Shinigami no Blog

After seeing a picture of a girl whose father she killed, Xiang Ying is out to meet that girl. She is very surprised to find out that Kayano Yume, the girl, lives in a big mansion. While she is hesitating to go inside at the front gate, Xiang Ying almost gets run over by a car coming out of the gate. Yume-chan comes out of the car, and to apologize she offers to drive Xiang Ying home, after taking care of some errands first. To her surprise, Xiang Ying sees Yume stop at Shinjuku station and write XYZ on the message board. Xiang Ying takes Yume-chan to the Cat’s Eye, where the girl tells Ryo about her father’s death. She admits she wants to avenge her father’s death, but there is something that’s been bothering her: when her father died, he looked happy. While she went to get the police, her father’s body disappeared. The company where her father worked doesn’t seem to exist, and right after his death there was a fire in her father’s room, distroying all evidence of his existence. Yume-chan asks City Hunter to find out who her father really was. Ryo tells her that they’ll contact her if they decide on taking on the job. Xiang Ying really wants to take on the job, even if it is painful. She believes Kaori is telling her not to run away from this. After Yume has gone back home old Chen tells Ryo about Yume’s father: he was an assassin, Mad Dog. He shouldn’t reveal this information to Yume-chan though, because her life would be in danger. Mad Dog’s partner, Dog Walker, will kill everyone who knows about this to ensure his own safety. Meanwhile, Xiang Ying has gone to visit Yume-chan and tell her that they accept the job. She brought the girl some ice cream, but when seeing the box Yume-chan gets into a shock. Her violin-teacher and guardian Haruka comes to calm her again. Yume-chan explains to Xiang Ying that Haruka had been appointed as her guardian even before her father died. Xiang Ying wonders if he knew he was going to die. Yume then apologizes and tells Xiang Ying that ever since her father’s death, she hasn’t been able to eat ice cream, because that’s what she was bringing her father when he died. When Xiang Ying is leaving the house, Yume-chan says she wants them to become friends. Xiang Ying hesitates for a moment, but then shakes hands with the girl but when she is walking away, she is stopped by Haruka who asks her to forget about the case and never to come back again. Xiang Ying suddenly tackles her and a bullet chases past them. They hear another gunshot, but then Xiang Ying recognizes Ryo, who came to help. Unfortunately, the attacker escaped. Haruka is in a shock, but that doesn’t stop Ryo from hitting on her. Xiang Ying stops him, and Haruka then tells them that they already hired a detective before to find out the truth and he did find out everything, but she couldn’t tell Yume-chan. Afterwards, that detective got killed, and now Haruka fears they will get killed too. Ryo offers her to come and live with them. Haruka and Yume-chan will be staying at the Cat’s Eye, because Xiang Ying thinks Ryo cannot be trusted. And indeed, he tries to sneak into Haruka’s bedroom at night, but Umibouzu chases him out. Xin Hong isn’t too happy about Yume-chan staying over. He thinks it’s unfair she acts so happy, while Xiang Ying is suffering so much. Haruka tells him that Yume-chan wants to be friends with him, but he says he doesn’t think making friends is appropriate seeing the circumstances. That evening, encouraged by Xiang Ying, Yume-chan writes Xin Hong a letter and leaves it at the door of his bedroom. Xin Hong thinks it a love letter though, and he angrily tears it to pieces. Yume-chan, who had been watching with Xiang Ying from around the corner just says she’s been rejected and then runs away. Xiang Ying gets angy and slaps Xin Hong in the face because he doesn’t think of Yume-chan’s feelings. Xin Hong tells her he’s more concerned about her than Yume-chan. Xiang Ying then goes to Yume-chan, who’s crying in her room, and she comforts her.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen this episode so I don’t really have anything to say about it. I’ll try to blog the rest as soon as I can, really.

  
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Xiang Ying is angry with Ryo because he gets up when it’s already noon, and she wants to go and check the message board.  Ryo isn’t in a hurry though, he wants to eat a nice breakfast first, but Xiang Ying has already eaten and she goes to check the message board alone.  Ryo then goes to the Cat’s Eye to eat, and there Umibouzu tells him that Xing Hong also refuses to eat with him.  Then Ryo notices that there’s a new Chinese restaurant nearby.  It appears that old Chen is the master of the restaurant.  Chen himself then comes to great Ryo, just when Xiang Ying returns from the station.  Ryo suggests that Xiang Ying helps the old man in his restaurant, and Umibouzu sends Xing Hong along too.  Xing Hong is already used to serving people, ut Xiang Ying isn’t and she makes a lot of mistakes.  She asks Chen if she really is much of a help if he always has to apologize for her mistakes, but of course he tells her she is a great help ^_^  Xiang Ying then asks him why all the people in the restaurant seem to be having so much fun eating.  Chen tells her it’s because they are eating together with the people they love.  Xiang Ying doesn’t understand this, but she decides to keep working.  Then, the local yakuza boss comes in with two underlings, because Chen didn’t pay him to open a restaurant in the city.  Of course he doesn’t know the business is run by Chen, but Mochiyama, who is with him, soon recognizes Xiang Ying and Xing Hong and gets scared and tries to get his boss to leave.  When the boss finds a band aid on his omelet, he gets angry and starts to make an uproar.  His underling attacks Xiang Ying, but of course she defeats him and his boss soon enough.  When she is threatening the yakuza boss, the underling wants to attack her again, but Xing Hong knocks him down again.  Chen then comes to see what all the commotion is about and when the yakuza boss recogizes him he apologizes and even leaves Mochiyama there to help Chen.  When Ryo arrives that evening, chen serves a meal for him, Xing Hong and Xiang Ying to thank them for their help.  Xiang ying enjoys eating together, but she and Xing Hong finish their meals quickly and Ryo tells her to eat more slowly.  Later, Ryo is talking to chen and he tells her that not only master Li, but also his brother, before his death, asked him to look after Xiang Ying.  Qian De even wrote in his will that he leaves everything to Xiang Ying.  Umibouzu says that Ryo would use up all of that money in one week, but that seems rather impossible since the total amount  equals one year’s worth of the National budget ^_^ The next morning, Xiang Ying wakes Ryo up so they can eat breakfast together.  She starts to eat fast again, but then remebers to eat more slowly, to enjoy the food together with Ryo.

I liked this episode, it once again shows how much Xiang ying has to learn about normal life.  It was nice to see old Chen again, it seems he’s going to watch over Xiang Ying from now on.  Next episode seems to be another City hunter job.

  
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This episode continues where the last one left off: Kaori is sitting at Ryo’s bed.  Ryo, who thinks she noticed he’s awake has the broken bottle ready to attack.  Then Kaori starts to speak, telling Ryo not to die.  If he thinks noone will grieve for him if he dies, she will.  Hearing this, Ryo lowers his weapon and feels he can sleep safely for the first time in his life.  Meanwhile, Xiang Ying sees Kaori’s brother, looking at a photo of him and Kaori when they were children.  He tells Kaori not to worry about him, and then he worries: did she find out they aren’t real siblings?  When Kaori enters the room the next day, Ryo is gone.  When he wants to leave Kaori’s brother stops him and tells him to leave the city.  Ryo in return tells him he knows there is a cop going around as City Hunter, and that there are people out to get him, so he’d better be careful.  Later, Hideyuki gets indeed attacked by some men.  Kaori is waiting at home, and somehow she feels something’s wrong.  Then Ryo arrives with Hideyuki, who is bruised all over his body.  Ryo tells Kaori that her brother fell off the stairs, but she doesn’t believe him.  Kaori takes care of her bother’s wounds and thanks Ryo, but he makes her angry because he start’s touching her ^_^; so she throws him out of the house.  Then Ryo tells her he was very happy to hear her say she would grieve for him.  When Hideyuki regains consciousness, he gets angry with Ryo, but Ryo tells him to be quiet, because Kaori’s asleep.  They go to the roof, where Ryo suggests Hideyuki to help him with his City Hunter job. Hideyuki gets angry first and points his gun at Ryo, but Ryo easily takes it from him.  Hideyuki questions Ryo’s motive for wanting to become City Hunter, and Ryo tells him it’s because he doesn’t want to see Kaori cry. Then Xiang Ying sees Ryo talking to Kaori at a  playground. Ryo has decided to stay in Shinjuku, and he asks about Kaori’s name.  In return, she asks what his name is, but he doesn’t have one, so he lets Kaori choose one from all his fake identities.  She picks out Saeba Ryo, because that name made the strongest impression on her.  Xiang Ying is happy to learn that Ryo didn’t used to have a name either, and she wants to congratulate him with his new name, but… she still can’t touch them.  She feels a little sad about it, but then Ryo and Kaori call out her name, and tell her to come with them ^_^  Then Xiang Ying wakes up.  Ryo tells her she was saying "mama" in her dream and she tells him she had a dream about "Kaori-mama" ^_^

This episode was really ment for people who don’t know the original city Hunter story (I haven’t seen much of it either so it was nice to see how Kaori and Ryo met, and how Ryo became City Hunter.)  It was just so cute when Xiang Ying said "Kaori-mama" ^_^  Next episode the real story continues, and Xiang Ying seems to go to work at old Chen’s restaurant.

  
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Xiang Ying is having the same dream over and over: she’s a child, about five years old, and she’s walking in the city alone, looking for Ryo.  After having that dream again she talks about it to Ryo, and he tells her to tell Doc during her check up.  When Xiang Ying arrives at the hospital, Doc is sleeping.  When she comes in and he wakes up, he mistakenly takes her for Kaori, and tells Xiang Ying about the time that Kaori was a nurse there.  Ryo is late picking Xiang Ying up, and in the meantime she has fallen asleep.  She is still having the same dream, but now she’s found Ryo.  Only, he has a shotwound and is dying.  Panicking, Xiang Ying is triying to call people to help him, but she can’t touch them.  Then she succeeds in grabbing someone’s hand, and the woman goes and check on Ryo.  Xiang Ying sees it’s Kaori.  In her sleep, she calls out Kaori’s name, and both Ryo and Doc are very surprised.  The next scene Xiang Ying sees is Kaori making breakfast for her brother, Makimura Hideyuki, who is a detective.  They are having an arguement about Kaori studying to be a nurse, but then Kaori goes off to the hospital.  There she is taking care of Ryo, who is still unconscious.  Her brother is there too, and he doesn’t trust Ryo, because all his papers are fake, but Kaori tells him as long as Ryo’s wounded her brother can’t take him away.  Doc later tells Makimura that the reason Kaori became a nurse isn’t because of him, but for him.  Upon hearing that, he goes to Kaori and tells her that her cooking has become very good.  During the night Ryo gains consciousness and he breaks a bottle to have a weapon.  Xiang Ying then realizes that he’s just like her when she just arrived in Shinjuku.  Kaori comes to check on Ryo and first it seems she didn’t notice he’s awake, but then she turns around and tells him to open his eyes.  As she is bending over him, Ryo picks up the broken bottle…

And they leave us with a cliffhanger!  I hate it when they do that  Anyway, I really liked this episode, seeing more about Kaori and Ryo’s meeting.  I guess Xiang Ying will also learn more about Kaori upon seeing this dream (actually Kaori’s memories), but I feel sorry for her she can only watch and not participate.

  
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Xiang Ying is still planning on killing Kishimoto.  Meanwhile, Ryo has spotted Tanya’s father, with the help of Umibozu.  He then takes Tanya out to the playground she always goes to, and she introduces him to her best friend, Kuma-san.  It seems that the bear who heands out balloons at the playground is actually Katsumi.  Ryo sends Tanya away for a while and goes and talk to Katsumi.  He tells Ryo that Kishimoto had gotten funds to build a school in the Ruzen Republic.  However, Kishimoto let a crooked construction company build the school and kept the money for himself.  Katsumi feels terrible for letting those children die and not doing anything about it.  He doesn’t want Kishimoto to die, but he wants the truth to be found out, to make Kishimoto see his mistake.  At Cat’s Eye, Xin Hong is worried about Xiang Ying and he wants to go and look for her, but Umibozu stops him.  Xiang Ying is still checking out the best sniping position.  The next day she has her chance to shoot Kishimoto, but when she wants to pull the trigger, she can’t.  Ryo is very proud of her, but Xiang Ying thinks she can’t be City Hunter if she can’t shoot.  Meanwhile, Ryo has asked Master Li to let the news about Kishimoto leak out to the Taiwanese Press.  Ryo and Xiang Ying then go to Tanya’s school with Tanya’s mother.  There, Ryo tells Tanya that he isn’t her real father, and Tanya already knew, but she thinks her real father is dead and really wanted a daddy.  Then Kuma-san turns up and exposes himself to a surprised Tanya and Irina, who are very happy, finally their family is together again.  xiang Ying starts crying seeing the family reunited again, but doesn’t understand why.  That evening, Xiang Ying is constantly practising her shooting, until Ryo comes to stop her.  He tells her that Kaori couldn’t shoot either, nor did she know any martial arts, and still she was a wonderful City Hunter. When they’re at home, Ryo finds Xiang Ying sleeping, completely exhausted.  He touches her chest and hears Kaori’s voice, telling him that Xiang Ying has a very fragile heart and to take good care of her.  Ryo then realizes it was Kaori who stopped Xiang Ying from shooting.  He leaves the room, leaving a tear on Xiang Ying’s cheek.

This was a good episode.  A lot of things happened, Tanya’s case is solved and Xiang Ying’s character has also been developed a bit more.  Ryo even got to talk to Kaori now ^_^  I’m really starting to like this series more and more.

  
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When Ryo and Xiang Ying go check the message board, it seems as if there is no new assignment for Ryo, but then Xiang Ying discovers a small strap of paper with a message for XYZ.  She decides to take on the mission herself and goes to look for the person who wrote it.  It’s a little girl called Tanya, who wants City Hunter to look for her father.  The description she gives of her father seems a lot like Ryo, and when he comes in she really thinks he’s her father.  Xiang Ying isn’t very happy, so Ryo tells her he isn’t really Tanya’s father, but he can’t possibly tell the girl.  He does have an idea about who her mother is: she looks a lot like a hostess from a club he knows.  Later Tanya, Ryo and Xiang Ying go to talk to the girls mother.  On their way their, Xiang Ying remembers a scene from her past: she had drawn her mother and father, because she was starting to forget their faces.  The guys in her organisation then made her shoot the drawing.  When they arrive at the club, Tanya’s mother, Irina, is very surprised to see Ryo, then she tells him she used his description because Tanya kept asking about her father.  Tanya’s real father is Kurahashi Katsumi.  Ryo recognizes that name: six years ago Katsumi is sais to have taken money from the Luzen Republic.  But Irina says it wasn’t Katsumi, but his boss, Kishimoto.  Xiang Ying decides to help Kurahashi, because she wants to see Tanya’s genuine smile.  The next day, Ryo discovers one of his guns is missing, and Xiang Ying is looking for a good spot to shoot Kishimoto.  She thinks that if he’s gone, Kurahashi won’t have any more reason to hide.

This is a double episode, so I can’t wait to see what will happen next: will Ryo stop Xiang Ying, will she shoot Kishimoto and then realize it doesn’t help?  And will Tanya realize that Ryo isn’t her real father?

 
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A girl is being followed by two men. She manages to escape and notices the message board.  When Ryo goes and check it the next day, he thus sees he’s got a client: the girl presents herself as Nagisa, and she’s being chased by Yakuza.  She confesses she often seduces men to steal their money, and one of those was a yakuza.  Meanwhile, Saeko has a lot of trouble teaching Xiang Ying normal manners.  She almost killed some guy who was hitting on her because she didn’t understand ^_^; Ryo then gives Xiang Ying the task of taking Nagisa to their apartment.  Nagisa wants to have fun on their way there, but Xiang Ying doesn’t let her: she says her mission is to take Nagisa to their destination without any detours.  Nagisa is still acting childish and Xiang Ying tells her that if she gets attacked she wont help her, because her mission is only to take her to the apartment.  Because of Nagisa’s behaviour, she managed to attract the attention of those yakuza again.  When Xiang Ying and Nagisa end up in a narrow alley, they are there and attack Nagisa.  At first Xiang Ying doesn’t help her, but suddenly something changes inside of her and she decides to help the girl anyhow.  The next day at the Cat’s Eye, she is pondering about why she helped Nagisa, when the girl comes in, wearing her school uniform.  She says she decided to go back to school and hands Xiang Ying a letter, asking her to be friends.  It later seems that it’s more of a love letter, and Xin Hong is not too happy about it, but Xiang Ying is very happy she managed to make a friend.

This was another Xiang Ying episode.  It was nice to see Ryo picking up his job as City Hunter again, although it was mainly Xiang Ying who did the job in this episode.

 
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My last exam is on Friday.  I’ve got some time now to write about a few episodes though.  The rest will follow after Friday, probably next week or the week after that.

Anyway, the episode.  When Saeko finds out that Ryo is now living together with Xiang Ying, she goes to check it out because she doesn’t trust him alone with a young girl ^_^; When she finds Xiang Ying in his bed she gets angry, but Xiang Ying explains it was her who crawled into Ryo’s bed because she couldn’t sleep in Kaori’s room.  Kaori’s memories were too strong. Ryo then tells her it’s ok for her to use Kaori’s room, it’s her room now.  Xiang Ying asks Saeko if she’s Ryo’s girlfriend and tells her that he only loves Kaori.  Xiang Ying has to go for a medical examination next, and when Saeko leaves for work, she tells Ryo he should find a job too.  When Xiang Ying hears that Ryo’s doing nothing but drink she gets worried about him and asks him to get a medical examination as well.  After the examination, Ryo is still wondering why Xiang Ying asked such a favor of him.  Meanwhile, Xiang Ying is getting another check up, and doc asks her why she wanted Ryo to get one as well.  She explains that she doesn’t want to die before him and cause him grief.  But fortunately for Ryo, everything seems fine.  Xiang Ying is still worried if she’s going to die before Ryo.  Meanwhile Chen, the helper of master Li is bringing Xiang Ying’s old medical reports. Doc finds that Xiang Ying and Kaori’s HLA antigens are a near-perfect match. This means that their compatibility is almost perfect and Xiang Ying will no longer need to take any medicine.  It also enlarges her chance to live long after the transplant, which makes her very happy. Xiang Ying starts smiling for the very first time ^_^ then Chen tells them that master Li has another present for Ryo.  He takes them to the station, where a whole new message board is standing.  With that, master Li is asking Ryo to start working again.  Ryo decides to take on the request. Master Li even gave him his first job: to be a good father.

I liked this episode.  It showed more about Xiang Ying.  She’s really starting to care about Ryo.  With thirteen episodes, the first part of the story is finished.  Ryo  will start working as city hunter again, and I’m sure Xiang Ying will help him with his jobs.

 
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Ryo and Xiang Ying are invited for the funeral of Master Li’s younger brother.  Xiang Ying wonders if it’s really ok for her to have come.  She doesn’t understand the concept of a funeral to well, but Ryo tells her that the deceased will be happy that she’s there.  He then goes and talk to Master Li, who tells him about his brother and how it’s thanks to him that he met Xiang Ying’s mother and got a child.  Ryo then tells a story that Master Li’s brother once told him: how he also considered Xiang Ying to be his child, and how the girl told him that she had 2 daddys ^_^  Then everyone goes outside to spread out the ashes into the sea.  Ryo asks Xiang Ying to participate and she’s hesitant at first but does it anyway.  Master Li gets tears in his eyes and says that he’s sure his brother is very happy now.  After the funeral, Xiang Ying tells Ryo that she also wants her ashes to be spread out at sea when she dies, but Ryo tells her that she shouldn’t worry about that now, but about what she’s going to do with her life.  Then Ryo tells Xiang Ying they’re going home.  Xiang Ying seems to know the way to ‘home’ herself (Kaori’s heart leads her) and after she’s settled in Kaori’s old room, she goes outside, where Ryo welcomes her home.

I really liked this episode.  It was very calm but I thought it was nice to see how Xiang Ying was as a child before she got into the organisation.  The ending was very good as well.  In the later episodes there hadn’t been many references to Kaori any more so I think it’s nice they showed some more again.

 
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