us this way, I mean, I do not expect the drama to be in this side of insane. I wonder how the production team is going to wrap up the anime for the big finish, this is already episode 8, and there is about 4 more episodes to go before the said extra DVD-only episodes (which I hope DOES NOT contain the true end).

Personally, Aono is trying a bit too hard to maintain her hold on Yorito (it is funny that Nakahara's other major character of the season is trying too hard in the game of one-up last week in another anime), but it is never funny when one resorts to dirty tricks to achieve the objective.

As for Matsuri going on about breaking the promise, it is not exactly her fault. Yorito went after her in impulse, the situation basically demands for it.

[orion]

Originally Posted by kct

As for Matsuri going on about breaking the promise, it is not exactly her fault. Yorito went after her in impulse, the situation basically demands for it.

Actually, she broke a promise with Yorito which was her fault. She could have told Aono to stuff it but she didn't. She retreated because it was easier to break a promise with Yorito then to confront Aono, her past, her feelings for Yorito and move forward imo. Second chances are rare. Matsuri should go for it.

[Kyuusai]

Can any one give an explanation of Mana and Koyori's exchange after the credits?

I didn't fully understand it.

[Deathkillz]

Originally Posted by orion

Actually, she broke a promise with Yorito which was her fault. She could have told Aono to stuff it but she didn't. She retreated because it was easier to break a promise with Yorito then to confront Aono, her past, her feelings for Yorito and move forward imo. Second chances are rare. Matsuri should go for it.

haha i feel your pain...well that the matsuri we all know and love...she honest and true to herself but at the same time just a bit naive...she bounded by guilt to aono which is why she agreed to her conditions in the first place...

Originally Posted by Kyuusai

Can any one give an explanation of Mana and Koyori's exchange after the credits?

I didn't fully understand it.

i dont understand what you mean

[Pellissier]

Originally Posted by Deathkillz

i dont understand what you mean

I think he means a translation into human language of the preview, whereas Mana and Koyori were speaking non sense.

But as far as I remember every preview so far was pretty much non sense, so that's no big news

[Kyuusai]

Originally Posted by Pellissier

I think he means a translation into human language of the preview, whereas Mana and Koyori were speaking non sense.

But as far as I remember every preview so far was pretty much non sense, so that's no big news

I can't really call those "previews".

But, yes, that's it.

I'm assuming that this is a pun just like most all the others. I just couldn't parse this one, nor did the fansub have an explanation.

[orion]

I've pretty much ignored them as sources of useful info.

[felix]

After going back and checking, the Aono substantially younger then Yorito is looking fishy. (consider he's on his knees)

Spoiler for Screens:

---

Preview:
Mana: Why do you refer to Mana as Mana-san, Kayori?
Kayori: Kayori.. saw it.. Onee-chan.. did a.. (something that sounds like "Morimiya-"; just think of it as Mana getting angry and Kayori switching words) ..chop on streams around the forest that turn into feet-.. *bong* ( <-- Mana chop chop) Aww!~

I don't know what you people find so mysterious and hard to understand
Oh and there's no useful info it's just funny.

[stonedzombie]

Originally Posted by Sorrow-K

Textbook melodrama. Still trying to figure out exactly why I should care about these characters. This director is doing a terrible job as well. He's failing at setting an absorbing atmosphere and the everything about the execution of this series seems somewhat off kilter, from the timing of dialogue and rhythm of the succession of events to even the use of music and animation (yes, not his responsibility, but the director is always the easiest person to blame, IMO).

My complaints from the last episode still haven't gone away, and the longer important things like character background go untended, the more my opinion of this show slips.


Yes, bravo. Couldn't have said it better myself. All we learnt from this episode were things most of us suspected anyway, and the plot totally stagnated for much of it while they tried to sell Yorito screaming and knocking some books and Aono around as "drama". We need to learn about these characters before we can start calling any of it "drama"... all this is is just melodrama surrounding unsympathetic flat characters.

Absolutely totally agree. Sympathetic characters that the audience can understand and then have a possibility of relating to and caring about are the key ingredient to a good story that really enthralls the audience and drama that can move its viewers. I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks that there's an optimal time-frame for character development, and this show is well and truly in high risk of missing it.
The thought of this makes me lol. I could see a certain recently-crowned mod and overly-enthusiastic Matsuri fan eating serious humble pie if this turned out to happen. And it's certainly not completely outside the realm of possibility.

I really think this show is making some really basic errors and in the hands of a better director, it could be a lot better. That's my evaluation of things so far. But this show does still have five or so eps to turn things around. I just think the deadline for it to act and give us the necessary things we need to appreciate its attempts at drama such as character background is very quickly approaching.

I think you're being a bit too hard on the series. Yeah, most of of episode 8 was just emotional reaction to episode 7. But hey, this is drama to the max. You're saying that charcters backround is left untended.....I disagree. Little by little, they're exploring the backround of every character. So far, we've found out the Aono is a yaka, she was turned into one by Matsui, Yorito has some previous connection to Aono and Matsui, and pretty much how Yorito died in the past. I think this is plenty of character background, considering we're only about to hit ep 9. Also, everything you've guessed to be right, is just speculation right now. I know it looks like you have everything figured out, but I bet they throw a huge curveball you weren't expecting by the end.

[Ascaloth]

Originally Posted by Cats

After going back and checking, the Aono substantially younger then Yorito is looking fishy. (consider he's on his knees)

Spoiler for Screens:

---

Preview:
Mana: Why do you refer to Mana as Mana-san, Kayori?
Kayori: Kayori.. saw it.. Onee-chan.. did a.. (something that sounds like "Morimiya-"; just think of it as Mana getting angry and Kayori switching words) ..chop on streams around the forest that turn into feet-.. *bong* ( <-- Mana chop chop) Aww!~

I don't know what you people find so mysterious and hard to understand
Oh and there's no useful info it's just funny.

Normally I'll put it down to yet another example of lazy animation by Nomad....but yeah. This one doesn't look like one of those examples.

Something's fishy here. How come Aono doesn't age even back then? Or is the current Yorito actually just the latest of many reincarnations (as in, the Yorito in this scene is an earlier reincarnation)?

[Cyz]

I finally seen episode 8.

Spoiler for Episode 8:

Talk about protective. Hm, maybe Aono has a brother complex kinda thing to Yorito Anyway, Mayuko crawling out of the sunlight is a little painful to watch (dunno what that girl did to get into that mess in the first place) and so is Aono trying to get away from the light after Yorito tore the curtains. Hm, feel sorry for Aono though. No matter how she tries, Yorito still thinks of Matsuri.

[kct]

Originally Posted by Ascaloth

Something's fishy here. How come Aono doesn't age even back then? Or is the current Yorito actually just the latest of many reincarnations (as in, the Yorito in this scene is an earlier reincarnation)?

To quote something I've said in the episode 7 thread,

Spoiler for Yorito:

Originally Posted by kct

Spoiler for Yorito:

3. The Yorito we see now is a reincarnation of the Yorito from the past, although that would be...I don't know.

One of the many theories surrounding the existence of Yorito, although the fishy thing here is that...that is the particular incarnation of Yorito (provided that he is one of the many incarnations) who died when the house went down, and eventually lead to Aono committing suicide.