Kurozuka

[xris]

Reminder!

This is an anime only discussion thread. This means that you may not post or discuss the manga in this thread, not even if you use spoiler tags!

Please read our Spoiler Policy.

Any post that contains any manga related spoiler may well be deleted without warning and Infractions issued. If you wish to discuss the manga or manga related issues then please use post in the Kurozuka manga thread (I don't think one exists at the moment so a new thread would have to be created first).

Since I'm not familar with the series, can I ask that everyone who has posted manga spoilers please go back and edit (or delete) your posts otherwise you may receive an Infraction.

[Oxtail]

Spoiler for Ep. 4:

Forcing a guy to fight on your side by holding his lover hostage is so not a good idea...

[Shiroth]

Originally Posted by Oxtail

Spoiler for Ep. 4:

Forcing a guy to fight on your side by holding his lover hostage is so not a good idea...

Indeed, especially when i'm sure they know what he can do.

[Sinestra]

Good episode some pieces are starting to come together but damn these guys are going to be fucked in the end if they screw Kuro. Never get between a man and his true love. As Kuromitsu said she and he are closer than any man and women on earth and he would walk through hell (which he kinda has already) to be reunited with her. Really liking the series so far i just feel myself being very sad for these 2 they are always being chased and end up apart. Living for all eternity without the one you care for is hell in its self.

This little surprising Gem just made my top 5 of the season cant wait for more

[Deathkillz]

Indeed, this series is one of the gems for the season

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I've watched all the episodes a few times now and have a better sense for the sequence of events. I'm still puzzled by the opening of episode one, though. It appears as if Kuro jumps back through time from the dysfunctional future to the feudal period. Is this just a bit of artistic license, or are we to believe he is travelling through time? It left me wondering if we don't have some type of time circularity when he's made immortal then returns periodically to his mortal past only to once again bite Kuromitsu.

Smells like artistic license to me. I just think you are thinking to much on the sequence. To me it is pretty clear that the Kuro in the future where he is jumping around in some combat suit is the Kuro to come from future episodes (with ep 4 marking him a someone who has finally joined a side) whereas the sudden and straight flashback from there on is more of a "how did this all happen" direction to the series. Besides this scene, everything else in the series has been fairly linear in that it is showing the past, present and a glimpse of the future when Kuro is ready to kick some ass to get his waifu back. I don't believe what we are shown is an ability to travel through time at all

Speaking about ep 4, I finally managed to get some time to watch it (yay~~).
The series is unfolding pretty well and I am quite glued to the seat with my mouth shut waiting for the next events to unfold. As far as I can get it, Kuromitsu's secret is no longer a secret and an evil army body is after her. This isn't to say the "normal people" organisation isn't "evil" as well for trying to trick Kuro like that (Kuro remembers, he never forgets when his waifu is stolen in front of his eyes ). I will be keeping an eye out for both sides of the war.

I really should get going and type something up for this season so far, I'm sure this series will score pretty high on my list.

[pparker]

Awesome series is awesome. Tied with Casshern Sins now for top serious anime series this season. Need to watch all the eps again, but after ep 4 twice, still I'm maybe confused. Using spoiler, as most popular subs aren't released yet (and it really needs the HD to look good on a big screen).

Spoiler for ep 4:

Did they show WW II, and jump to post-WW III? The bombers were B-29's from WW II, but the bombed out city is obviously modern with all the concrete. I pretty much am keeping up with the time jumps, but I was surprised at the 20 years between Kuromitsu's death and his waking up with Rai. That seemed a bit of cheap trickery. I'm glad that was made clear in the ep.

And BTW, doesn't the post-WW III city look a lot like Tokyo Revelations?

[FatPianoBoy]

I haven't found ultraviolence to be this compelling since GUNNM - various body parts flying around is actually part of the storytelling, which is very rare. The art and the atmosphere is hauntingly beautiful, which blends as well as contrasts with the aforementioned dismemberment to create a mesmerizing, unsettling mood that influences you to believe that just about anything can happen. The first episode is the best example of this so far.

[kamikazex]

this is also my new favorite series....so awesome

[Westlo]

Caught up last night, liking Rai's design in the anime, pretty good adaption so far, looking forward to the next episode.

[WanderingKnight]

Even shows which strive for the same combination of gore and sexuality like Mnemosyne seem somewhat adolescent in comparison to Kurozuka.

Well, it was probably all Mnemosyne had going for it. Mindless sex and gore without a specific purpose are always far more "adolescent" in my book. I enjoyed that series, though, but probably more because it was mindless gore and sex than because of its quality (which was nowhere close to good, mind you). I believe we've all have soft spots for that sort of series from time to time

As for this show itself... I like it, but I'm still not 100% sure it's the greatest of the season. I... still have my doubts about the possible cheesy routes the plot could lead to. You know, evil army, vampires, mystical powers? Sounds like the plot of some poor vampire/nazi mixup.

I still believe it's being pretty good for now. And I absolutely love anachronistic storytelling. More of that, please!

[Deathkillz]

ep 5

Spoiler:

Oh damn, it seems like fate is having fun torturing Kuro for some reason

I have to say that it is quite hard to understand what is going on indepth without the subs...seems like I still have much to learn.

But even so, I felt that this episode was still good in trying to portray the gloom and doom mood facing the "humans forces". The gore at the start was pretty gruesome...and inhumane...it actually reminds me of a game whose name I've temporarily forgotten

The pacing of the episode was somewhat slow but that just adds to the effect of the series. Kuro hallucinates that he was really talking with Kuromitsu...though that scene was damn convincing. One must think that this is the "voice of the souls" trying to communicate over distance rather than Kuro going mad...

And now that the evil forces have started attacking the main base...you can expect a lot more bloodshed all around.

[vspirit]

Spoiler for episode 5:

...yeah and they just HAD to cut off right before the action sequence that I know will be awesome. and so the countdown begins anew.

[Synria_]

Guys... I am so LOST on what the hell is going on. Dreams, past, present, I can't tell a damn difference. Someone help me out! Lol... Do I really have to rewatch all the eps... for some reason I don't think that will help.

[germanturkey]

^^ its like that in the manga too. you just have to deal with all of it. basically:
he "turns"
they run away together for a long while
WWII, they're still together
"Colony drop," they're still together
20 years later, they're separated.

his memory is just incredibly patchy.

[Synria_]

Originally Posted by germanturkey

^^ its like that in the manga too. you just have to deal with all of it. basically:
he "turns"
they run away together for a long while
WWII, they're still together
"Colony drop," they're still together
20 years later, they're separated.

his memory is just incredibly patchy.

You think you can elaborate in spoiler tags...?

Spoiler for timeline:

So first off, he gets killed by his partner... where does it pick back up? They both together in WWII... they get killed by the people he is with in ep 4, colony drop... 20 years later?? WTH... lol...

[Joachim]

hopefully this one has alternate ending.. the ending in manga was.. kinda well not to my liking

[Shiroth]

Episode 05 was yet again another visually stunning episode. Those scenes between Kuro ad Kuromitsu were absolutely beautiful. I'm loving everything about this series so far, though it's those scenes between the two were my love originates from. They're just so superb.

This has got to be the first episode from this series that didn't leave me with loads of unanswered questions. The only confusing scene is what happened after Karuta left Kuro alone on that room. That was a funky scene.

Really did leave us hanging with a cliffhanger. I hope the battle we're about to see isn't one that only lasts a few minutes --- also it could possibly end up with Kuro going up against that general again. Can't wait.

[Zippicus]

Well I can pretty much accept the plot jumping around since there seems to be a method to the madness. We're learning things as Kuro remembers them, I just wish he would hurry up and remember how his head keeps getting re-attached to his body At this point he seems pretty invulnerable to be able to survive something like that so all the action is basically empty threats.

[blewin]

episode 5 has such a dreamy undertone to it, prolly due to its large part being

Spoiler for ep 5:

memories.

The episode is beautiful in the music and animation, and it does well in culminating to the climax at the end, with Kuro ready for battle (quite determined to win too!).

oh, except for the first few minutes. It's gross...

I'm not sure, but so far, we still don't know how Kurou lost his memories, right?

[SeijiSensei]

Can anyone translate "Kurozuka" for me? It doesn't translate as anything when I push it through Google's Japanese-English engine.

Having watched the first four episodes at least three times each now, let me suggest answers to a couple of questions left hanging in this thread.

First, I think the guy hanging upside down in episode one is the samurai thief in episode two. If you look carefully at the couple wearing hats who arrive after he murders his initial victims, they look like Kuro and Kuromitsu. Later when the thief witnesses the conversation between Kuromitsu and Kuro's head, she refers to the thief as the person who cut off Kuro's head. (I don't think she's referring to Benkai in this conversation.) This scene does raise serious questions about the order of events, though. Kuro meets Kuromitsu in episode one and sees her drinking from the suspended corpse. If the corpse is the thief, how can he have cut off Kuro's head and already be dead? I'm still confused about this.

Kuro seems to lose his head quite often in this show. I assume he's been lucky enough to have it lying nearby so he can reattach it his body as Kuromitsu reattached her arm. It doesn't appear that they regenerate missing body parts the way that, say, Albedo does in Xenosaga. I take it Kuro loses his memory whenever his head is severed from his body? Isn't there some meme about decapitation being one of the few methods that will permanently kill a vampire? I'm not a vampire aficionado so others have to chime in here. I guess decapitation isn't "fatal" for Kuro.

As far as I can tell, we've seen three distinct historical periods so far: the original Heian period with Kuro as the historical figure Yoshitsune; a brief glimpse of 1945 as the Americans fire-bomb Tokyo; and the post-apocalyptic period after the missiles fly. Am I missing any?

I'll just say I can't understand why studios feel the need to have such inappropriate (and unappealing) OPs for shows like this. The rest of the score is so subtle and intriguing; the OP is anything but. It reminds me of Real Drive where both the OP and ED were totally unrelated and unpleasant when compared to the rather lovely background score. At least I can enjoy the ED for Kurozuka and don't need to hit stop once it begins as I did for Real Drive.