Saturday, July 17, 2010

Occult Academy 02: Time-jumpin' spoon-bender

EPISODE 2: The Advent of BUNMEI

This episode should come with a warning: EXCESSIVE TSUNDERE VIOLENCE. Talk about going physical. It came to a point where I actually felt sorry for Fumiaki as I cringed at every beating he got from Maya. But it was done in such a funny way that I had to laugh every time as well. Ah, I love my tsundere and her inevitable whipped boy pairing.
Maya really hates the occult and Fumiaki is the personification of that which she hates the most so yeah

This episode is more about Fumiaki's background as a boy-wonder who's kinda famous for his ability to bend spoons with his mind. When someone talks about spoon-bending, one immediately thinks of that scene from The Matrix. And it looks like that's not all that Occult Academy takes from the popular film. As a matter of fact, the whole fabric of the plot seems to be directly inspired by The Matrix. Just substitute the technology for the occult, plus a little bit of Terminator time-traveling schtick and you basically have the entire premise for Occult Academy.
lolwut? War of the Worlds meets Terminator

Uchida Fumiaki is a time-agent who comes from the future, specifically 2012. He is sent there by the human resistance who are waging a guerrilla war against aliens from another dimension that are occupying Earth in the future. His mission is to put a stop to the Nostradamus Prophecies by finding the Nostradamus' Key and destroying it before July 21, 1999. According to their intelligence, the clue to the location of the Nostradamus' Key can be found in Waldstein Academy. This is why Fumiaki returns to the past, taking on the alias of Abe Minoru, a sophomore history teacher.

It's just his extreme misfortune that he arrives at the exact moment and exact location as the occult-hating, walking tsundere-service Maya. The fact that he is naked when the first meeting happens doesn't help his case at all. Still, Maya doesn't report his dubious identity to the authorities, which is interesting, and she even allows him to move freely through school grounds. It's no secret, however, that Maya wants to shut down the school. To help her accomplish that faster, she needs everything bad that could happen in a school -- namely, having a pervert freely roam the school -- to happen.

Things change when Maya receives a note written in blood, telling her not to get in the way. Later, she experiences a real scare when a vengeful ghost pays her a visit. Fumiaki, who is in the vicinity, attempts to save her but only earns a beating for his efforts. The ghost gets Maya and nearly kills her. However, a spell from her father's old notebook saves her.

The notebook reveals that Maya's father has been investigating the Nostradamus Prophecies and the Nostradamus' Key. However, many people were not in favor of his research and attempted to stop him. This leads Maya to believe that her father did not just die but was actually killed. With this discovery, she decides to team up with Fumiaki in order to find out what really happened to her father.

Another entertaining episode of Occult Academy, mostly at the expense of Fumiaki. I think the beatings need to be toned down a little. Otherwise, it could get really painful watching episode after episode of Fumiaki getting his ass handed to him. The scary stuff is scary in a lolcartoons way. The idea of an apocalyptic future is overused but for Occult Academy it's fine, especially since the focus of the series isn't really about what happens in the future but what is currently happening. There's obviously some sinister plot going on and it's already gotten lots of people, Maya's father included, killed. The interesting thing is that one of the people behind such a plot might be closer to Maya than she thinks.

I'm looking forward to the next episode.

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