境界のRINNE ep 06
Kyoukai no RINNE – 06

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Sakura comes with her friends to investigate a roadside shrine one had heard about. Voices within the shrine sends Sakura’s friends running, so Sakura seeks out Rinne, encountering Tsubasa on the way. Tsubasa follows Sakura to Rinne’s place, where they see he has a client. Following the client to his home, the discover the man’s son is actually a bakeneko (cat monster), posing as the son. The bakeneko escapes after Rinne breaks his shinigami scythe, so Tsubasa gives chase to impress Sakura. Sakura takes Rokumon to the broken shrine and communes with the client’s son and his friends, who are trapped inside. Meanwhile, Tsubasa gets trapped with a second bakeneko reveals itself, causing Rinne to have to save him.

Attempts to get the bakeneko spirits captured fails, so Sakura informs Rinne about what is written in the book and how the bakeneko were captured using the expensive maguro otoro (fatty tuna). Rinne rejects this as too expensive and uses his broken scythe to lure them to the shrine and free the four boys. The lady that had lured the four boys there earlier traps Rinne in the shrine and laments having lost the four boys. She reveals herself to be a damashigami. Before she can take her prize, Tsubasa stops her and destroys the shrine, freeing Rinne and the bakeneko spirits. Tsubasa produces a ¥30,000 platter of maguro otoro sushi, snaring the cats before getting them to pass on peacefully. The shrine is repaired and the boys pay Rinne ¥1000, which he uses to repair his scythe. The damashigami reports her failure to her boss.

Thoughts/Review:

You know, the anime adaptation of RINNE continues to be much better than the original manga. It is very rare that this kind of thing happens.

I remembered this story in the manga, but I didn’t think Tsubasa was part of that story. I did a quick check (chapter 63 and 64) and sure enough, he wasn’t there. And yet having him in the story worked quite well.

Normally, I would hate this kind of radical change to a manga story. However, the RINNE manga was mostly just a bunch of random stories. Some stories go for a few chapters, and reoccurring characters bring up old topics, but usually with nothing to show for it when all is said and done. That is what ultimately lead me to drop the manga series.

The writers of the anime adaptation have decided that they’ll pull the more interesting stories from here and there in the manga, but then they’ll have characters like Tsubasa actually experience character growth. Yes, you can say that Tsubasa grew somewhat in the manga (and he may have grown more since I quit reading). However, the way the anime is doing things, his growth progression is a natural flow. With each episode, Tsubasa learns and adapts as a character, thus making him more than the rival of Rinne for Sakura’s affections.

The writers have also taken this building approach with the damashigami, who were not in the manga’s bakeneko story. In the manga, it seems they just appeared because the story Takahashi-sensei wanted to tell featured them. After that, they’ve just been a reoccurring foe. In the anime, we’ve seen the damashigami from early on, but each time they are involved, we get a bit more. I like this because when they reveal the damashigami leader, it will have more impact.

The anime continues to be more amusing than the manga. While this episode may not have been laugh out loud funny, I couldn’t help but be amused at things like Rokumon quickly gathering up the leftover maguro otoro sushi for himself and Rinne. Considering how poor they are, this is a real treat since it is outrageously expensive.

So, another good episode. I’ve fallen a bit behind, but I plan on catching the next RINNE episode this week.