Mirage Of Blaze Vol. 2: Ancient Rivals Review

Originally published on otakureview.net

NOTE: This review is a continuation of my reviews of this series. If you have not seen any of the volumes or my previous reviews, you risk spoilers by continuing.



Intro



What started as a favor to my girlfriend is starting to look more like a favor to myself.



The Story



Three more episodes on this volume take us deeper into this story of intrigue with the new person showing up at Takaya’s school and suddenly everyone magically believes that they have always been best friends. An evil spirit from a 1686 riot and the spirits of some of his followers have been appearing all over the school campus as well, injuring students. Naoe and Ayako both noticed that the school is growing in spiritual energy as well. After some investigation, they find out that someone has hypnotized the spirit and have begun directing them towards Takaya’s high school and all signs point to the odd new person, Shuhei Chiaki. While Takaya continues to come to grips with who he really is, students at his school begin exhibiting even stranger behavior.



Takaya, Naoe and Ayako all enter his school at night with the intention of exorcising the vengeful spirits wandering the halls. What they find instead is that someone has already cast a seal around the school which keeps them from using their powers and uses it against them, leaving them defenseless against the spirits. When a new ally joins them though, their real enemy appears.



A new story arc begins in the last episode of the volume. Naoe and Takaya are traveling together on his summer vacation to exorcise spirits. After running into Kosaka though, things become tense and he reveals that a new enemy has arisen. Meanwhile, Takaya is having vivid nightmares about his past as Kagetora and Naoe is reliving his past guilts.



The Good And The Bad



With so many complaints on my last volume, I really didn’t go into this volume with very high expectation nor did I believe that I was going to particularly enjoy this one but I was glad to see that this volume managed to meet my low expectations and improve upon the last volume.



The pacing in this volume is much better than the previous one. The plots and stories move at a very brisk pace without letting itself get bogged down by layers and layers of history and character development. Normally I am someone who loves to see character development early but I think that the problem with the first volume is the characters were so complex that the series really had to force a lot of the initial information into the viewer’s mind right away in order for the rest of the series to be enjoyable. After getting over this initial hump though, this volume moved at a very fast pace.



The writing in this volume improved as well for the most part. While I was once again a little annoyed with the decision to end one story arc and then finish the volume with the first episode of the next story arc, I did find that the stories are a bit more interesting now that we’re getting more in the smaller character plots that don’t involve a dozen characters that I hardly know and instead really only involve a few characters that I am already starting to get to know. There was one scene near the end of the volume though that I am going to have to wonder about until I see volume three.



The animation also proved to be very interesting and fun to look at throughout this volume with some fabulous CG effects used in select places though I am mostly referring to the school at night during the second episode (episode six) of the volume. These effects looked really great with the characters and really added quite a bit to the series.



Music



The music in this volume really sounded better than the first volume as well which was kind of interesting to me. Perhaps it was new music and I hadn’t noticed or it was the same music as before just placed better but I enjoyed the music in this volume though I am still skipping over the opening theme as fast as possible so that I don’t have to listen to it. Such a terrible choice to dub it into English.



Dub vs. Sub



Both tracks were well done in this volume with no real complaints about either volume. I thought it was fun to hear Lex Lang make an appearance as Shuhei Chiaki early in the volume. I can’t believe that I didn’t notice the voice on the first volume but on this one as soon as I heard him speak, it stuck out perfectly. Lex has one of the most recognizable voices in anime which is a good and bad thing since it does kind of remind you of some of his other roles but this one was certainly different enough that I didn’t have that much problem moving past it and getting into the new role.



Extras



Besides the clean closing animation, the only other extra on this volume is a hidden easter egg which can be found by going into the trailer menu, highlighting ‘Jungle Emperor Leo’, hitting right and then enter. You’ll be treated to a very short snippet of dub actor flubs and alternate lines. Very funny but way too short!



Overall



When I started this series, I was watching it as a favor to my girlfriend but at the close of this volume I am finding myself watching it a bit more for myself. I’m still not entirely sold on this volume and a questionable scene near the end of this volume is making me wonder what I am going to see on the next one but my curiosity has certainly been perked just enough that I might even watch the next volume as a favor to myself rather than my girlfriend, not that I’d ever tell her that. Slightly recommended at this point but I’m still wary about what might be coming next.



Final Grade: 84% - B