Karneval ep8: visions of Kurama dancing through my head

What is going on?  First Majestic Prince, now this show?  Is episode eight the designated episode for bland shows to show out?  I’m not saying this is a great show, and the episode wasn’t spectacular either. But at least it had an interesting ending.

The episode starts with Yogi, Tsukomo, Gareki and Nai going on a vacation, of sorts. They’re sent to a mansion that is under the care of Circus, that was confiscated from the enemy. The goal is to search through the mansion to double check and make sure the initial search team didn’t miss anything. It sounds like a bunch of busy work to me, and Gareki notices as much. He’s also caught on to the fact that Circus is now using Nai as bait for the roaming Varuga.

Speaking of Circus, while the junior team goes out on their scavenger hunt, the second and first ship captains and the lead research scientist are having a meeting with Circus’s top leaders. There Akari and Hirato make their cases for Nai’s treatment use. While Akari states that Nai is valuable only alive, Hirato points out that Nai has consistently attracted Varuga, Circus’s main target. He tells the council, that should the possibility ever come close, and Nai could be captured, he’ll kill the little annoyance himself. This angers Akari, who only calms down once Tsukitachi explains to him where Hirato’s coming from. Kind of ironic for such a cold and intelligent guy to be fooled like that.

Back in the snowy mountains, the junior team have arrived at the mansion, with a little synthetic snowman (who is warm) accompanying them. It’s apparently an invention of the research department like those creepy little bunnies, though it appears to be less versatile and less intelligent. While there, they don’t find much, aside from Gareki finding a kick-ass revolver and ammo. So things are going by pretty slowly as the team leaves when all of sudden they lose their snowman friend in the snow… *sigh* I just thought about how dumb that is…

It’s fallen in a hole and is picked up by two characters who are clearly freaks from Kafka. They decide to hunt down their Circus adversaries, for sport. Which is pretty stupid since they’re supposed to be there for a stealth mission. The junior team comes across the hole their snowman fell through, and everyone aside from Tsukomo jumps in, there they discover the secret entrance the Kafka goons used to sneak into the mansion and remove all the evidence. But while they’re down there, Tsukomo is attacked and one of the Kafka guys collapses the tunnel. Luckily Gareki actually makes himself useful uses the ammo and other goods he finds down in the tunnel to blow a safe passage out of the rubble.

The skirmish begins in earnest, with Tsukomo and Nai hilariously getting tapped and then going into uplifting pep-talks for each other.  There’s a battle going on, and they’re h0lding hands and whispering happy thoughts into each other ears!  Good grief!

Anyway, while Yogi and Gareki appear to be holding their own, they are completely outmaneuvered once their opponents decide to stop sandbagging for points. This is my favorite part, as once Yogi’s knocked out he seems to just freak! His hair changes color, and the thorny vines he uses to fight seem to come alive. The scene gives me pleasant memories of when Kurama first changed in front of everyone in Yu Yu Hakusho. Though while this scene was exciting, Kurama’s was spooky and beautiful. You could call it a shounen battle manga tradition or cliche, either would be appropriate.

This brings to mind a very important question. Just what are the members of Circus. At first, I didn’t care much and just thought they were ordinary humans with extraordinary talent for magic. But what’s going on with Yogi is definitely not natural. Unless he has some mental condition that affects how he uses magic… and makes him psychotic. Oh wait, being psychotic is a mental condition.

I found this episode to be overall, kinda boring and average, up until the end. I found the addition of the “warm” snowman to be kinda odd, not because he’s a warm snowman, but because they have enough cute, simple things running around in the show with Nai and Tsukomo and the bunnies. That is unless they figured out the bunnies were just too creepy to be a mascot character. Though if that’s the case the show should stop using them in their omakes!

Oh and before I forget, Gareki was actually proactive this episode! And he was useful! Hallelujah! It’s happening slowly, but this show is taking a definite upturn.

Further Reading:

• Episode 7