Mirage of Blaze (Episode 1 summarization)

A few weeks ago I ended up buying two months of XBL, and with it comes Crackle and other video apps to keep my brain entertained while I'm doing audio production stuff. It eventually turned to me just having it on in the background for noise. After finishing two TV series and three movies I began to check the rest of the things available, when I stumbled across this cover picture.

Emos

This art style reminds me a lot of yaoi and shounen-ai artists that do softcore porn.

The intro didn't help either...

Suddenly invisi-dicks, invisi-dicks everywhere.

It’s a picture of the two characters above, the 2^nd lead holding a half naked main lead. My gaydar went right off the chart on this one, and I will answer this question now… NO! I was NOT thinking with my penis. Instead I was thinking “This has to be written by a female. Let’s see how bad this turns out.” Now if you’re female, and you found that offensive I apologize. However, I can honestly say from my POV, most female writers I come across do the same standard cliché love story, or pay too much attention to the interaction between the protagonists that the main storyline becomes a standard backdrop, much like a facespace picture where we see your freshly made dookie in the toilet.

A taste of things to come?

With that said I will begin with episode one. (What I’m thinking in my head will be in parenthesis)

Gotta be bad... Just look at them going all super saiyan and shit.

The show begins with two characters standing in front of an old shrine at night, a male and a female. The female speaks about a sacramental mound and how their lord is sealed in it. The male reaches out to it when some magic force field prevents him from touching the thing. (So we’re going supernatural with this shit right off the bat? And the way they keep talking must make them evil). The two go onto talking how they are going to break the seal and get this spirit out of this prison. The male mentions how he already has a host body planned.

In the morning/afternoon (rather hard to tell) we see a large-ish group of people congregate around it seeing the aftermath of the prison break. The statue is broken in pieces and we see the 2^nd lead character putting on his hipster shades saying he was “too late”. (Possible bad-ass character? Too early to tell.)

Cue "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who 'YEAAAAAAAH!'

Suddenly we’re introduced to the main character Takaya Ohgi hanging at an arcade and getting his ass kicked at Street Fighter or something. (I must’ve been wrong about the other guy being a badass because this nigga right here… He’s in a school uniform and his classmates are congregating around him mentioning how he has a bad image.) One of the classmate’s mentions how his friend/acquaintance is probably getting his ass kicked in an IRL fight. Very random and out of nowhere, but after learning this Takaya has to go save him! (Ohhhhhh shit… He has a motorcycle… Definitely a badass.)

 Yeah! You keep being reckless!

Luckily, Takaya made it in time to see his demented looking friend who we know now as Yuzuru standing over 3 or 4 guys who got their asses handed to them, but suddenly his face goes complacent and non-psycho. Takaya and Yuzuru eventually walk along the road and he asks him if everything is alright since he’s been absent from school for 3 days. (Damn man, not even I did that in my school days.) Yuzuru mentions how he’d lose his memory and wake up after kicking someone’s ass or just waking up somewhere in town. (Stress from studying this is not.) Takaya responds when suddenly the chick from the beginning of the episode shows up in front of them and Yuzuru stands there frozen staring at her.

All she manages to get out is “You are the-“, before curling in a ball in pain and bursting into flame. Takaya tries to help out the woman while his friend just stands there staring continuously like a bewildered child who first meets santa. (With the crazy shit that happened in the beginning I’m starting to think that he must be possessed be the host body. But if that were the case then the ghost wasn’t released until 3 days prior to now… My god… Time skips ahead)

Suddenly we see hipster main bad-ass number 2 running to the rescue…, or in this case stand behind the growing group of people who are watching this woman burn. However, the flame doesn’t seem to be a real flame at all. It’s not hot, and she’s not burning. Badass number 2 looks at Takaya and says “He must be the-“ when… Scene change!

After school time, we’re introduced to annoying female character Saori who wants to know what’s wrong with Yuzuru. She acts a lot like someone in love with Yuzuru and pesters Takaya to letting her follow him so she can go see their friend. (Something tells me she will either be, A: a fag hag, or B: just a straight up annoying cunt)

Finally at the hospital, the woman who was on fire seems to have amnesia. Takaya, who just so happens to have her handkerchief with a name on it, asks her if her name, is “Yuiko” as written on the cloth. She realizes that Takaya is the man from yesterday she saw. (So another day passed already? WTF! The last I saw it was sunny now it’s after school with a sunset. KNOCK IT OFF ANIMU) Takaya begins to interrogate the woman like a crazy psycho ex, and tells her that she needs to explain why she was on fire, and what is going on with his friend. (Very over dramatic moment for something extremely pointless to ask a person with amnesia)

"Hold me back dawg."

We skip to see Yuzuru sitting on his bed, watching the house as his parents are off working, when he sees a bunch of ghosts congregate around him and latching onto him looking for guidance. He naturally freaks out when bad-ass hipster man appears and starts speaking crazy moonspeak with glowing hands making the ghostly apparitions disappear. He tells Yuzuru that he sensed them and came to his rescue before giving him a wristband which keeps the ghosts away. Mr. bad-ass hipster then leaves mentioning that Yuzuru should never take it off. Even after helping the kid out he never bothers mentioning who he is. (This dude is so bad-ass)

We cut away to Saori and Takaya on their way to visit Yuzuru, and Takaya notices Mr. bad-ass head in the opposite direction. When their paths cross Takaya mentions a burning sensation in his chest, and even after confrontation nothing much comes out of this. (possibly chest Chlamydia) Nothing really comes out of this scene even after meeting with Yuzuru. All Takaya does is ask if he’s alright (yet again) before we’re shoved off to another scene in the daytime outside of school. (Who knows how much time has passed this time? Weeks? Months? My guess is years… Yeah… Gotta be)

Yuzuru asks Saori what a symbol means, which is the shape of 4 small parallelogram diamond shapes that form to make a larger one. Saori mentions it being used by the Takeda family. While this is going on more thugs from the group he fought are watching them both closely.

Yet another jump to Takaya parking his bike and meeting with the bad-ass. Mr. bad-ass decides to make some rocks float off the ground before rocketing at the lead. The bad ass asks him why he’s hesitating, and throws more rocks at him. Takaya freaks out and the rocks stop in front of him. Takaya then acts like nothing really happened. Instead they just talk briefly before asking the lead to follow him.

You're really not gonna act at least a little surprised?

Back to Yuzuru and Saori we see them surrounded by the group of thugs in the middle of a wooded area. (how the fuck did they get there? Why did they follow them to the woods? They were right in front of the school, they could’ve easily just walked right in, and there would be no confrontation. What is this? I don’t even…) One of the 4 thugs tries to take a swing at him when his arm just goes limp (still not sure if it was broken or just knocked and deflected) before he’s thrown on the ground by the bad male characters magic shit. He proceeds to scare the fuck out of the rest of them before approaching Yuzuru and kneeling. Yuzuru asks if he’s friends with Mr. bad-ass. Bad guy realizes something went down and grabs for his wrist noticing the wristband.

Is it broken? Or did it go retard?

Cut to Takaya and bad-ass talking history shit. Now… This part of the story is a little bit drawn out, so I will summarize briefly.

There was an army camped near the town where Takaya lives. During the night they noticed shit was wrong and decided to be bitches and leave the area as it was most likely a trap. Then he rambles about how the leader of the army was Takaya’s father, and that he is “Kagetora”. (I would assume not blood related, but ghost soul crazy voodoo shit related) His underworld army’s sole purpose is to exorcise the ghosts of the feudal wars that should be resting in peace.

Meanwhile, bad guy is watching Yuzuru from outside of his school. Like a creepy pedo.

So far I don’t have too many issues outside of these time jumps. Nowhere on the screen does a title card or text of any form appear mentioning how much time has passed. Instead it's mentioned for a second in random conversation. I honestly didn't know this much time passed after watching it once. It took me a second and even third time to get it. I swear if the next episode takes place a month later I wouldn’t be surprised.

I also really want to know what Saori and Yuzuru were thinking when they decided to go to a wooded area away from anyone. It seems like the writer tried to shove a bunch of crap from the manga together into one episode just to help us learn about the characters. It’s not helpful for this episode.

However, I know I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but damn seriously? How can you not judge something like this? I don’t even know if I should begin watching the 2^nd episode without first consuming some form of liquid courage.