「黒い獣の明日をカレ！」
[Overview] [Images]
[Media] [Song
Lyrics] [Weiss Kreuz (Anime)]
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[Koyasu Takehito] [Seki
Tomokazu] [Miki Shinichirou] [Yuuki Hiro]
Weiss Kreuz
アニメ
This page may
contain ::SPOILERS::
Kapitel (Season One)
I love Kapitel. Twenty-five (twenty-four if you count the final
two-parter as a single long finale) episodes of increasing blood,
angst, sweat, tears, love, hate and everything inbetween.
The basic story begins with the story of four bishie young men who
happen to run a flower shop - a shop often frequented by exciteable
teenage schoolgirls, some of whom have more odd things going on in
their lives and all of whom have no idea of the sinister secret their
flower-wielding idols hide when the sun sets over the city.
The flower shop - Koneko No Sumu
Ie (Or the House of Kittens) is the secret base for the
assassin quartet known as "Weiss", and each of the boys has a cat's
name as his call-name (this is the connection. Cute, isn't it? LOL). (At one point in the anime, in the third
episode I think, Omi answers the phone and says "Koneko no Sumu Ie".
The subtitlers translate this as "A kitty lives here." It's completely
random and totally wrong but it comes over as even more cute...lol!)
Each of the four assassins - Omi, Ken, Youji and the effective
leader, Aya are involved in the double-life business for different
reasons. For Omi, it's all he can remember, since he was rescued by
Weiss's shadowy coordinator Persia and given a new name and identity.
(Omi is still in high school...he's the youngest of the team but
arguably the smartest). Ken was a former footballer framed by his best
friend. Youji was a private detective whose parter was murdered on an
investigation...a fact he's never fully gotten over. And Aya simply
wants revenge against the family - specifically the man - responsible
for the murder of his family and the hospitalisation of his younger
sister.
For the first fifteen or so episodes - what I consider Kapitel Part
One - the enemy is Takatori Reiji, a powerful political figure who
(towards the end) is elected President. The Takatori family feature
quite strongly through one thing or another - his elder sons Masafumi
and Hirofumi are both involved in Reiji's nefarious business affairs,
during which many murders and disturbing activities are taking place.
Masafumi experiments on people and creates monsters. Hirofumi kidnaps
people and organises human hunts with his father's political friends.
And Reiji himself is wrapped up in the sinister religious cult Eszett,
who have given him the protection of four men known as Schwarz. These
four each have enhanced "powers" in some form or another, and
call-names to match. Crawford (Oracle) sees glimpses of the future.
Schuldich (Mastermind) reads (and manipulates, sometimes) people's
minds. Nagi (Progeny) is a telekinetic. And Farfarello (Beserker) is
immune to feeling pain.
Towards the end of the Takatori arc, Schwarz become more and more
Weiss's rivals, and in the second arc they - along with Masafumi's own
project "Schrient" become the enemies along with Eszett.
Opinions are divided on the animation quality of the original
series. I prefer it to Gluehen because it's the original character
designs ^_^. For me it's as simple as that :)
The Weiss OVA is a shade darker than the Kapitel series. It comes in two parts and a lot of blood is spilled - including the blood of young teenage girls. Oh wait, that happened in Kapitel too...duh me :P Maybe it's just that we see the blood more than it's animated in Kapitel - difficult to say. The basic theme is that Weiss find themselves entangled in a brother/sister vendetta against people who killed their family. The person they are trying to bring down becomes a target for Weiss, but then so does the brother - and Weiss are (apparently) split ethically over what to do. Omi and Ken want to support the siblings in their quest for justice. Aya and Youji...are opposed. At least Aya is completely cold to the whole thing and Youji seems to wrestle with himself. Especially when Omi and Ken apparently become targets.
Except, of course, Weiss aren't quite that easy to divide and conquer :)
Ken becomes a tad scary at the end of the OVA. It's almost the first
sign that his lifestyle as an assassin is really getting to his
sanity...
I'll
be up-front. I haven't watched Gluehen. It's entirely by choice - I
don't really like the changed animation style (although I know it was
unavoidable) and I have read enough spoilers to know that I'm not
overly happy with the way the various characters end up. Specifically
Omi. I won't go into any further details, because I haven't seen it and
can't comment further. I may eventually watch the Gluehen series. But
right now it's not on my imminent to-do list *lol*.
The music is good though :D
Weissのキャラク
ターズ
The
Characters of Weiss
Fujimiya "Aya"
Ran (Koyasu Takehito)
Aya - or to give him his true name, Ran -
is a pretty messed up individual. It's fair to say that he hasn't
always been as cool and cold as he comes across at times in the WK
series. In fact, in the flashbacks you see him laugh and smile with his
sister - back in the days when the Fujimiya family were happy. Of
course, then his parents were murdered as scapegoats in an embezzlement
scheme by Takatori Reiji...and his sister run down by Reiji's car in
order to prevent any witnesses. Ran was overlooked, and managed to get
his sister to a hospital. But there he was told that she may have
suffered brain damage and probably would no ever regain consciousness.
Out of both grief and anger, Ran took one of the earrings he had bought
his sister for her sixteenth birthday, and resolved that he would wear
it as a reminder while he sought revenge for his family. He also, at
this point, took the name 'Aya' as his own. Aya is actually the name of
his sister - and her name on the hospital door is written entirely in
Kanji. However Ran's "Aya" is written always in katakana (as are his
companions in the assassin business). (In the anime, they're
differentiated between by ~kun/~san and ~chan - although this doesn't
quite work in the English dub!).
Aya's sole focus is destroying the Takatori family. Particularly Reiji.
For this reason he often acts outside the group and goes it alone on a
personal quest for vengeance. But little by little he seems to realise
that he's part of a team for a reason. He can be cold and clinical, but
really he's sitting on suppressed anger. And his emotions are put
through the mill a lot, too - not only is he desperate for revenge, but
in the latter half of Kapitel his sister is abducted and he does not
know her whereabouts.
In the OVA he comes over as very very cold
- until you understand what's actually going on and realise that it's
not that way at all.
Aya's weapon of choice is the katana.
Tsukiyono
"Takatori Mamoru" Omi (Yuuki Hiro)
Omi is probably the most complex
character in the WK series. His name is Tsukiyono Omi, but in fact he
is actually the youngest of the Takatori family - Takatori Mamoru.
This, of course, creates all kinds of hassle between him and Aya, when
he regains his childhood memories and allows the eldest brother
Hirofumi to escape in a misguided act of family loyalty. In the end,
however, he realises how twisted the Takatori family are and acts
against them - bringing down Hirofumi and contributing to the death of
Masafumi. It seems that everyone who knows he is Takatori Mamoru
believes he is the son of Reiji, except for Reiji who is certain he's
the son of Takatori Shuuichi, Reiji's younger brother and "Persia",
Weiss's coordinator. I said it was complicated. If Reiji's allegations
are true, it means that Omi may or may not have been Masafumi and
Hirofumi's brother. It seems unlikely, since the woman who was his
mother seems to have been a second wife for Reiji. It also means that
Sakaki Ouka (with whom Omi has a fairly blossoming friendship/romance
up until her death at Farfarello's hands) is not Omi's half-sister but
his cousin. And that kissing her was not as big a no-no as at first it
seemed...;)
With Omi's complicated family out of the way, a word should be spared
for his personality. Omi is young - still in school, somehow he juggles
school, assassin business and flower shop running - and extremely
smart. His talent is with computers - hacking, planning, searching, and
reprogramming - and he uses this to Weiss's benefit time and time
again. He's also the 'glue' that keeps them together. He has a
particularly close rapport with Ken (I think if there's a case for any
shounen-ai in Weiss it's probably Omi and Ken). This is probably
because Ken is as good-hearted as Omi, if a tad more idealistic. Omi is
idealistic and he does want to believe the best - but he's also
perceptive and he understands how the world works. It hits him hard
when he realises that what he does amounts to murder, and that he's
taken people's lives. But even so, he manages to put that side of his
life aside for the most part - often acting the part of a normal,
unassuming teenage boy.
Omi's weapons of choice are the poison
dart, the cross-bow and the regular bow.