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EP. REVIEW: Joran: The Princess of Snow and Blood


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Whitestrider





PostPosted: Fri May 07, 2021 6:59 am Reply with quote
Well, this series is a bit too predictable, and the plot twist are rather unoriginal and weak, but still I want to see what will happen next.
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 5113
Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Sun May 09, 2021 5:41 am Reply with quote
Ep 4: Elena’s boyfriend was so cute in his joy, it just makes their (probable) demise all the more tragic at the end...well, maybe they made it? Elena wasn’t a dummy, and we didn’t see their bodies’ faces...

Ep 5: I KNEW MAKOTO’S POISON WAS A RUSE! I trust Makoto! I’m also very worried for Makoto, because he is surrounded by all sides, tripping out on painkillers, with a very tempting body altering drug in his luggage...

The character who has me re-evaluating him is Jin. The Shogun suggested that the government would have appreciated Sawa’s body for research, so the fact that Jin was quick to bury her tells us that he either cared so much about her that he didn’t want her body used after death, or he suspected it was a ruse and wanted to give her a chance. I’m guessing it was the latter.

Then Jin had a temper tantrum at the end of the episode, killing two brutal cops and, in essence, turning against the government? Maybe? Did that meeting after losing (or “losing”) Sawa finally get him to question his loyalty? I hope so! Will he recruit Sawa to fight against the government with him? Maybe, but I’d rather see Sawa work with Makoto and I can’t see Jin and Makoto working together again any time soon. Also, poor Sawa. But the show must go on, so she’ll probably have to fight again soon.
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Whitestrider





PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2021 5:58 am Reply with quote
At this point it'@s becoming a "who's gonna die next?" type of story, only that most of the relevant characters are at this point dead...which is fine, anime like spoiler[Basilisk] did it too before, but did it much better!
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ab2143



Joined: 09 Jan 2021
Posts: 701
PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2021 12:42 pm Reply with quote
Makoto’s transformation... Yikes. I thought Gibiate had the worst monster designs!
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15433
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2021 4:07 pm Reply with quote
Makoto has continued to be an interesting character, which makes his fall feel tragic to me. But there are also elements like am still not sure if the show is meant to be affirming to his gender. Was he meant to be misgendered by his transformation or something, from how it has a focus on breasts rather than his normal presentation?
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One-Eye



Joined: 08 Mar 2011
Posts: 2260
PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2021 10:48 pm Reply with quote
Ep 7

A little meh. Yea Jin wasn't fooled by Sawa's death which was partly expected. However, I feel that they needed to sell Sawa's new life in the country a bit more, it just feels rushed, uninteresting and yes predictable but not in a fun way. I also want more of Makoto's background to flesh him out more, he could be so much more interesting.

Review wrote:
Did we just skip an episode in the middle of all this? Or am I forgetting some key detail that would explain Makoto's reverse-double-heel-turn as anything more nuanced then “He's crazy, now?”

What makes you think that Makoto was sane to begin with? Even before the drugs he showed an unhealthy obsession with Sawa. He was always a little twisted. He likes to play games, dangerous ones and "freeing" her is just another part of the game for him. He isn't going to let anyone or anything stand in the way of what he's set up. Imho he doesn't really care about revolution, he's only interested in the secrets and how it pertains to Sawa. Sending her to the temple seems to me just him getting her away from Jin's influence, not helping her start a new life plus he knows exactly where she's at.

Also Asahi seems to have been stabbed on the right side, not left so maybe she might still be alive?
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kurichan69



Joined: 16 Feb 2009
Posts: 112
Location: Seattle, WA
PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2021 11:00 pm Reply with quote
ab2143 wrote:
Makoto’s transformation... Yikes. I thought Gibiate had the worst monster designs!


Exactly my reaction!!
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Whitestrider





PostPosted: Fri May 14, 2021 8:37 am Reply with quote
One-Eye wrote:


Also Asahi seems to have been stabbed on the right side, not left so maybe she might still be alive?


I hope not...I would only accept that if she, at the end, kills Sawa to avenge her family, but at this point this seems unlikely.
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Neko-sensei



Joined: 19 Jan 2007
Posts: 283
PostPosted: Wed May 19, 2021 10:16 am Reply with quote
This is apropos of nothing, but after eight episodes I've finally worked out why the ending theme of this show always reminded me of another song I couldn't quite place. Somehow, when I listen to the chorus of "Embrace of light," what my brain hears is... "The Last Unicorn," by America.

(Hey, the lyrics, "And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn," actually fit Joran really well! ...Although, "In the distance hear the laughter of the last unicorn," maybe isn't quite such a tight match.)

Has anyone else experienced this strange aural phenomenon?
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a_Bear_in_Bearcave



Joined: 14 Jan 2019
Posts: 479
Location: Poland
PostPosted: Thu May 20, 2021 6:06 pm Reply with quote
The plot of last episodes was amazingly pointless. Sawa started as someone obsessed with her death as soon as she would kill her nemesis, now nemesis is dead and she's back to suicidal after like half episode of happy life. Makoto helped Asahi so she could give Sawa happy life, then next episode killed Asahi so Sawa couldn't led happy life. Also, Jin not only obviously realized they were smuggling Sawa out and even helped them, making the whole deadly dangerous calculations of proper timing completely unnecessary, he even had his agents keep an eye on Sawa's new life. The final villain in form of the government which was most probably responsible for the slaughter of her clan, with Jerome either massacring them on the government's orders and then taking blue blood for himself, or using the massacre as opportunity to slip in and steal the blood, was painfully obvious from second episode.
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Whitestrider





PostPosted: Fri May 21, 2021 7:58 am Reply with quote
This series had potential, but the script is a mess.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Sat May 22, 2021 5:34 am Reply with quote
Wow, 3 for 3 on my predictions from Ep. 5. This must be some kind of record for me. But this series is giving Dragon Ball a run for its money re character deaths that aren't. At this point, I think Makoto may be the only dead character who's going to stay that way.

I don't have any new predictions except that maybe Jin or her somehow-not-dead brother is the black crow that killed Makoto. Nor do I have any guesses about the skeleton the cleaner found, nor why Jin replied to Elena's question about if Sawa knew she was pregnant with a comment about her losing her brother twice, and Elena's, "I wonder..." I guess one of the reasons Jin seems to have a soft spot for Sawa is that she's a ringer for his dead love. Assuming she's even dead... If she is, 5'll get ya 10 Jin killed her. Ok, maybe the Shogunate did, which is his secret motive for tunneling into their fold.

Neko-sensei wrote:
Has anyone else experienced this strange aural phenomenon?

If you mean with this series, no. But I've been trying to place why the OP for Moriarty is so annoyingly familiar. I'm sure I've heard a very similar song before, down to the vocals, arrangement and bridge.
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Whitestrider





PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2021 8:38 am Reply with quote
The new Wolverine-wannabe character is funny and likeable enough to make this episode bearable. Of course she won't last long, after all there are only 4 episodes left, so she'll have to go, maybe in an epic fight with Sawa...the plot twist at the end of episode 9 was, as always, rather predictable, but we have still to know the real motivations behind some characters.
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Hal14



Joined: 01 Apr 2018
Posts: 652
Location: Heart of africa
PostPosted: Wed Jun 02, 2021 4:10 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Here's where I would like to make a bold suggestion: If “Star Sign” was much earlier in the season, maybe around episode four or five, then I think it wouldn't have just made it a lot better – it would have improved the plot of the whole show.


It might have helped.
I've seen people call last week's reveal 'predictable' but I had already forgotten most of episode 1 so the significance of Jin's back was completely lost on me.
I could tell it was supposed to be a twist, but all I could think was "Whaaat? The guy who is constantly withholding information was actually ... withholding information".
Basically, the same reaction I had when blondie turned out to be alive.
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 5113
Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Mon Jun 07, 2021 6:24 pm Reply with quote
Catching up on reviews—“Too Many Twists” would be a very apt parody!
I still like this show, but the episodes about Sawa’s escape were absolutely awful and disappointing. I can’t express how much I hate the horrible descent of Makoto’s character—from interesting anti-government rebel to petty, jealous wrathful murderer of innocents. From saving Sawa and Asahi to killing Asahi to get Sawa’s attention (and trying to kill Sawa, IIRC). Did Asahi have to be killed? The point of her character was seemingly to mirror Sawa’s with peaceful potential, but they ended up using her as yet another tragic sacrifice to motivate Sawa’s despair, desire for revenge and bloodlust.


DuskyPredator wrote:
Makoto has continued to be an interesting character, which makes his fall feel tragic to me. But there are also elements like am still not sure if the show is meant to be affirming to his gender. Was he meant to be misgendered by his transformation or something, from how it has a focus on breasts rather than his normal presentation?


And then there’s this—the final insult of Makoto’s character assassination was a form that emphasized the breasts he bound. I mean, everything about his descent to jealous hateful wrath was very bad, but this was the icing on the garbage cake.

Episode 8 was mostly dark, and I was very disappointed that they didn’t show us the reunion between Sawa and Elena.

Episode 9 was so good, or at least, so much better than the previous episodes, that I was almost ready to forgive the show. Jinko is a fantastic, lively character, and actually funny! Plus, Wolverine powers! I want more of her!

Ep 10–Fleshing out Jin’s backstory left me conflicted. It puts his life into context and makes me slightly sympathetic towards him. But only very slightly? On the other hand, he killed fellow guinea pigs in his lab breakout (IIRC, more fellow research subjects than guards!) and then he accepted the kindness of Sawa’s clan, especially her mother, and didn’t even try to save them when he was ordered to kill them. I was thinking “Warn them! Tell them to run!” But he stuck with following orders—and then saved one kid. Good, I guess? Better than nothing? Who he promptly raised as a child soldier. Yeah, that’s still bad. And how long did it take him to turn against the Shogun he knew was in the wrong?
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