The Ruler of Nabari #11 — Censorship Unleashed

June 15th, 2008

 

Mmmmmm black bars.

Impressions:

Alright. I’m tired of waiting for a decent raw.

Good lord. When did giant black boxes covering absolutely everything become the new way to censor things? Can’t we just have a conveniently place tree branch? Or how about some shrubbery? What’s wrong with mosaics? I’m pretty sure I’d prefer them to just blacking out 4/5ths of the screen. Some of it was really silly too, since they drifted gore into the blackened areas as they moved the stills. It also did a great job of killing drama on key scenes, like when Gau was slashed. Nothing says "noble sacrifice" like a creepy disembodied floating head held aloft on a sea of black.

While we talking about that, twice this episode people managed to duck in front of sword slashes. As anybody who has ever played baseball can tell you, the power is at the tip of the the thing being swung, not a few feet closer. Besides which, with a full swing like that, Gau/Raikou’s mom should have been cut in half. Or I guess Raikou/his uncle were just swinging a good couple feet away from Raimei/his mother and were planning on whiffing entirely. Let’s also not mention how much easier and less stupid it would have been to just tackle someone, especially for his mother, moving from behind uncle to in front of him in order to be a martyr. And all this ignores the fact that these massively trained ninja warriors who can catch thrown knives in their fingertips can’t sense when another person is clumsily running around them.

Alright, a bit off track there, but the whole interposed sword-slash thing is one of my most hated cliches because of how damn little sense it makes. It’s up there with amnesia for things I want to disappear from plots everywhere and never ever ever return because 999 times out of a thousand, they’re used terribly.

Anyway, it was a relatively solid episode, and we got some brief decent action, so I can’t complain on that front. It was at least much better than the last 7 or so, but Raikou’s past kind of annoyed me. Alright, he’s not evil, he was just dragged along when his uncle got it into his crazy mind to usurp the clan for being too peaceful and ended up killing Raikou’s parents. In the ensuing power struggle of the factions fighting, Raimei walked in on Raikou finishing off dear old uncle which… A clearly indicating B… meant that Raikou had obviously killed everybody there. OOooooookay. Not quite certain the logical jump there or how Raimei missed all the other people fighting, but whatever.

Still, I could use a bit more antagonism here. I get the feeling that the end of the show is going to be every single person teaming up and going out to Denny’s fighting off the thingy in Miharu since every single person is evil for only an episode or two before their tragic and misunderstood past is revealed. Kotarou’s the evilest recurring character so far that has done anything besides go out for drinks, which is only really evil if he orders a dirty martini.

Preview:

Great. Back to the yaoi.

Posted in Nabari no Ou | 7 Comments »

7 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • totali says:

    Moar liek “yaoi unleashed’ amirite?

  • kuromitsu says:

    Well, the weight distribution of katana are different from that of baseball bats, or even normal swords, so I’d say that katana have the most power a quite few inches into the blade, not right at the tip… but then, I’m no expert on such things so I might be wrong.

    Anyway, what’s up with the censorship? The show airs around two in the morning, for chrissakes. Back in the good old days, Rurouni Kenshin showed a guy getting stabbed on the neck with the blade coming out of his mouth. And if they’re going to censor at least do it in a more creative way…

  • kuromitsu says:

    Btw, lol @ people acting surprised at the “yaoi” as if it wasn’t obvious right from the start…

  • Aroduc says:

    It’s still centrifugal force. Unless you’re making a claim that flesh is a sufficiently hard substance to turn aside sharp metal. If you wanted to stop it, then yes, you’d go for the point closest to the ‘pivot’ of the spin… like stopping a rotary fan blade with your hand because it’s moving slower.

  • Dana says:

    It is just being realistic when it shows that there are know real evil characters in this series. (There are a couple of real bastards that you failed to mention though.)

    I hope they don’t keep skipping ahead to the action as that would leave out a lot of plot and character developement.

  • issa-sa says:

    Black bars now? What’s this show trying to be, Junjou Romantica?

  • Asa says:

    Maybe the censorship is related to the recent Akiba killings? It could have been a last minute change since the black bars were placed so poorly. It’s all I can think of, since blood of that amount seriously doesn’t need to be censored on a 1:30am show.