Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi

Publisher
ADV
Director
Hiroyuki Yamaga
Production
GAINAX, Madhouse
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
25 min x 13 Episodes
Year
2002

Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi DVD Volume 03

By noghri
14th Aug 05

(Possible Spoiler Alert)

Hopefully, I was not the only one who after watching the last volume was left with some degree of emotional turmoil. After hinting at the reasons behind the situation Sasshi and Arumi are currently in, and revealing at least part as to why Sasshi is happy to explore more and more strange worlds with apparently no intent of returning to reality. The second volume is left as almost a bitter aftertaste as the 3rd volume starts with all the fun of hyperactive girlfriends, magic and murder, until it descends even further into the storyline.

We start off in a world designed for and by Sasshi, and when they arrive Sasshi realises that he is left alone with no sign of Arumi. It is about the same time of this revelation as he is thrown headfirst (quite literally) into a new world that appears to be quite similar to his old world except that his school is a high school and every girl is a cutie. He begins his new adventure at the high school with all these attractive girls and soon realises that this world appears to be a dating simulation. It is quite apparent that he is the only eligible male for all of these girls and several all show their interest in him.
While he continues to play the game and then becomes aware that Arumi is there after all but as she is as much a part of this world as he was of ancient Kyoto (explained later), she too has grown horns and appears to be a goblin. She is continually attacked and abused by a fiend who appears to be the chicken from ham taro, and so vents her frustrations on Sasshi himself. To cut a long story short she reaches breaking point and decides to take off on her own. Sasshi left by himself again is beside himself until Eutus arrives again and decides to discover why they keep running into each other no matter where he goes.
Eutus transports Sasshi to another dimension where Abenobashi is just Abeno and what’s more it is back in the Heian era. A place where you can scare the villagers with such demons as a helicopter, as a handcart is the height of technology they are rightfully terrified.

We discover all about the different dimensions and all about Eutus himself, we find out he is an ancient Omnyou mystic named Abeno Seimei, because he is so taken with Sasshi ability to envision strikingly vivid worlds, he provides him an introductory book into Omnyou mysticism. He is also delivered with the worse news ever, the true identity of the beautiful well endowed mune mune.

Once he has studied the basics of Omnyou Sasshi decides to create a world just for Arumi to make up for his mistakes before, he transports Arumi to a fantasy fairytale world where all her dreams could come true, of course this back fires and lets just say things do not go as he planned them to and they end up ending the volume further apart than ever.

While the story line may not be too surprising I am surprised that some of the facts of the bigger picture were revealed so early. I am however pleased that these episodes give us a further insight in to Eutus’ character and we see that he is not just a stuffy stuck up scientist, but rather a normal human (drinking beer in front of the tube) with god like powers.

Overall this volume is similar to the last volume in the way the story takes a much more serious turn and we learn the background as to what and how is happening to Sasshi and Arumi.
While the first volume was just fun, the series is developing into a serious story with an appeal that has me hooked, I cant wait to see the last volume.

-- noghri 14th Aug 05

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