黄泉のツガイ

It was explained at one point that each half of Left and Right is there to keep half of Seal and Break in check if they go out of control. So Right would be unbreakable by Asa and Left would be Unsealable by Yuru. Seal and Break seem to be a special daemon pair being the only ones shown as contracting to different people. So normally if Left and Right were contracted to a non twin, then the three points would be in realitive balance. At least that's how it seamto me.

The dichotomy between the twins is very interesting. Asa on the outside seems scarier but she's more caring and has a softer inside, like I don't think she would kill a kid, even one feom the village. While Yuru seems nicer from the outside but he has a ruthless cutthroat inside. Being able to prioritize his goals and getting the information about his parents at a moment like that would not be easy.

Man, I am consistently impressed with this show. Arakawa wrote really good characters for FMA, but she's only gotten better at it for DSR. Having a whole theme around pairs or opposites really helps with delivering on that, too. You see it obviously in all the daemons, but you see the "opposite" in so much else. The difference between the traditional Higashi village contrasted with modern Japan sets up the same kind of dynamic between Yuru and Asa's parents, and even between Yuru and Asa themselves. But it shows up as individual personalities, too, like with Asuma. An actually good guy who always looks like he's plotting something. But outside of the theme, I think she's really just done a great job of helping these characters feel dynamic and real. It can be really easy to lean into the trope of having Yuru just be stubborn and oppositional all the time, but Arakawa has made him feel very real. Genuinely surprised by all the new things he's seeing without making it feel like an overblown character gimmick, because Yuru also knows that he's just here now and there are other important things to worry about. He adapts to the scenario, complexly evaluates his emotions (rightfully is distrusting of everyone, but cautiously finding help where he can because he knows he can't do much all alone), and is genuinely a smart protagonist. Even doing little things that you don't normally expect that actually seem plausible, like having someone randomly fire at the ceiling in the garage in an earlier episode just to create a distraction to cut the lights. No show is without its flaws, but I gotta really praise Arakawa and the studio for writing and creating what feels like a very consistent and interesting story. Lots of fun, intelligent and dynamic characters. Great world building and interesting politics. And while the pace can feel a little long because there is a decent amount of exposition so far, I never really feel bored because the information is interesting and the scenes tend to feel fairly "alive". One of my simple measuring sticks for signs of a good anime is how the studio decides to treat the space around the focal point of a scene. Are characters doing things in the background as opposed to just dueling still shots of people talking at each other? Are side characters throwing in funny little quips between conversations? Does the crowd and environment move around the main focal point of the scene? This show does all that. And I'm particularly impressed with how un-lazy the design of the vast amount of daemons are. Even the side character ones that we don't see abilities from at least have cool models. I'm kinda just geeking right now, but I want to give credit where it's due. To Arakawa for knowing how to build a world and write characters, and to the studio for displaying it all. This show probably won't be my favorite of all time, but it is very consistent and I love that.

I feel vindicated that there are others that notice the same thing. I've spent years reading discussions here, occasionally participating, and I've always internally complained about how weak some of the discussion threads are here. People basically live reacting or just posting basically an album of screenshot from the episode. Some anime definitely don't really warrant big discussions, I'm not going to begrudge people not having much to talk about in, say, a CGDCT anime discussion thread. But when you get a anime that you actually feel is worth talking about more deeply and you open a thread to see half of the top comments just being screenshot recaps, it makes you question why you even come to a " discussion " thread. I want theory crafting, I want discussion of Japanese context, I want talk about characters and plot details. I don't really want multiple comments with 20 screenshots of the episode that I finished watching 2 minutes before I opened the thread.

And while the pace can feel a little long because there is a decent amount of exposition so far, I never really feel bored because the information is interesting and the scenes tend to feel fairly "alive". It's already 18 episodes, I just realized that. In many other shows there's always a fillers or episodes that lead to nothing new but here there's always something new and it doesn't fill like a filler episode. The world building around the protagonist feels really important. The factions, their interests, everything. Are characters doing things in the background as opposed to just dueling still shots of people talking at each other? Are side characters throwing in funny little quips between conversations? Does the crowd and environment move around the main focal point of the scene? I noticed this too and many times I had to get back and watch again to not miss those moments oftentimes really funny.

Same thoughts! There were times on first cour that I felt this show is quite so so. However, I still stick around and see were it goes. Turns out those are all basically setup/world building and now we went with full pace in second cour. Like you said, in this second cour there's always something interesting every episode that hook me up and made me want to immediately watch next episode. What also impress me is how there's actually no clear allies/factions. Like, even small seemingly unimportant side characters could suddenly become the traitor. Well, not really suddenly as there are actually some signs if people noticed it enough. Kudos to Arakawa-sensei!

I have been watching the show for weeks without really diving into the Reddit. I was wondering today after watching the new episode of people were really enjoying this show? And this summarized it quite nicely. I’m really enjoying the story and world building and even if it feels a little slow, I’m excited to see what’s gonna happen next. Really great show def getting up there in the top list of favs

Considering how limited their options are , I can understand why Asa and Yuru's parents ended up accepting help from the Kagemoris. Well that's pretty terrifying. The dude with the shaved head can control people using his daemons and probably plans to use them on Asa or Yuru to make them obey. So if I understand this correctly, Asuma has been working for Shingo, so Gonzou can take down the traitor Kagemoris. And it turns out that Shingo's face just naturally looks like he's always plotting something. That's actually fucking hilarious! They really made sure to get Ishida Akira to make him even more suspicious. I feel like I now need to apologize to Asuma for all the times I have badmouthed the guy for looking so sus! 😆 I just love how Ivan has now earned the pervman nickname. What's even funnier is that hearing he's a perv riles Yuru up even more. The smoke signal was a cool way to tie everything back to the start of the episode. Unfortunately for Fake Asa, the real Asa ended up arriving instead of Yuru. Their interaction next week will certainly be interesting!

The writing and decision making is SO GOOD in this show. It's so refreshing, every time I think there's a weird plot hole they cover it up cleanly. When they attempted to rescue Yuru, and he got whisked away. There was an awkward pause of like "Oh he's gone, so we'll leave too." I was thinking "His demon wielder is RIGHT THERE and you have a GUN, make him tell you WHERE!?" But of course he already got intel that moth man is ok. Buttttt he can't let the spy he's with know. Loving how well the politics and information sharing is done with this show. Characters are acting like they should in those situations. It feels like its written by an adult. I was worried about Yuru going for smoke signals. What's the rush? Your demons are in an active fight RIGHT THERE. And of course the show does a great job and it's Asa that shows up looking for her brother 😄

When they attempted to rescue Yuru, and he got whisked away. There was an awkward pause of like "Oh he's gone, so we'll leave too." I was thinking "His demon wielder is RIGHT THERE and you have a GUN, make him tell you WHERE!?" In fairness, staying to ask questions would've been pointless either way when a group that can use wind and lightning is right there, and with no means to ward them off running was by far the best option.

It was pretty clear Asuma was either a double agent or secretly pursuing his own agenda. IIRC, the first time we saw Asuma with Shingo, Asuma gave his uncle a death glare as the bastard left the room. That, and he tried to plant a moth-spy that Mr. Manbun immediately noticed, and swatted. The only thing that was clear was Asuma's animosity towards Shingo. He was either betraying his uncle on behalf of his father, or Asuma was acting as a secret third party with his own agenda. Turns out... both possibilities were simultaneously true. He was only pretending to betray the Kages, but only because he just REALLY hates his uncle over reasons completely unrelated to Break/Seal, Higashi Village, or Kage business in general. It was just personal.