Toji no Miko Episode 2 Discussion

animefan8800 said:
I see, so if I read that right the supreme leader isn't being possessed by one of those bug monsters but is actually just one of them in disguise? Presumably the real leader was killed long ago and Hiyori wants to avenge her. Or is it just a possession? I dunno. As my favorite girl I was hoping Mai would go with them, but 3's a crowd I guess. If the op/ed are anything to go off she should eventually anyway though, along with the other girls.

SoraSenpai said:


I get the feeling that the leader is somehow related to Hiyori.

Zarator said:
So... that plot twist kinda came out of nowhere. I watched ep. 1 again to make sure, but no - there was no sign of Yukari-sama being what she actually is. To be honest I'm slightly disappointed about this, I would have preferred if they at least tried to leave a hint or something - it's not fun if they all just tell us what happens when it happens, without some kind of foreshadowing, especially in a 2-cour show.

noireo said:


There is this. Yukari suddenly had 2 extra swords out of nowhere when she was blocking the strike.

noireo said:


There is this. Yukari suddenly had 2 extra swords out of nowhere when she was blocking the strike.

GenesisAria said:
I'm impressed by this, it's a lot better than i expected. Whoever are giving it such a low rating must be retarded or something.

Granted they could have kept up the mystery longer, but oh well. This ha potential from the start.

Anyone who knows jackshit about swordplay and interactions between swordsmen (like in samurai tales etc), knows that this is really growing into a good form. Details such as how Kanami is willing to follow a rival long and far for a chance to have a 100% 1v1 with them... As well as the senses of masters being able to notice when individuals have motive and not to question it like a moron but seek to find what it is. Being alble to detect the difference between what someone feels they have to do vs something someone does out of malice. Sometimes someone did do something worthy of revenge, that vengeance is not your business to stop without knowing anything. "Preserve all life indiscriminately" is a strange western philosophy, where preserving life seems to take precedent over all deeds - which is not the case in cultures of other philosophies.

And other details, such as how everyone was kept in place as the 2 of them left after an assassination attempt, it was a well educated depiction of emergency response protocol.

They were pretty cleverly subtle about things, such as how they mentioned things like "if you give Yukari <one of those fancy swords>, she's the most powerful", clarifying her status as relatively unarmed, before suddenly pulling blades. @noireo @Aubreebree @Zarator
. . . Good situation setup doesn't have to be obvious; that's just a tool for the slow-witted consumer. There wasn't much foreshadowing, because they didn't give any prior clues really to why Hiyori leaped in the first place, but the suddenness in this case was intentional, as you the watcher are riding yolo as Kanami is.
Now if only they had shown this (the eye or even some orange glow of any kind in her hair) in like 1 or 2 frames in the original scene, so you, as the watcher, would have also had the opportunity to have quick eyes like Kanami or not if you didn't catch it.

That's just personal advice i would have given to the director, or done myself if i were the director.
That said, saying why Hiyori is doing what she's doing, or at least what she believe to be the case (which may ultimately turn out to be wrong by the way, which could be why nothing was shown), makes a lot more sense than withholding it annoyingly with a stubborn stupid idiot character, which these girls OBVIOUSLY aren't stupid.


Anime like these never deserve such discredit just because they're not fancy like Violet Evergarden, or aren't mainstream hype-train. I bet most people have it stuck in their skulls that this is just another stupid girls battle school thing anime like Schoolgirl Strikers or something.

And these girls have an interesting character dynamic, as i said, like a samurai movie. And how none of these girls are stupid - i like that. A lot of thought goes on in individual altercations at lightning speed, and it spends the time to clarify naturally what thought went on in that moment after the fact. It's a classic style anime, but has a lot more to it than initially apparent, and not really for laymen, kinda like Garakowa. It may turn out to be mediocre, but thus far it's doing quite well.


@matias067 You people have way too much skill in detecting pointless thing like whether it's cg or not. Sure it's noticeable if you really want to notice, but it's not THAT blatant. It's not even jarring when anime do this, it's pretty consistent, it's just for distant character movements to save some work.

@DuoraDoll you obviously aren't around much samurai fiction.

DuoraDoll said:
Hhhmmmmm... She decided to become a FREAKING CRIMINAL SO She could spar with some girl she knows nothing about and has known for like 20 minutes, some girl who seems to be ATTEMPTING MURDER... WHAT A MORON. And then they go TO A FREAKING FESTIVAL... and fight some ugly CG monster thing... Oh wait the head lady is apparently one of those CG things SO IT'S ALL OKAY THEN.

This anime isn't good but I'm still enjoying it anyway soooo... see yall next week.

gophercg said:
Havent seen choco mint icecream in anime for quite awhile.
Story seems interesting so far with the Origami/aradama. Tho Kanami's reason to stay with Hiyori seems retarded, be on the run just for a chance to spar really?
That CG/2D switching similar to kancolle or ChainChronicle, ok for saving on 2 cour.

DuoraDoll said:

No I am not good sir, I'm mostly around moe slice-of-life anime and or anything with some high quality cute girls, nintendo games, and tumblr... God I live a crappy life. Anyway I am by no means a serious about the anime that I watch, I can catch some stuff but I usually don't get deep into it and sit there analyzing stuff.

But I do compare the anime I watch to others, and right off the bat, this anime has left a pretty bad impression that essentially killed it for me. From my perspective, what I saw while watching this was the basic edgy rival girl with a weapon attempting murder for some unexplained but probably deep and tragic reason that will be explained later, and the typical hype girl MC who wants to be friends with everyone assisting the attacker. The characters, story, and monsters aren't fleshed out enough to figure anything out in just these two episode. They should have taken more time to build up the world rather than just drop us into the middle of the battlefield.

Zarator said:


Again, Kanami mentioned in this episode that she also noticed something was off with Yukari, so she had additional reason to at least side with Hiyori rather than letting her die

gophercg said:

Yes she saw the aradama eye. But she could've said this as the reason instead of wanting to spar when Hiyori asked, or even not say any reason until Mai confronted them. It just gives a nagging question of why did Kanami hide about the aradama till much later.

Zarator said:


So basically, if you were in Kanami's place, and saw that eye behind Yukari-sama as she did, you still wouldn't believe Hiyori and/or attempt to protect her? Really?

GenesisAria said:

A) She's not edgy
B) she explained exactly why she did it, quite clearly.

As i said, none of these girls are stupid, there's not edgy stupid stuff, they're very clear and resolved about their actions and motives. Hiyori believes she's absolutely doing the right thing by everyone in doing what she did. Kanami, being an experienced swordsman and having keen senses, trusts Hiyori's determination, even if she's a rival. When it comes to the interpersonal battlefield, resolve is more poignant than any state of friend or foe. If in your enemies, you have to understand their motive an trust their determination to appropriately respond to it. Being a moralfag is just plain dumb (and will get you killed).

There wasn't much to build, and by this point, it's clear the style is to do the exact opposite, and more akin to the mentality of warriors: act now, assess later. The characters have been fleshed out quite a lot for 2 episodes actually, we know quite a bit about these 2 girls. As i said before, it's the type of anime that's supposed to be for viewers who're more accustomed to picking up on a lot of detail from brief exposure.

...Such as, we know Hiyori's family died in fire (probably by aradama), we know she's a very serious yet good person, her actions are justified given what she says is true. She's forthcoming if need be, so she's not the impregnable stubborn twat she may seemed to have been at first. She's also got all these letters that are left around, i can't remember what their purpose was, but they're pre-planned.
...Kanami is a kenjutsu geek (representative of target audience of the anime), and is fascinated by all types. She thought something was off with Yukari as well; Hiyori was about to get killed after assassination attempt, Kanami wasn't about to let that happen. Unlike most mc's you'd expect she's been demonstrated to be extremely keen and quick witted, with well refined senses. She picked up on a lot and made a lot of important decisions in a very split moment - it happened so fast that they had to spend the entire second episode to address what happened in that moment.
...these's plenty of other fine details in personalities and such that could be pointed out as well but not as relevant. Compared to a lot of anime of similar or not so similar genre, that's an at least par is not above par amount of stuff addressed in 2 episodes, any more and it would have been too dense.


ps: i've almost certainly watched more cute moe nichijoukei than you lol . . . you don't need to restrict yourself to specific genres... anime is a beautiful gift. Also, this was samurai girls all over right from the start, it was on the ads and cover, so not sure what you expected. This is way better than some broken dumb friendship is magic plot.

pps: i don't really analyze anime that often... if you want to see a true analysis, look at my post about Kimi n Na wa where i address very thoroughly all of the questionable aspects of the movie.

TheDoggoneGirl said:
I really feel bad for dropping this show, but it's one of those shows that I think it ain't worth my time. I'm so lost most of the time and it didn't--at least once--gave me a reason to be hooked on it. :/