The first anime I'm going to review is Karneval. Karneval is an anime based on manga with the same title. This anime is about Nai. A boy who is searching for someone named Karoku with only a bracelet he found as a clue. While searching for Karoku, Nai meets a teenage boy named Gareki who is actually a pro thief. Nai and Gareki worked together to search for Karoku and they find out that the bracelet Nai has is actually an I.D for the most powerful defence organisation called Circus. Without further adieu let's start talking about the first episode.
DISCLAIMER: I do a recap on this anime just for fun and for anime lovers out there who wanted to know about Karneval episode 1. I tried to explain things as accurate as possible. Before writing this i even read about Karneval from different sources, mainly wikipedia. If there is something wrong or misleading in my recap. I am very sorry. Please correct me by pointing my mistakes in the comment below so that I can fix it. Thank you for your kindness.
The first episode starts off with a voiceover of Nai calling Karoku. Then we see a light blue-haired boy or i should say young man, which I assume as Karoku, calling back for Nai. When Nai reaches for Karoku, Karoku suddenly disappeared. After that, we see a young boy with black hair, Gareki outside a big mansion. At the same time, Nai was held captive by a Varuga woman (Varuga are post-human with special abilities. They were once human, but a cell-modifying medicine given to them slowly took over their bodies until they were fully transformed, at which point they became monsters. from wikipedia.org) who tries to seduce Nai. The scenes alternated from a train hijack, Gareki setting up bombs, a man with black hair and glasses drinking tea in a cafe, an old man and his granddaughter and then back to Nai. Being the innocent boy, Nai said that she was pushing him and he felt sick because of this. The Varuga woman was pissed and raised her hand to hit him. In an attempt to protect himself, Nai used his arms to shield his face, when he did this, the Varuga woman saw Nai wearing a bracelet, which she recognized as a circus I.D. The bomb Gareki set up before explodes. Before Gareki could get inside, the varuga woman left the room. Upon seeing Gareki, Nai asked for help. At first Gareki was hesitant but in the end he agreed to help him but in turn, Nai had to give the bracelet Karoku left.
Just when everything is settled, the varuga woman came back to the room and was boiling with anger. She then transformed into something like a monster with long hands and big palms. Gareki and Nai tried to escape. Then the scene changed. We see a young girl wearing a cape to cover her face confronted by the man we saw drinking tea earlier. They were discussing about a woman named Mine, that the situation turned out as the expected and they must move that instant. Back to Nai and Gareki, the two were hiding behind a cargo box, with the varuga woman chasing after them. She said that she wasn't eating that much and that she couldn't move fast, so she started to eat her own bodyguard. Just when she was about to catch Nai and Gareki, Gareki released a bomb straight to her face and they managed to escape.
It turned out that the varuga woman was still alive, but then a dark and tall figure confronted her and killed her, saying that she messed up. The black haired man and the young girl we saw earlier came to the varuga woman's mansion. Upon seeing her death body, the black haired man who seemed to be the boss became depressed. He said that they was late and that now they had no clue or whatsoever because their last clue, Mine, the varuga woman was killed.
Meanwhile, in town, state officers were everywhere. Nai and Gareki couldn't leave the town because the exit was closed and Gareki couldn't show up freely since he was a thief. But then he saw a train and told Nai to jump. They jumped and boarded the train and started talking. Nai thanked Gareki for helping him. Gareki then asked why he was in the varuga woman's mansion. Nai replied that he was searching for Karoku and then he was suddenly held captive. Nai also told Gareki a bit about the day Karoku disappeared. In the middle of their conversation, Nai heard something like a wave of sound and suddenly the black haired man and the young girl barged into the train. Without thinking, they labelled Nai and Gareki as the train hijackers and attacked them. The black haired man punched Gareki and made him unable to move for a while. Around this time, a group of men holding guns barged in. The black haired man finally realized that Gareki and Nai weren't part of the train hijack. Nai heard the sound wave again and led Gareki to the front part of the train.
In the front part of the train, the citizens threatened the black haired man and the young girl he called as Tsukumo that if they moved an inch, the old man and her granddaughter would be killed. They gave up and the two of them were tied with rope. Turns out that the citizens were angry at the old man because he fired them. He explained that he had no choice but to do so since the company would be bankrupt if they kept more employees than necessary. Nai and Gareki arrived at the scene. Surprised, the citizens began shooting them. The black haired man finally stepped up to clean up the mess. An angry citizen tried to shoot him, with his cane, the black haired man blocked it and swung his cane, throwing all the citizens in all direction because of the impact. Realizing that they were at a disadvantage, one of the citizen (the one I assume as the leader) activated a bomb in one of the trailer. He said that he had set up a bomb in each and every trailer of the train and in no time, the bombs would explode, killing everyone aboard including him and his group. Meanwhile, Tsukumo untied the old man and his granddaughter and was told to bring them to a safer place. The old man asked who they were and they finally revealed their identity. They revealed that they're members of Circus. The black haired man introduced himself as Hirato, the captain of 'The Second Ship' (I assume this is the name of one of the group in Circus Hirato led) of the National Defense Organization, Circus. The young girl was Tsukumo, a fighter from the Second Ship.
Nai heard the sound wave again and told Gareki to bow down, afraid that the bomb will reach them in no time. Hirato said that there is electrical interference, which was the main cause of the bombs. Being the bomb expert, Gareki tried to defuse the bomb. He used Nai's help to find out the location of the source of electrical interference. It was actually located under the wooden floor of the train. After seeing the device, Gareki stated that it was not a bomb but actually an electric jammer and started talking and explaining about it. He realized that this particular device is not connected with radio wave induction and that in order to survive, they had to separate back of the train before the radio waves reached it. Hearing this, Hirato used his power called "Vacuum" to separate the back of the train and brought everyone to safety.
Later on, we see Nai asking Gareki where he was going. He replied that he had to hide so that he would not be caught by the officers. While waking, Nai thanked Gareki again for saving him. At the same time, Tsukumo asked Hirato about Nai. She told Hirato that she saw the Circus ID bracelet in Nai's arm. Hirato replied that he would discuss about that matter later since he had something else to worry about. Hirato went to greet the old man, asking if they could talk. The old man replied that he would like to, but had to go since he had an appointment with his doctor and excused himself. Hirato saw something suspicious in the old man's action. Back in the old man's car, we can see someone examining him, I assume he was his doctor. The doctor said that he already took care of the Karasuna incident (he meant the Varuga woman, Mine's incident). While examined, the old man confessed that he purposely let himself be captured in order to test how effective Circus was and turns out they were as he expected. He also mentioned that he saw something interesting, which was actually Nai, and also Gareki? I'm not sure about Gareki but I'm pretty sure that something interesting he meant was Nai. He said that Nai had interesting hearing abilities and looks a bit like "him". I don't know who it was but maybe it's Karoku? The old man told the doctor to capture Nai as soon as possible since he knew that Hirato was also interested in Nai.
The scene changed and we see someone, or a young man, sewing something like a stuffed animal and the anime ends.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
I think that this anime is great and worth watching. The plot is very confusing but actually this makes it interesting to watch. I totally recommend everyone to check out this anime. For the recap of episode 2, I'm thinking of adding some screencaps of the scenes from the episode so that it wouldn't be boring for you readers. I took me 2 days to write this review, I hope it is detailed enough and can be a help to you. Thank you for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment