Casshern Sins 06: Techni-color Dude

Casshern finally finds someone who might be able to give him the answers he's been looking for. But did this person come to help Casshern or kill him?
EPISODE 06: Reunion with Fate
The stranger reveals himself to be someone like Casshern -- the same flawless body, the same sleek moves. He tells Casshern what he really is: neither human nor robot, Casshern was created to put an end to the world. But all that, he says, does not matter because he is going to kill Casshern.



Bandit robots soon arrive, having heard of Casshern being in the vicinity. But the stranger makes short work of them, tearing them to pieces with the same viciousness that Casshern does with his own victims. Afterwards, the stranger reveals that he has the same power as Casshern but unlike him, he intends to use that power to gain control, just like Braiking Boss before.

The significance of the name eludes Casshern just as he does not recall having met the stranger before. To enlighten him, the stranger tells him how Braiking Boss got humans to kill each other and took advantage of the resulting chaos to seize power and control everything -- robots and humans alike. But after Luna died, everything fell apart in the wake of the ruin. The stranger then adds that he can prevent the ruin by killing Casshern and gaining control over the world.



At this promise, the other robots in the vicinity seize upon it, imploring the stranger to save them. Backed into a corner, Casshern gives in to his self-punishment and asks the stranger to kill him. Before the stranger could finish him, however, Casshern goes into defensive mode and fights back. Friender, which has been tailing Casshern all this time, likewise tries to help. Even so, Casshern is on the losing end and as the stranger prepares to deal the deathblow, the pink-haired girl suddenly appears and stabs the latter with her sword. A second later, another pink-haired girl arrives, takes the stranger into her arms, and disappears with him behind the cliffs.


Left by themselves, the pink-haired girl turns to Casshern and tells him that she has not forgiven him. She saved him only because she wants to be the one to kill Casshern. After she is gone, Casshern collapses from his wounds.

In a distant castle, the stranger, whose name is Dio, goes through the painful process of self-healing. Her companion, the other pink-haired girl from earlier, appears at his side and embrace him to her.

Meanwhile, Casshern finds himself at a campfire with Oji, Ringo and Friender. Oji has been fixing Friender, leading Casshern to believe that he fixed him as well. The old robot, however, dispels him of that notion, saying that Casshern recovered by himself. Oji then takes Ringo with him, but before leaving, he tells Casshern a vital piece of the puzzle that is his life: Luna, like Casshern, is also an immortal. With this knowledge, Casshern embarks on a new journey to find out more about Luna.

COMMENTS:

This series is getting tougher to blog. Another dialogue-heavy episode and a lot of stuff was revealed. It looks to me like Dio and that pink-haired woman are the two main antagonists in this show. Great action sequences...but I was more impressed with the sound effects. Point: the sound of falling debris.

Alas, it doesn't look like Casshern will pull out of his angst-fest any time soon.

I watched this episode as released by AniStash in H264 format at 1280 x 720 px. Previously, I've been watching each episode in xvid at 704 x 400 px released by Shinsen-Subs. The difference is huge. I never quite realized how much. The colors are wild, the figures pop out and the action just zooms by your eyes in all their non-pixelated glory.

I love Shinsen-subs (great overall quality) and I realize that they release their episodes in H264 format as well. So maybe I'll start downloading their mkv episodes from now on instead of the avi ones.