A more exciting episode this week, as Huey and Dalian answer the letter of an author that was presumed dead.
While I did like the previous episode, I missed the more overt treatment of the supernatural powers of the Phantom Books, and this episode did not disappoint. Despite that there was still no use of Dalian's powers (which allowed for awesome references in the first two episodes), the book-of-the-week this time around has the power to resurrect people from the dead, which provides plenty of material if not a lot of mystery as far as who the murderer is. Also, I found Dalian's antics in this episode to be pretty amusing, as I know how it feels to get to the end of a book and find out that the next one in the series isn't out yet, as well as not be satisfied with how a story ends. But as Dalian discovers, that's what fanfiction is for!
Unfortunately, a crazy fan, named Paula, went straight after the author and resorted to murder instead of the comparatively healthier route of fanfiction-writing, providing the plot for this episode. Paula's character reminded me a lot of Stephen King's story Misery, with her insistence on the author writing "the way the story is supposed to end" and repeatedly torturing the object of her fanaticism with "re-education." I don't mean that the episode is a copy of the story, however; there are more than enough differences to make the episode unique, but the similarities made me wonder if the character was inspired by that work. I have no idea what Stephen King's popularity in Japan is like though, so this is just speculation on my part. Regardless, this was a pretty enjoyable episode, although I'm starting to wonder when/if an overarching plot will appear.
Images from NicoNico.com.
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