Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Angel Heart – episode 5

December 28, 2005 on 11:58 am | In Angel Heart | Comments Off on Angel Heart – episode 5

Images to follow if I can get the raws

“Yongbie (Goodbye) … Kaori”

Glass Heart tries something that never would have worked, while clever cinematography makes the viewer just as blind as Umibozu.

As the title of this episode suggests, Glass Heart wants to say goodbye to Kaori forever. To do so, she plans to once again commit suicide, this time using the gun that she dug out of some cement in the previous episode. Fortunately, Kaori puts paid to that – but in an inobtrusive way; Glass Heart gets one of those flash backs to a memory that isn’t her own.
Meanwhile, Umibozu entertains someone with the aura of what he used to be about him … and Ryo once again proves that he knews more than he likes to let on.

This episode is fairly standard, and doesn’t offer anything much to make me go beyond the call of duty to shout about it from the rooftops. What is worth noting about it is the fact that Saeko has been promoted to super-intendent (with her own office, rather than having to sit amongst her colleagues) and that she’s still as wiley as ever.

The major difference for Angel Heart is that the characters are supporting each other, rather than taking advantage of each other. Saeko’s new position makes her much more capable of receiving favours, but she actually uses her position to help Ryo. Likewise, you get the feeling that Umibozu and Ryo are doing more than rubbing each other the wrong way.

The stand out scene of this episode was Umibozu’s discussion of his eyesight. The way that the camera never quite revealed everything was an excellent way of showing Umibozu’s limitations: he can perceive the shape of things, but not quite their whole.

So I suppose that, in this episode, I felt Umibozu, but I didn’t really feel Glass Heart. Kaori very deliberately did not say anything here, and that makes it slightly harder to identify with Glass Heart while she is still in her “uncertainty” phase. When Glass Heart has something to fight for, rather than an iron will for giving up, I’ll warm to her much more effectively.