El Cazador eps 13 review (after all, I’m still a picky bastard) – Lone wolf and cub kick ass and Mireille makes an appearance?

not_kirika_sitting_on_ledge.jpgmirelle_look_alike.jpgnoir01.jpg

(NOTE: this entry is full of spoilers…but really, what’s there to spoil?)

Finally, some interesting things are starting to happen in this show. But, for the action fan in me, I’m still not quite satisfied, even after 13 eps of what is clearly established as a vastly different show then the previous installments of “girls with guns”. I guess girls with guns don’t have to slaughter 50 men to be girls with guns, eh?

In this eps, we see more firefights when Nadi and Elis enters an abandoned town, to which Nadi makes a snide comment about the idea of an empty town because inhabitants died of a epidemic disease is rather cheesy – it’s a decent effort of poking fun at stereotypes in a show that has just about enough of them but makes little twists of them all and manages to make it interesting enough for me to continue watching (or it’s because I’m already half way through the show, what the hell)!

A little bit of nostalgia came when I saw Mireille on screen…I mean the mysterious blond female sniper. Her hair style is different, but a commenter (allexiel) for my review for the previous eps of Cazador said that the director of the show is going to bring Noir character(s) into play, or at least there will be some connections.

I think the sniper’s hair is far less stylish than Mireille’s. She needs a new perm.

rosenberg_meets_somebody.jpgjody-in-heli.jpga-toast-to-the-future.jpg

In any case, the other seiyuu who was in Noir – Hisakawa Aya – her character – Jody Heyward, is now the official narrator in the story – what the hell, why do we need a narrator all of the sudden? Especially when it’s obvious that Nadi and Elis both finds out about something respectively and neither is talking about it. Elis, along with the rest of us, finds out about the origin of her powers, and Nadi destroys the last remaining evidence of Elis’ origin. What remains unclear (at least to me, hey I’m stupid when it comes to deciphering plots) is what exactly is the role of Jody in this. My guess is that along with the secret organization – the Witches’ Council (I guessed that’s its name), she’s trying to stop what Rosenberg’s planning to do…OK, I guess it’s that obvious to other folks watching this show.

It looks to me that the reason that Nadi destroys the slides is because she’s following the orders from Jody. Why does Jody wants the records destroyed? Or, maybe Nadi did it not because of Jody’s orders. If she did it because of Jody’s orders, and Jody is part of the Witches’ Council, then I guess the council wants to destroy evidence that suggests the existence of witches (after all, they’re a secret organization – gee, I guess the obvious here is that all secret organizations want to remain secret), but if not…

baka-nadi.jpgnadi_finds_slides.jpgnadi-destroys-evidence.jpg

Nadi is her usual stupid self, to the point of almost completely being unfunny. During one fire fight, she suggests to herself that maybe she should play dead – it’s really difficult to tell if an anime character is actually joking about a decision or not, and again, because it is Nadi, I wondered if she is actually serious??? We see that she has some skills but she isn’t a crackshot. Any thunder she has in taking out a couple of these guys is stolen when the “Lone wolf and cub” team (obviously the wolf, but the cub helps) easily takes out most of these guys. These two were so good that Mireille…I mean the blond sniper doesn’t have to do a thing. I think the blond woman is the council leader – I guess that because the council leader is voiced by Kotono-san, and she voiced Mireille, and Mirelle is blond, and the blond sniper is blond, so…

sniper-smiles.jpgchairwoman-on-the-phone.jpgnoir18.jpg

Well, that would be a fanboy thing. To the rest of the audience who hasn’t seen Noir before, I wonder if that would mean anything at all, assuming the blond woman really is the council leader, but at this point, we don’t know.

yewww1.jpgyew-confronts-elis.jpgowwww.jpg

The disgusting bishonen turns out to be Elis’ clone brother…so technically they’re siblings…so he has a rapist and stalker obsession about her…one word, yewwwww (some of you may be saying, yessssss)! I confess I enjoyed “Koi Kaze” and I felt sad at the end of that show, but this is really something else and all together disgusting. However, as a character, I think the bishonen is really successful and the seiyuu does a great job or portraying an almost utterly desperate obsession and undying creepy fascination of a young man with something like his sister. Wow, now we even get hick twisted hick stereotypes – is what I wanted to say, but because he dresses so aristocracy, I guess it’s from the opposite end of the human class spectrum – interbreeding among nobles, which doesn’t make it less disgusting, but hey, this is anime; this is entertainment, some may like it hot, and some may like it hot and steamy and young and tender and…OK, OK, seriously, I think once again, no characters were glorified in anyway. But again, I wish the dialog were better. I didn’t hear anything that particularly stood out as good dialog. I did like the music, however. The only thing that I wished was there would be a piece of music similar to “Salva Nos” from Noir, or “Nowhere” from Madlax, and while the music plays, there would be an awesome action sequence like what they had in Noir, and 50 guys would be gunned down by one or two women…speaking of which, the action sequences in Cazador doesn’t look anything spectecular compare with Bee train’s usual action efforts (.hack sign is NOT an action show…I hope no one thinks it is…ugh), in fact, the action sequences look down right plain to me. They are well done by normal action show standards but nothing fancy. Nadi is really a plain bounty hunter (if that can be used as a description) . I guess I’m indeed a picky bastard and I wished to see some superhuman efforts by her. But she is really normal when push comes to shove – she was a waitress in a bar after all before she decided to become a bounty hunter.

cub_little_girl_distracting.jpgattackers_surprised.jpglone-wolf-takes-out-attackers.jpg

I don’t know anything about guns, but for some reason, the bullets from the gun of the “lone wolf” is able to penetrate bullet-proof vests. Now, I know powerful handguns can still knock a person off his or her feet even if he or she is wearing a bullet proof vest, but he takes out these guys for good. Does he have some “cop killer” bullets(Lethal Weapon 2 reference)? Anyway, he is awesome. That makes Nadi look even more stupid. I guess Nadi is part of the comic relief team that stars another somewhat amusing but often yawn-worthy Elis (I got bored with her “yessar”s 10 eps ago, OK, 8 eps ago) They’re like a Kansai comic duo that lacks talent. This is a relative obscure reference, but the seiyuu of Elis, Shimitsu Ai, voiced another character on a decidedly unfunny comedy team (they were typecast that way) on “Zeitai Sei VS Geidou Otometai” and its previous incarnation, “Zeitai Sei”. Her character’s name is Ami and she’s a lunatic wearing a power suit and pilots a giant robot with her partner, Kaoruko. OK, so I’m so showing off my anime-related (read:ubergeeky related) knowledge. But the point here is that SHE IS (that is, Elis is) NOT FUNNY! And Nadi is NOT FUNNY! Cut the crap and start the slaughtage already! HEEEEHAHAHAHA…Ha…ha…ha…ah ha.

Goodness, almost slipped into Friday Monday form (putting away the half mask with a great effort), oh dear me. (Uh-hum) Anyway, at least the plot is going and is getting interesting. But I suspect nothing surprising will come out and grab me by throat at the end. It’s almost like the director and the creator got criticized too much for not having good enough plots in their previous efforts and now they’re showing one off, or they’re learning to have an actually decent plot going, whichever. In any case, let’s see what happens next.

74% recommended for your average daily anime diet.

PS.: there are some things that I didn’t talk about, in case you didn’t realize that this entry has a lot of spoilers…not that I think the plots are anything surprising.

(Images noir01.jpg and noir18.jpg are taken from http://apike.ca/noir_epsguide/noir18.html)

Author: Ray

I'm a hardcore Anime Fan and I'm proud of it. I know so many things and I've acquired so much knowledge you wouldn't believe. But my love is anime. I've been drifting in this world for so long that I don't even know what an anchor means. I've seen so many shows that I've lost count. The only thing I'm sure of myself is that I care for the lowly and disenfranchised. I hate the rich and powerful and I love what I do, or what I can do. I like anime and I don't mind watching different types of shows. I have experience in different types of Japanese animation. I would be called an "expert" in a bizzaro world. One day, I'd like to start a revolution. I love the US, pizza, beer, sashimi, Chinese food, and steak. But I love freshly baked bread more than a well-aged steak. In reality, if I were born Japanese I'd be a real, hardcore Otaku. I love to love and I can hate strongly. I'm passionate in nature and I don't mind shedding tears. I can be reached at rayyhum777 at animediet. My Twitter is rayyhum777 at twitter.

4 thoughts on “El Cazador eps 13 review (after all, I’m still a picky bastard) – Lone wolf and cub kick ass and Mireille makes an appearance?

  1. Nah, that’s not Mireille, nor are characters going to appear. But it may have been a Noir reference. They’re all over the place. Myself, I insist on NOT seeing it — Mireille’s one of my favourite characters ever anywhere, maybe the favourite, because of her hair, and there’s… just no comparison. ^^

    It is strongly implied that Nadie destroys the slides out of rage and sympathy for the children, and for Ellis, by extension. She wants to stamp out any traces of the past partly to keep it from Ellis and partly because she hates the crowd who experimented on the kids and killed so many of them. I assume those are bones.

    I think it’s unlikely that the leader of the council would go on a mission herself….

    Ellis’s seiyuu’s name is romanized as “Shimizu Ai”, by the way. “Mizu” as in “water”. IMO, Nadie and Ellis are funny and have awesome chemistry. Their exchanges contain the best lines the show has. It’s subtle writing that builds on background knowledge of their characterization, specifically Ellis’s dry wit, the fact that she’s smarter than she seems, and Nadie’s many, many flaws. Well, as you can tell, I enjoy watching and writing them a lot. 🙂

  2. Nei – haha, as I stated, I’m just picking on this show too much. I wanted Noir-like gunfights because I was disappointed that Madlax was nothing like Noir. There are certainly good wits and funny lines in this show – I just overlooked them. And Shimizu (thank you for the correction) Ai + Ito Shizuka do make a good, if not quite great comedy duo. It’s just Nadi seems so dumb sometimes and comparing to Mireille and even Madlax…well there’s no comparison.

    It would be fun if the chairwoman really go on a mission, however I now remember that the Witches are “active by night, which is important to [them]” The second time we see the blond woman is in daytime, which means the leader of the Witches’ Council shouldn’t be actively trying to snipe somebody.

    These were bones of the kids (shudders), I’m still not sure about Nadi’s motives, and since she’s hired by Jody, I wonder about her actions. We’ll see.

    I’ll try to give this show a less critical view. Thank you for pointing the good parts out.

  3. I think of Nadi’s matter-of-fact-talking-aloud stream of consciousness as a sort of “maa, ii ya/ah, whatever/shit happens” approach to everything. In terms of brains, I LOVE Mireille and she’s my absolute favouritist blonde gunslinging gal, but I would rate Nadi as smarter than Mireille. Somehow Nadi strikes me as smarter than Madlax and Mireille put together. Street smarts, I guess, and human empathy smarts – Madlax definitely wins the fighting smarts competition.

    But Kirika would kick all their asses of course.

  4. Kaei – I wish I could I agree about Nadi but in the brains (also skills) department(s), I can’t help but criticize her. I can understand talking out aloud because some people can do that in any situation, however, as I observed, people who are really smart usually don’t say anything – they just do it. Although, now I’m think about it, Nadi maybe extremely fearless of death – I think this is the creator’s attempt to create a fearless character who jokes in the face of threatening death. But anyway, Nadi trips and falls, gets knocked out easy by the gay boys and that unstable- in-the-brain bishonen (to help Nadi out a little bit, however, he’s a little superhuman, but the Lone Wolf could deal with him). I don’t know if Mireille is really smart, but she can be very analytical, as we see when she analyzed Le Soldat’s intent and the French politics, and she’s a pro – she laid out the map to the mansion in eps 2 and detailed out Kirika and her routes of entry. Nadi in comparison, seems have to no plans whatsoever, but just “take them as they come”. Granted, Nadi’s only objective doesn’t require much thought in ordinary situations – it’s accompanying Elis and protect her, but Nadi’s actions seem clueless to me. I’d love to see how she will in her actions, outsmart what Mireille and Madlax can do if they were in similar situations.
    Kirika can’t kick Madlax’s ass – Madlax isn’t even a real human being! She can literally dance her way around people who are aiming at her with assault rifles and cannon fire! And she self-heals! I’d say at best a tie, because Kirika can dodge bullets at almost point blank range (wow…). It would be even more interesting to add Chloe to the mix, but again, Madlax is too invincible.

Comments are closed.