Older Children (May contain mild bad language, bloodless violence)
Vintage:
October 7, 2006
Status:
Completed
Summary:
Feudal Japan is attacked by beasts called 'Youi'. Ryuudou Yukiatsu, a 'floater' and an employee at a bath house has the power of Ayagami ("The power to find the words behind things") which can be used in fighting against the Youi. That's why the members of a Youi-fighting group Bansha Aratamesho, called the Ayashi, are looking for Yukiatsu - they want him to become an Ayashi as well. Yukiatsu runs into a woman and a son who are chased by a Youi and has to face the past he's been running away from.
This show had a very rough start, it didnt really get intresting until after episode 12( which is almost halfway through), so if you can stand getting through 12 episodes of formulaic mediocre monster hunting, you´re in for a treat :) i really like like feudal Japan as a setting for these type of stories, since it comes so naturally, being a time period where they still(sort of) believed in the monsters and gods of the land. Also being the era where Japan was closed off to the rest of the world(except for Holland for some reason), you get the whole (read more)
This show had a very rough start, it didnt really get intresting until after episode 12( which is almost halfway through), so if you can stand getting through 12 episodes of formulaic mediocre monster hunting, you´re in for a treat :) i really like like feudal Japan as a setting for these type of stories, since it comes so naturally, being a time period where they still(sort of) believed in the monsters and gods of the land. Also being the era where Japan was closed off to the rest of the world(except for Holland for some reason), you get the whole political angle as well, which is both informative, and entertaining. The five specials listed are regular episode long extra adventures entitled Divine Comedy Inferno of Ayashi(or something along those lines), no doubt referencing the famous literary christian classic Dantes Inferno, where the titular character goes through the seven circles of hell. It served the purpose of continuing the story from episode 25. Though considering episode 25 already had a climactic finale, I think these specials would have been better as an OVA sequel series. While the story does borrow a little from christian terminology, it is very minor, in comparison to the still major focus on japanese mythology, and I´m perfectly fine with that. Though it feels like kind of a waste not to include more christian references if you´re gonna go through the trouble of naming the story after a famous christian literary piece. Oh well, it was well paced, and entertaining, giving more spotlight to the character Saizou who had mostly been in the background before. It also kind of expanded on Yukiatsus background(technically, it was kind of a retcon, but since it didnt contradict anything that came before, I wasn´t bothered by it).
