Time Spiral - episode 02 - 04 recaps
[Time Spiral Episode 02 recap]Time Spiral Episode 02 recap
- “I remember you.”
- How cute. Kentaro comes to pick up Natsuki so they can go to work together. And both their mothers think it’s cute, too. Uhm, I don’t know, they’re supposed to be grownups, not high school kids…
Well, the way they’re both beating around the bush (which I find really annoying, btw) I take it they’re not even a couple yet, and here’s Kentaro again, with his engagement ring. Dude, you might want to get a girlfriend before you get a fiancée.
- And of courseeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, just as he’s about to confess his love, Natsuki gets a call from none other than Shuuya. We can only assume that he might’ve watched the scene before he did a rewind to be able to call at the perfect moment.
- Natsuki is not able to recognize Shuuya’s voice? Are you fucking kidding me? Also, what’s with Shuuya being so dramatically mysterious? There’s really not point in that.
“Do you remember me?”
“Who is this?”
“There’s no way you’d forget. I appear in your memories.”
“Who…?”
- Before Natsuki is off to work, she takes another look at her collection of newspaper articles that cover the case of her abduction. And she does notice that Shuuya couldn’t possibly have been there because of the time difference.
- Kentaro is such a cheesy romantic… “Natsuki, even if you had two different memories, it wouldn’t matter as long as I’d appear in them. … Because the only memory I have is of you.”
- Arriving at the University, Natsuki meets a colleague of hers who in the end will lead her straight to Shuuya. So. It’s entirely possible that Shuuya had arranged for that to happen. Sadly we don’t see Shuuya doing anything time or fate manipulating at all. I really, really missed that in this episode… which is the main reason why I liked the first episode way better.
Natsuki’s colleague drops by Shuuya’s office to give him some stuff, and unfortunately Natsuki is carrying half of that stuff by the time they arrive at the office. She tries to back out but her colleague won’t let her, and so she’s forced to meet Shuuya.
And Shuuya’s reaction: “Oh, you bought Aizawa-san, too.” Yeah, I’m sure that was a real surprise for you, you asshole.
- What surprised ME was that she called off the date she was supposed to have with Shuuya, and how she refused to let him make any further plans.
Shuuya is pretty disappointed but eventually lets the matter go. Instead he makes damnd sure Natsuki will listen to the CD he borrowed her and to give it back to him when she did. At first I thought the CD thing was really weird, but it makes sense later.
- “I hope she’ll listen to the CD soon…”
Why? Why is that so important? I really didn’t know what to make of it. At first it sounded like he was running out of time. As if something bad was gonna happen if Natsuki didn’t listen to the CD and ultimately didn’t remember him…
- When Natsuki’s mom catches sight of Shuuya passing by, she’s so shocked that she drops all her stuff. Why? She seems to be really troubled by him for some reason… Especially when Kentaro tells her his name is Tatsumi. She’s not pleased to hear her daughter met Shuuya, either… I wonder what’s going on?
- So Natsuki listens to the CD and remembers the day of her abduction because the song she’s listening to is the same song that played at the hideout of her kidnappers. What did Shuuya have to do with it? DID he have something to do with it? Was it another one of his arrangements? Did he make sure this one song would play so that at a later time he could use the song to make Natsuki remember him?
Why is it important for Shuuya to make her remember him? Only so that he has better chances to get closer to her? Or is there another reason?
- “Don’t worry. I’ll save you.” That’s what Shuuya tells young Natsuki at the hideout of her kidnappers, after he’s pulled the blindfold up so she can’t see him any longer.
- They cheated me out of my fight, goddammit!! I do admit that Shuuya pulling up the blindfold so young Natsuki doesn’t have to see the fighting (and brutality?) is a clever move on his part, but they could have still shown US the damn fight. That was disappointing.
(Also, why didn’t he remove the blindfold after having saved her? He could’ve done at least that much…)
- When Shuuya carries young Natsuki on his back she notices a mark on his neck, which later helps her confirm that the Shuuya who rescues her in the library was the same person who rescued her back when she was kidnapped.
What I want to know is what that mark on Shuuya’s neck is. It actually looks like a wound rather than a birthmark. But it’s definitely not a wound or scar from the fight in the hideout. It’s probably something else entirely.
The first thing that came to my mind is a really, really strange and far-fetched idea: Remember that small object Shuuya put on his desk in front of him in the first episode? It’s approximately the size of the mark on his neck. What if Shuuya isn’t human? What if he is something robotic, like a cyborg? I know it’s far-fetched, but like I said, it’s the first thing that came to mind. Maybe the small object is a battery or something like that.
Also, I still get the impression that Shuuya is extremely unemotional, and his movements and expressions seem a bit, uhm, unnatural… I don’t know. I thought Gackt was too good of an actor to be so stiff in his role as Shuuya… unless, he’s doing it on purpose.
Or maybe it’s just a birthmark and there’s nothing more to it. xD I guess it’d be a tad too much plot-wise, if Shuuya really was something like a cyborg. But a time travelling cyborg? I don’t think so…
It’s probably just a plot device to make Natsuki see and believe it’s the same man…
- So Natsuki finally remembers Shuuya having saved her, and she instantly calls him to meet up with him at the university. And then stuff happens. Like the lights going out, doors closing… I highly doubt that there’s anyone else at the library other than Natsuki and Shuuya. If there was, Shuuya would have known and gotten rid of them beforehand. That leaves Shuuya being the one who actually trapped Natsuki inside one of the rooms.
Unlike last episode, this time we never get to actually see what Shuuya does or doesn’t do, and that’s very unfortunate in my opinion. Some things are more or less obvious, like Natsuki ending up in Shuuya’s office earlier, but others don’t make all that much sense. Like this one. Do they want the audience to believe there was another person who was after Natsuki, and Shuuya really did save her? Or did they just want to make it look like someone was there so that Natsuki had a reason to be afraid, and so she wouldn’t suspect Shuuya too soon.
So far it looks like Shuuya did frighten Natsuki on purpose only to be able to get close to her. What if he hadn’t scared her like that? They would’ve talked. Maybe Natsuki wouldn’t have seen the mark on his neck. So that’s what was important? He wanted to let her know that he is the same person who had saved her in the past. Why does he want Natsuki to know this?
And more importantly: WHY DOESN’T NATSUKI FIND IT ODD??? Sure, she will question it in the next episode as seen in the preview, but why not right there in his arms? ….Oh.
- First person Natsuki calls when she’s in trouble is always Kentaro. I wonder if that’ll change over time, or if it’ll stay that way. I’d find it cool if it stayed that way despite everything Shuuya does.
- When Shuuya finds Natsuki and takes her into his arms (note that he’s inside the closed room without having opened the door. So he either was inside all along or he did some time traveling to get inside…?) he says the exact same words he said to young Natsuki: “Don’t worry. I’ll save you.” And “Please don’t cry. It’s going to be all right.”
Nastuki is all happy and thankful because Shuuya had come to save her just like in the past.
- Ooooooh, and all the while Kentaro had been on the phone listening to them! What a dramatic plot twist.
[Time Spiral Episode 03 recap]Time Spiral Episode 03 recap
(You have to know that I wrote this after having seen episode 04, so some things I mention might have a predictive touch.)
- So the mark on Shuuya’s neck is really just a plot device for Natsuki to be sure that the man 15 years ago and the one in the “present time” are the very same. There goes my cyborg theory. xD It would’ve been stupid anyway, but G’s acting was a bit off at first. For some reason it’s much better in episode 04. Then again, maybe that’s because we learn a great deal about G’s character and are able to begin to understand his motivation.
- When Natsuki inevitably asks him why he hasn’t changed in all those years, Shuuya simply tells her that it is fate. More like “you are PLAYING fate, you-“
At the beginning of the drama I didn’t like Shuuya very much. But now that his character is becoming a more tragic figure than I would’ve thought, I can’t dislike him anymore… It’s just too sad.
- It turns out that stuff really does get complex and complicated, and because there are still so many questions left unanswered, my mind comes up with the wildest theories. xD
- Uhm, but Shuuya kinda disappearing before Natsuki’s eyes SHOULD make her even more wary of him than she already is. I mean, come on, something’s obviously off about him. But I guess people don’t easily believe that something supernatural or magical could be going on.
- I like Natsuki’s older colleague, the professor who’s researching time. Mostly I don’t understand a word of what he’s saying, but he just seems like a nice guy. I do wonder, though, why he has an encounter with Shuuya in episode 05… For his sake, I hope he doesn’t get in Shuuya’s way somehow.
- The flashback in which you see Shuuya carrying little Natsuki to safety is really cute. But now that we’ve already seen episode 04, we have to keep in mind that Shuuya did not save her out of the goodness of his heart. He did so as a means to an end, namely to get Natsuki’s mother to develop a cure/medication for Mami. So I think it’s important to notice that he’s trying not to tell little Natsuki too much about him, and it also looks like he’s trying not to be emotional about it. After all, little Natsuki’s probably the same age his sister was when she was diagnosed with the disease and hospitalized (also when she first died?).
So Shuuya is saving a little girl here, just like the little sister he is trying to save so desperately. I’d like to think that the short time he spent with young Natsuki is enough to make him reconsider any “bad” decisions he might have made at the end of episode 04, like NOT saving Natsuki in the first place.
It’s a life he saved. I want him to be affected by it enough to have a really hard time to even consider reversing her fate… Now I don’t think he is that cold.
- I’m afraid this story will end badly for Shuuya most of all.
- Shuuya IS dangerous. Or rather, his determination is. The scene in which he lectures a small group of students underlines that fact amazingly well. He is only talking about architecture here, or at least his students think he is, but what he says is very true for who he is and what he does. He’s trying to reach his goal at any costs. And he makes it crystal clear that he won’t let anything or anyone stand in his way.
Like he said, he cannot simply erase everything and start from zero, he has to adjust one thing at a time, and get rid of one disturbance/hindrance after another.
- In this episode he sees Kentaro as his number one disturbance. And the lecture scene leading to the scene where Kentaro actually confronts Shuuya is a very nice transition, sine the audience just learned how ruthless Shuuya is, or is willing to be in order to reach his goal. Then Kentaro comes and literally stands in his way. I liked the scene a lot, and even though Shuuya doesn’t really threaten Kentaro directly, he comes off as very threatening.
- When Shuuya’s pondering over his map again, for some reason he decides that Kentaro is in the way of saving Mami. We don’t know why, yet, but he plots to separate Natsuki and Kentaro, and bring Kentaro and Mami together here.
What I’ve also been wondering about is the actual map Shuuya is working with in his apartment. There is a blue line and a red. So there are only two alternative timelines. But I think that it might still be possible for Shuuya to have created even more timelines, for we simply don’t know for how long and how much he’s actually been working on this. The two timelines on his map might be two out of a lot more…
But let’s stick to those two. We never really get to see much of the map, so I’ll just assume that the blue line is the original/natural timeline, the way things happened before Shuuya interfered. I think in episode 04 we even see the article that covers Natsuki’s murder attached to the blue line, so that would fit.
Then the red line is everything Shuuya’s been trying out in order to find the crucial event he has to change in order to save his sister. Or maybe there’s more than one event that needs to be changed, I don’t know. I think it’s a very clever thing plot-wise, to let Shuuya work with such a map. Not only does it suit his character, but it also illustrates the amount of thought, effort and scheming Shuuya puts into reaching his goal. It’s the only thing he is doing when he gets back to his present time: staring at the map and contemplating possible errors and mistakes he might have made, every time he does not succeed.
It’s easy to see how his continued failure takes his toll on Shuuya and how he grows more frustrated every time he comes back and finds his sister still dead…
- And this only makes the next seen sooooooo much crueler. Shuuya calls his sister’s landline and she picks up! He is overwhelmed, he thinks he finally made it, he is so happy… only to wake up from a dream.
This shows us three things. One: he is so completely obsessed with saving his sister’s life that it haunts him even in his dreams. Two: it underlines Shuuya’s every day routine. Every time he comes back, he tries to call her. Every time he dials the number, full of hope that this time he did everything right, that this time, his sister is alive. And three: saving his sister literally became his dream, his life’s purpose. There is absolutely nothing else Shuuya is living and working for, other than saving his sister. Shuuya himself even says so in episode 04.
- Also, if you watch the show in retrospective once it’s over, I’m sure that the second time watching it the first few episodes will be a lot sadder than they originally were, simply because you’ll know and understand much more of the tragedy behind it than you do now.
- Then for the first time you see Shuuya actually doing it, calling his sister’s landline. And you can see all the disappointment in his expression when it turns out to be just another time he failed.
- Hahaha, the way Kentaro tells his parents that Natsuki prefers listening to jazz music. As if he’s associating it with Shuuya or something.
But his parents are talking about the violinist, Mami, who, according to Kentaro’s father was treated at their hospital about ten years ago. Now I think it’s important to note that his father said “about” ten years ago, because that’d leave room for it actually having been 15 years ago.
Had it really been just ten years ago, then that would mean Mami was hospitalized AFTER the kidnapping happening one way or another, and that would rule out young-Shuuya having anything to do with it. Yes, I’ll stick to this idea until proven otherwise.
Kentaro can’t remember Mami having been at the hospital, which is probably not all that important other than to fit Mami’s flashback in episode 04.
- Next we see Natsuki’s mother working late at her lab, remembering Shuuya and telling herself that it can’t be possible. Of course this makes much more sense with everything we know from episode 04.
Natsuki calls her mother to tell her they’ve both been invited to Kentaro’s parents’ hospital charity event (where Mami’s going to play a concert). Her mother tells her she won’t have time to come due to work.
- Finally, at the charity event in the hospital halls Natsuki and Kentaro meet, and he’s confessing to her. Only that Shuuya doesn’t like it one bit, and decides to change the timeline here by kissing her in front of Kentaro’s eyes. As a result, Kentaro never confesses to Natsuki… But she’ll still have the memory of that timeline.
Gotta admit, though, Kentaro and Natsuki are cute together, on top of being annoying sometimes. xD Like, GODDAMMIT, KENTARO, THAT ASSHOLE JUST KISSED THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE, YOU FREAKING LOSER, AT LEAST PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE annoying. xD
Shuuya is so smug about it.
[Time Spiral Episode 04 recap]Time Spiral Episode 04 recap
- Let’s say the original/natural timeline is everything that happened / would’ve happened without ANY interference from Shuuya.
- So Shuuya wants to save a loved one after all: his little sister, Nami. She dies (probably of a disease), and in Shuuya’s present time, in 2020, is already dead (or at least, that’s what I assume). Everything Shuuya does, every alternative he creates is a trial and error way to find a timeline in which his sister is still alive / hasn’t died.
- In the original timeline Natsuki died / dies / would have died! (She is killed by her kidnappers)
Shuuya changed her fate and saved her. One possible reason could be so that Natsuki’s mother would be in his debt, and I think he made her develop a cure / medication for Nami.
With that medication Nami’s condition probably became better, but somehow she still died. I think that Natsuki’s mother is now worried that Shuuya came back because the medication failed eventually… It doesn’t actually have to be the medication or the disease that caused Nami’s death, it’s just what worries Natsuki’s mother.
Because of the promise she made Shuuya. We don’t know yet what that promise is, but I guess it has to do with her research. At a later point Nami comes to visit Natsuki’s mother at her lab to thank her for having developed a medication thanks to which she’s all better and able to play her violin. However, Natsuki’s mother is totally worried and asks if she was in pain or had any side effects from the medication. This is obviously because she is afraid something went wrong with what she did. The only reason for Shuuya to come back would be if Nami died, so she knows she’s dead and now thinks it has something to do with her medication.
As for the promise, I think Shuuya might have said something like “if you save my sister, I will save your daughter”. Now that Natsuki’s mother thinks she failed to save Nami, she fears that Shuuya has come for her daughter.
- Shuuya’s sister is sick. When she was a child she had been treated in the hospital that’s owned/run by Kentaro’s parents (or his father at least)! This is important.
Maybe they had helped /cured Shuuya’s sister, but eventually she dies anyway. If her death was caused by the disease, it is entirely possible that Shuuya holds Kentaro’s parents responsible for his sister’s death.
- I will go even further with this, and say that Shuuya might even have something to do with the kidnapping 15 years ago. Let’s say in the original timeline his sister died when she was still a child/teenager, at that time Shuuya would’ve been a young man. He’d grieve terribly, and maybe it’d make him angry. Angry at the doctors who hadn’t been able to save Nami. That would include Kentaro’s father. So. What if Shuuya hired the kidnappers to take Kentaro to get back at Kentaro’s father? What if Shuuya WAS one of the kidnappers? At that time, he must’ve been their age. Might sound far-fetched again (like the cyborg theory xD), but think about it. Why else would Shuuya even know where to begin searching for a way to save his sister?
He can obviously only affect the fate of people he meets / has met. So what if he was out to get back at Kentaro’s father, but then they mistake Natsuki for Kentaro and things go south. Of course the question would be: if Shuuya really had anything to do with it, then how did he get away? Does that mean in the original timeline he could be a murderer, possibly responsible for Natsuki’s death? Is that likely?
Well, he might not have kidnapped or killed her, BUT it is very likely that he does have something to do with it: He knows where the kidnappers’ hideout is. How does he know that? He cannot simply jump back in time to anywhere he wants. I don’t think it works like that. He can only go to where he has been, right? That means….
- What we still don’t know is how Shuuya’s sister originally died, and when. She might have died as a child, and that’s what I thought at first, but then Shuuya wouldn’t have a picture of her grown-up self, and he wouldn’t try to call her landline. Then again, ORIGINALLY she might have died as a child, but then Shuuya prevented that from happening, and she died at a later point in time, after which Shuuya saved her AGAIN. Maybe that way Shuuya lengthened Nami’s life until shortly before his present time. Maybe now he is trying to do it all over again.
This is so freaking sad. Give me a break.
- Every time Shuuya thinks he changed a crucial event that could lead to his sister not having died, he goes back to his present time and tries to call her landline. Up until now, all he gets is “the number is not available.” It’s fucking cruel.
- What Shuuya is trying to do is heartbreaking. All the more because he’s willing to risk everything including his own life, and that of others, in order to save his sister’s. He’s despaired. And the more he tries and doesn’t get the result he wants the more frustrated he gets. Each time he tries and fails he’s willing to pay an even higher price for the next try.
- Apparently, Shuuya is paying with his own life, too. It seems that time traveling, and especially interfering in the timeline / changing stuff and playing fate costs him a lot of strength. Using his powers weakens him to the point where he collapses. So he IS running out of time. Let’s assume the time traveling can kill him. Then he has to find a way to save his sister before doing so actually kills him. This is freaking sad. I did not want this to be so sad.
- Shuuya manipulates time/fate in order to let his sister meet Kentaro. Before that we see a memory of either Shuuya or his sister at the time she was hospitalized. When they were children, she used to like Kentaro and would’ve loved to play with him, but he didn’t really know who she was and she couldn’t play because of her illness. So now Shuuya is giving her the chance she was denied as a child and lets her meet Kentaro.
For some reason Shuuya thinks that if his sister and Kentaro are together, she won’t die.
- There doesn’t seem to be a tool or object or anything that is doing the time traveling. It looks like it’s simply a power Shuuya possesses.
- Natsuki, again, has two conflicting memories now… x2. Number one is her receiving the ring from Kentaro versus not even getting to see the ring because of Shuuya’s interference and kissing. Number two is her being saved from the kidnappers by Shuuya versus… being killed by one of them. Natsuki does have memories of both timelines, but the real one, the one she lives in at the present time is always the one Shuuya altered.
Now here’s another thought: in the original timeline, the one fate has written if you will, Natsuki was killed as a child. What does even mean for her existence? I could break my mind on this. For Natsuki every memory that is real is the one Shuuya is in. Obviously, because without him, she wouldn’t exist in the present time. What the fuck. (Maybe he needs her existence as an anchor in the past to be able to go back in time? Okay, this goes way off track…)
- Nami says that she thanks God for giving her the medication she needed in order to be able to play her beloved violin. Then she corrects herself and says that it’s thanks to Natsuki’s mother for having developed the medication. It’s strange to hear that, when you know it’s really thanks to Shuuya, her brother.
- When Natsuki get another panic attack and Shuuya wants to comfort her (although he has a really weird way of trying to comfort people), he acts pretty distant and cold. All the while I think he looks guilty. He shows an expression as if he’s feeling guilt.
Well, in a way Natsuki’s life is his responsibility, isn’t it? A lot of (bad) things that happen to and around her, happen because of him. Also, if it wasn’t for him, she would have never been there, suffering from the panic attack… (Sure, you can argue “better alive and suffering, than dead and in peace”, but then this is much more philosophical and subjective. From Shuuya’s perspective whatever happens to Natsuki is the result of what he has done.)
- When talking to Natsuki later at night, Shuuya says he lives only to realize/achieve one goal. From Natsuki’s point of view it sounds like Shuuya is amazingly determined, because she doesn’t know the reason and despair behind his determination.
Before Shuuya’s father died he had promised him to make sure that Nami’s musical talent would be known all over the world, i.e. that she would become a professional and famous violinist. And all he’s ever done is trying to keep his promise.
What about Shuuya’s talent as an architect? In the first episode it sounds very much like Shuuya was the one who designed/built the stadium for the 2020 Olympics. I wonder how he managed to become such a famous architect if all he did was to make sure his sister would become famous. Or maybe… he never got to become that architect? Well, AN architect, but not the one who did the stadium? I don’t know, but it seems relevant.
During the conversation Shuuya sounds like he isn’t very happy with what he is doing, what he has made of his life. Then again, maybe it’s because he failed Nami….
- Natsuki’s mother literally tells her daughter that Shuuya is bad news and that she should stay away from him! xD It does sound like a worried mother telling her teenage daughter off because her boyfriend looks like he’s trouble, but if you know what her mother is worried about, it’s not so funny anymore.
- Natsuki’s mom remembers how Shuuya came to her house and told her that her daughter would die. He asks her if she wants him to save her daughter, and she begs him to save her….
Shuuya is really cold here, and you can see he’s scheming. Obviously, he is not about to save Natsuki out of good heartedness. He want’s something in return…
Unfortunately, the flashback stops before we get to know about the promise Natsuki’s mother made to Shuuya.
- Kentaro is annoying. He’s just not doing ANYTHING. Dude, some asshole kissed your “girlfriend”, don’t just stand there!!!
Then he gets a message from Nami saying she enjoyed the time they spent together today, and he’s all SIGH, not Natsuki… , then Natsuki messages him, and he jumps to his feet, ready to come to her rescue.
They meet at some bar and talk about the conflicting memories Natsuki has had lately. Inevitably, they notice that in all conflicting memories, there’s Shuuya…
- Meanwhile Shuuya’s frustration is growing. He just can’t seem to find the crucial event that would save Nami’s life. He stares at his map and his gaze falls on a newspaper article covering Natsuki’s abduction and murder 15 years ago….
Also, an additional theory: What if Shuuya really is responsible for Natsuki’s death, because of all his grief and anger. He was young, he made mistakes… But. In the future he obtains the powers he has now. So then he goes back and tries to fix EVERYTHING. Including Natsuki’s death. The thing is, as he proceeds with his plans and efforts, he does run out of options, and maybe comes to the conclusion that he cannot fix everything. So he has to decide what to fix, and what to leave broken…
- Now I kind of fear for Natsuki’s (or someone else’s) life. Surely, up until now, Shuuya hasn’t gone as far as to kill or let somebody be killed in order to reach his goal, but I wonder what the last scene implies. Is he out of options? Does he have to do something he’s tried to avoid doing all this time?
- “I remember you.”
- How cute. Kentaro comes to pick up Natsuki so they can go to work together. And both their mothers think it’s cute, too. Uhm, I don’t know, they’re supposed to be grownups, not high school kids…
Well, the way they’re both beating around the bush (which I find really annoying, btw) I take it they’re not even a couple yet, and here’s Kentaro again, with his engagement ring. Dude, you might want to get a girlfriend before you get a fiancée.
- And of courseeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, just as he’s about to confess his love, Natsuki gets a call from none other than Shuuya. We can only assume that he might’ve watched the scene before he did a rewind to be able to call at the perfect moment.
- Natsuki is not able to recognize Shuuya’s voice? Are you fucking kidding me? Also, what’s with Shuuya being so dramatically mysterious? There’s really not point in that.
“Do you remember me?”
“Who is this?”
“There’s no way you’d forget. I appear in your memories.”
“Who…?”
- Before Natsuki is off to work, she takes another look at her collection of newspaper articles that cover the case of her abduction. And she does notice that Shuuya couldn’t possibly have been there because of the time difference.
- Kentaro is such a cheesy romantic… “Natsuki, even if you had two different memories, it wouldn’t matter as long as I’d appear in them. … Because the only memory I have is of you.”
- Arriving at the University, Natsuki meets a colleague of hers who in the end will lead her straight to Shuuya. So. It’s entirely possible that Shuuya had arranged for that to happen. Sadly we don’t see Shuuya doing anything time or fate manipulating at all. I really, really missed that in this episode… which is the main reason why I liked the first episode way better.
Natsuki’s colleague drops by Shuuya’s office to give him some stuff, and unfortunately Natsuki is carrying half of that stuff by the time they arrive at the office. She tries to back out but her colleague won’t let her, and so she’s forced to meet Shuuya.
And Shuuya’s reaction: “Oh, you bought Aizawa-san, too.” Yeah, I’m sure that was a real surprise for you, you asshole.
- What surprised ME was that she called off the date she was supposed to have with Shuuya, and how she refused to let him make any further plans.
Shuuya is pretty disappointed but eventually lets the matter go. Instead he makes damnd sure Natsuki will listen to the CD he borrowed her and to give it back to him when she did. At first I thought the CD thing was really weird, but it makes sense later.
- “I hope she’ll listen to the CD soon…”
Why? Why is that so important? I really didn’t know what to make of it. At first it sounded like he was running out of time. As if something bad was gonna happen if Natsuki didn’t listen to the CD and ultimately didn’t remember him…
- When Natsuki’s mom catches sight of Shuuya passing by, she’s so shocked that she drops all her stuff. Why? She seems to be really troubled by him for some reason… Especially when Kentaro tells her his name is Tatsumi. She’s not pleased to hear her daughter met Shuuya, either… I wonder what’s going on?
- So Natsuki listens to the CD and remembers the day of her abduction because the song she’s listening to is the same song that played at the hideout of her kidnappers. What did Shuuya have to do with it? DID he have something to do with it? Was it another one of his arrangements? Did he make sure this one song would play so that at a later time he could use the song to make Natsuki remember him?
Why is it important for Shuuya to make her remember him? Only so that he has better chances to get closer to her? Or is there another reason?
- “Don’t worry. I’ll save you.” That’s what Shuuya tells young Natsuki at the hideout of her kidnappers, after he’s pulled the blindfold up so she can’t see him any longer.
- They cheated me out of my fight, goddammit!! I do admit that Shuuya pulling up the blindfold so young Natsuki doesn’t have to see the fighting (and brutality?) is a clever move on his part, but they could have still shown US the damn fight. That was disappointing.
(Also, why didn’t he remove the blindfold after having saved her? He could’ve done at least that much…)
- When Shuuya carries young Natsuki on his back she notices a mark on his neck, which later helps her confirm that the Shuuya who rescues her in the library was the same person who rescued her back when she was kidnapped.
What I want to know is what that mark on Shuuya’s neck is. It actually looks like a wound rather than a birthmark. But it’s definitely not a wound or scar from the fight in the hideout. It’s probably something else entirely.
The first thing that came to my mind is a really, really strange and far-fetched idea: Remember that small object Shuuya put on his desk in front of him in the first episode? It’s approximately the size of the mark on his neck. What if Shuuya isn’t human? What if he is something robotic, like a cyborg? I know it’s far-fetched, but like I said, it’s the first thing that came to mind. Maybe the small object is a battery or something like that.
Also, I still get the impression that Shuuya is extremely unemotional, and his movements and expressions seem a bit, uhm, unnatural… I don’t know. I thought Gackt was too good of an actor to be so stiff in his role as Shuuya… unless, he’s doing it on purpose.
Or maybe it’s just a birthmark and there’s nothing more to it. xD I guess it’d be a tad too much plot-wise, if Shuuya really was something like a cyborg. But a time travelling cyborg? I don’t think so…
It’s probably just a plot device to make Natsuki see and believe it’s the same man…
- So Natsuki finally remembers Shuuya having saved her, and she instantly calls him to meet up with him at the university. And then stuff happens. Like the lights going out, doors closing… I highly doubt that there’s anyone else at the library other than Natsuki and Shuuya. If there was, Shuuya would have known and gotten rid of them beforehand. That leaves Shuuya being the one who actually trapped Natsuki inside one of the rooms.
Unlike last episode, this time we never get to actually see what Shuuya does or doesn’t do, and that’s very unfortunate in my opinion. Some things are more or less obvious, like Natsuki ending up in Shuuya’s office earlier, but others don’t make all that much sense. Like this one. Do they want the audience to believe there was another person who was after Natsuki, and Shuuya really did save her? Or did they just want to make it look like someone was there so that Natsuki had a reason to be afraid, and so she wouldn’t suspect Shuuya too soon.
So far it looks like Shuuya did frighten Natsuki on purpose only to be able to get close to her. What if he hadn’t scared her like that? They would’ve talked. Maybe Natsuki wouldn’t have seen the mark on his neck. So that’s what was important? He wanted to let her know that he is the same person who had saved her in the past. Why does he want Natsuki to know this?
And more importantly: WHY DOESN’T NATSUKI FIND IT ODD??? Sure, she will question it in the next episode as seen in the preview, but why not right there in his arms? ….Oh.
- First person Natsuki calls when she’s in trouble is always Kentaro. I wonder if that’ll change over time, or if it’ll stay that way. I’d find it cool if it stayed that way despite everything Shuuya does.
- When Shuuya finds Natsuki and takes her into his arms (note that he’s inside the closed room without having opened the door. So he either was inside all along or he did some time traveling to get inside…?) he says the exact same words he said to young Natsuki: “Don’t worry. I’ll save you.” And “Please don’t cry. It’s going to be all right.”
Nastuki is all happy and thankful because Shuuya had come to save her just like in the past.
- Ooooooh, and all the while Kentaro had been on the phone listening to them! What a dramatic plot twist.
[Time Spiral Episode 03 recap]Time Spiral Episode 03 recap
(You have to know that I wrote this after having seen episode 04, so some things I mention might have a predictive touch.)
- So the mark on Shuuya’s neck is really just a plot device for Natsuki to be sure that the man 15 years ago and the one in the “present time” are the very same. There goes my cyborg theory. xD It would’ve been stupid anyway, but G’s acting was a bit off at first. For some reason it’s much better in episode 04. Then again, maybe that’s because we learn a great deal about G’s character and are able to begin to understand his motivation.
- When Natsuki inevitably asks him why he hasn’t changed in all those years, Shuuya simply tells her that it is fate. More like “you are PLAYING fate, you-“
At the beginning of the drama I didn’t like Shuuya very much. But now that his character is becoming a more tragic figure than I would’ve thought, I can’t dislike him anymore… It’s just too sad.
- It turns out that stuff really does get complex and complicated, and because there are still so many questions left unanswered, my mind comes up with the wildest theories. xD
- Uhm, but Shuuya kinda disappearing before Natsuki’s eyes SHOULD make her even more wary of him than she already is. I mean, come on, something’s obviously off about him. But I guess people don’t easily believe that something supernatural or magical could be going on.
- I like Natsuki’s older colleague, the professor who’s researching time. Mostly I don’t understand a word of what he’s saying, but he just seems like a nice guy. I do wonder, though, why he has an encounter with Shuuya in episode 05… For his sake, I hope he doesn’t get in Shuuya’s way somehow.
- The flashback in which you see Shuuya carrying little Natsuki to safety is really cute. But now that we’ve already seen episode 04, we have to keep in mind that Shuuya did not save her out of the goodness of his heart. He did so as a means to an end, namely to get Natsuki’s mother to develop a cure/medication for Mami. So I think it’s important to notice that he’s trying not to tell little Natsuki too much about him, and it also looks like he’s trying not to be emotional about it. After all, little Natsuki’s probably the same age his sister was when she was diagnosed with the disease and hospitalized (also when she first died?).
So Shuuya is saving a little girl here, just like the little sister he is trying to save so desperately. I’d like to think that the short time he spent with young Natsuki is enough to make him reconsider any “bad” decisions he might have made at the end of episode 04, like NOT saving Natsuki in the first place.
It’s a life he saved. I want him to be affected by it enough to have a really hard time to even consider reversing her fate… Now I don’t think he is that cold.
- I’m afraid this story will end badly for Shuuya most of all.
- Shuuya IS dangerous. Or rather, his determination is. The scene in which he lectures a small group of students underlines that fact amazingly well. He is only talking about architecture here, or at least his students think he is, but what he says is very true for who he is and what he does. He’s trying to reach his goal at any costs. And he makes it crystal clear that he won’t let anything or anyone stand in his way.
Like he said, he cannot simply erase everything and start from zero, he has to adjust one thing at a time, and get rid of one disturbance/hindrance after another.
- In this episode he sees Kentaro as his number one disturbance. And the lecture scene leading to the scene where Kentaro actually confronts Shuuya is a very nice transition, sine the audience just learned how ruthless Shuuya is, or is willing to be in order to reach his goal. Then Kentaro comes and literally stands in his way. I liked the scene a lot, and even though Shuuya doesn’t really threaten Kentaro directly, he comes off as very threatening.
- When Shuuya’s pondering over his map again, for some reason he decides that Kentaro is in the way of saving Mami. We don’t know why, yet, but he plots to separate Natsuki and Kentaro, and bring Kentaro and Mami together here.
What I’ve also been wondering about is the actual map Shuuya is working with in his apartment. There is a blue line and a red. So there are only two alternative timelines. But I think that it might still be possible for Shuuya to have created even more timelines, for we simply don’t know for how long and how much he’s actually been working on this. The two timelines on his map might be two out of a lot more…
But let’s stick to those two. We never really get to see much of the map, so I’ll just assume that the blue line is the original/natural timeline, the way things happened before Shuuya interfered. I think in episode 04 we even see the article that covers Natsuki’s murder attached to the blue line, so that would fit.
Then the red line is everything Shuuya’s been trying out in order to find the crucial event he has to change in order to save his sister. Or maybe there’s more than one event that needs to be changed, I don’t know. I think it’s a very clever thing plot-wise, to let Shuuya work with such a map. Not only does it suit his character, but it also illustrates the amount of thought, effort and scheming Shuuya puts into reaching his goal. It’s the only thing he is doing when he gets back to his present time: staring at the map and contemplating possible errors and mistakes he might have made, every time he does not succeed.
It’s easy to see how his continued failure takes his toll on Shuuya and how he grows more frustrated every time he comes back and finds his sister still dead…
- And this only makes the next seen sooooooo much crueler. Shuuya calls his sister’s landline and she picks up! He is overwhelmed, he thinks he finally made it, he is so happy… only to wake up from a dream.
This shows us three things. One: he is so completely obsessed with saving his sister’s life that it haunts him even in his dreams. Two: it underlines Shuuya’s every day routine. Every time he comes back, he tries to call her. Every time he dials the number, full of hope that this time he did everything right, that this time, his sister is alive. And three: saving his sister literally became his dream, his life’s purpose. There is absolutely nothing else Shuuya is living and working for, other than saving his sister. Shuuya himself even says so in episode 04.
- Also, if you watch the show in retrospective once it’s over, I’m sure that the second time watching it the first few episodes will be a lot sadder than they originally were, simply because you’ll know and understand much more of the tragedy behind it than you do now.
- Then for the first time you see Shuuya actually doing it, calling his sister’s landline. And you can see all the disappointment in his expression when it turns out to be just another time he failed.
- Hahaha, the way Kentaro tells his parents that Natsuki prefers listening to jazz music. As if he’s associating it with Shuuya or something.
But his parents are talking about the violinist, Mami, who, according to Kentaro’s father was treated at their hospital about ten years ago. Now I think it’s important to note that his father said “about” ten years ago, because that’d leave room for it actually having been 15 years ago.
Had it really been just ten years ago, then that would mean Mami was hospitalized AFTER the kidnapping happening one way or another, and that would rule out young-Shuuya having anything to do with it. Yes, I’ll stick to this idea until proven otherwise.
Kentaro can’t remember Mami having been at the hospital, which is probably not all that important other than to fit Mami’s flashback in episode 04.
- Next we see Natsuki’s mother working late at her lab, remembering Shuuya and telling herself that it can’t be possible. Of course this makes much more sense with everything we know from episode 04.
Natsuki calls her mother to tell her they’ve both been invited to Kentaro’s parents’ hospital charity event (where Mami’s going to play a concert). Her mother tells her she won’t have time to come due to work.
- Finally, at the charity event in the hospital halls Natsuki and Kentaro meet, and he’s confessing to her. Only that Shuuya doesn’t like it one bit, and decides to change the timeline here by kissing her in front of Kentaro’s eyes. As a result, Kentaro never confesses to Natsuki… But she’ll still have the memory of that timeline.
Gotta admit, though, Kentaro and Natsuki are cute together, on top of being annoying sometimes. xD Like, GODDAMMIT, KENTARO, THAT ASSHOLE JUST KISSED THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE, YOU FREAKING LOSER, AT LEAST PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE annoying. xD
Shuuya is so smug about it.
[Time Spiral Episode 04 recap]Time Spiral Episode 04 recap
- Let’s say the original/natural timeline is everything that happened / would’ve happened without ANY interference from Shuuya.
- So Shuuya wants to save a loved one after all: his little sister, Nami. She dies (probably of a disease), and in Shuuya’s present time, in 2020, is already dead (or at least, that’s what I assume). Everything Shuuya does, every alternative he creates is a trial and error way to find a timeline in which his sister is still alive / hasn’t died.
- In the original timeline Natsuki died / dies / would have died! (She is killed by her kidnappers)
Shuuya changed her fate and saved her. One possible reason could be so that Natsuki’s mother would be in his debt, and I think he made her develop a cure / medication for Nami.
With that medication Nami’s condition probably became better, but somehow she still died. I think that Natsuki’s mother is now worried that Shuuya came back because the medication failed eventually… It doesn’t actually have to be the medication or the disease that caused Nami’s death, it’s just what worries Natsuki’s mother.
Because of the promise she made Shuuya. We don’t know yet what that promise is, but I guess it has to do with her research. At a later point Nami comes to visit Natsuki’s mother at her lab to thank her for having developed a medication thanks to which she’s all better and able to play her violin. However, Natsuki’s mother is totally worried and asks if she was in pain or had any side effects from the medication. This is obviously because she is afraid something went wrong with what she did. The only reason for Shuuya to come back would be if Nami died, so she knows she’s dead and now thinks it has something to do with her medication.
As for the promise, I think Shuuya might have said something like “if you save my sister, I will save your daughter”. Now that Natsuki’s mother thinks she failed to save Nami, she fears that Shuuya has come for her daughter.
- Shuuya’s sister is sick. When she was a child she had been treated in the hospital that’s owned/run by Kentaro’s parents (or his father at least)! This is important.
Maybe they had helped /cured Shuuya’s sister, but eventually she dies anyway. If her death was caused by the disease, it is entirely possible that Shuuya holds Kentaro’s parents responsible for his sister’s death.
- I will go even further with this, and say that Shuuya might even have something to do with the kidnapping 15 years ago. Let’s say in the original timeline his sister died when she was still a child/teenager, at that time Shuuya would’ve been a young man. He’d grieve terribly, and maybe it’d make him angry. Angry at the doctors who hadn’t been able to save Nami. That would include Kentaro’s father. So. What if Shuuya hired the kidnappers to take Kentaro to get back at Kentaro’s father? What if Shuuya WAS one of the kidnappers? At that time, he must’ve been their age. Might sound far-fetched again (like the cyborg theory xD), but think about it. Why else would Shuuya even know where to begin searching for a way to save his sister?
He can obviously only affect the fate of people he meets / has met. So what if he was out to get back at Kentaro’s father, but then they mistake Natsuki for Kentaro and things go south. Of course the question would be: if Shuuya really had anything to do with it, then how did he get away? Does that mean in the original timeline he could be a murderer, possibly responsible for Natsuki’s death? Is that likely?
Well, he might not have kidnapped or killed her, BUT it is very likely that he does have something to do with it: He knows where the kidnappers’ hideout is. How does he know that? He cannot simply jump back in time to anywhere he wants. I don’t think it works like that. He can only go to where he has been, right? That means….
- What we still don’t know is how Shuuya’s sister originally died, and when. She might have died as a child, and that’s what I thought at first, but then Shuuya wouldn’t have a picture of her grown-up self, and he wouldn’t try to call her landline. Then again, ORIGINALLY she might have died as a child, but then Shuuya prevented that from happening, and she died at a later point in time, after which Shuuya saved her AGAIN. Maybe that way Shuuya lengthened Nami’s life until shortly before his present time. Maybe now he is trying to do it all over again.
This is so freaking sad. Give me a break.
- Every time Shuuya thinks he changed a crucial event that could lead to his sister not having died, he goes back to his present time and tries to call her landline. Up until now, all he gets is “the number is not available.” It’s fucking cruel.
- What Shuuya is trying to do is heartbreaking. All the more because he’s willing to risk everything including his own life, and that of others, in order to save his sister’s. He’s despaired. And the more he tries and doesn’t get the result he wants the more frustrated he gets. Each time he tries and fails he’s willing to pay an even higher price for the next try.
- Apparently, Shuuya is paying with his own life, too. It seems that time traveling, and especially interfering in the timeline / changing stuff and playing fate costs him a lot of strength. Using his powers weakens him to the point where he collapses. So he IS running out of time. Let’s assume the time traveling can kill him. Then he has to find a way to save his sister before doing so actually kills him. This is freaking sad. I did not want this to be so sad.
- Shuuya manipulates time/fate in order to let his sister meet Kentaro. Before that we see a memory of either Shuuya or his sister at the time she was hospitalized. When they were children, she used to like Kentaro and would’ve loved to play with him, but he didn’t really know who she was and she couldn’t play because of her illness. So now Shuuya is giving her the chance she was denied as a child and lets her meet Kentaro.
For some reason Shuuya thinks that if his sister and Kentaro are together, she won’t die.
- There doesn’t seem to be a tool or object or anything that is doing the time traveling. It looks like it’s simply a power Shuuya possesses.
- Natsuki, again, has two conflicting memories now… x2. Number one is her receiving the ring from Kentaro versus not even getting to see the ring because of Shuuya’s interference and kissing. Number two is her being saved from the kidnappers by Shuuya versus… being killed by one of them. Natsuki does have memories of both timelines, but the real one, the one she lives in at the present time is always the one Shuuya altered.
Now here’s another thought: in the original timeline, the one fate has written if you will, Natsuki was killed as a child. What does even mean for her existence? I could break my mind on this. For Natsuki every memory that is real is the one Shuuya is in. Obviously, because without him, she wouldn’t exist in the present time. What the fuck. (Maybe he needs her existence as an anchor in the past to be able to go back in time? Okay, this goes way off track…)
- Nami says that she thanks God for giving her the medication she needed in order to be able to play her beloved violin. Then she corrects herself and says that it’s thanks to Natsuki’s mother for having developed the medication. It’s strange to hear that, when you know it’s really thanks to Shuuya, her brother.
- When Natsuki get another panic attack and Shuuya wants to comfort her (although he has a really weird way of trying to comfort people), he acts pretty distant and cold. All the while I think he looks guilty. He shows an expression as if he’s feeling guilt.
Well, in a way Natsuki’s life is his responsibility, isn’t it? A lot of (bad) things that happen to and around her, happen because of him. Also, if it wasn’t for him, she would have never been there, suffering from the panic attack… (Sure, you can argue “better alive and suffering, than dead and in peace”, but then this is much more philosophical and subjective. From Shuuya’s perspective whatever happens to Natsuki is the result of what he has done.)
- When talking to Natsuki later at night, Shuuya says he lives only to realize/achieve one goal. From Natsuki’s point of view it sounds like Shuuya is amazingly determined, because she doesn’t know the reason and despair behind his determination.
Before Shuuya’s father died he had promised him to make sure that Nami’s musical talent would be known all over the world, i.e. that she would become a professional and famous violinist. And all he’s ever done is trying to keep his promise.
What about Shuuya’s talent as an architect? In the first episode it sounds very much like Shuuya was the one who designed/built the stadium for the 2020 Olympics. I wonder how he managed to become such a famous architect if all he did was to make sure his sister would become famous. Or maybe… he never got to become that architect? Well, AN architect, but not the one who did the stadium? I don’t know, but it seems relevant.
During the conversation Shuuya sounds like he isn’t very happy with what he is doing, what he has made of his life. Then again, maybe it’s because he failed Nami….
- Natsuki’s mother literally tells her daughter that Shuuya is bad news and that she should stay away from him! xD It does sound like a worried mother telling her teenage daughter off because her boyfriend looks like he’s trouble, but if you know what her mother is worried about, it’s not so funny anymore.
- Natsuki’s mom remembers how Shuuya came to her house and told her that her daughter would die. He asks her if she wants him to save her daughter, and she begs him to save her….
Shuuya is really cold here, and you can see he’s scheming. Obviously, he is not about to save Natsuki out of good heartedness. He want’s something in return…
Unfortunately, the flashback stops before we get to know about the promise Natsuki’s mother made to Shuuya.
- Kentaro is annoying. He’s just not doing ANYTHING. Dude, some asshole kissed your “girlfriend”, don’t just stand there!!!
Then he gets a message from Nami saying she enjoyed the time they spent together today, and he’s all SIGH, not Natsuki… , then Natsuki messages him, and he jumps to his feet, ready to come to her rescue.
They meet at some bar and talk about the conflicting memories Natsuki has had lately. Inevitably, they notice that in all conflicting memories, there’s Shuuya…
- Meanwhile Shuuya’s frustration is growing. He just can’t seem to find the crucial event that would save Nami’s life. He stares at his map and his gaze falls on a newspaper article covering Natsuki’s abduction and murder 15 years ago….
Also, an additional theory: What if Shuuya really is responsible for Natsuki’s death, because of all his grief and anger. He was young, he made mistakes… But. In the future he obtains the powers he has now. So then he goes back and tries to fix EVERYTHING. Including Natsuki’s death. The thing is, as he proceeds with his plans and efforts, he does run out of options, and maybe comes to the conclusion that he cannot fix everything. So he has to decide what to fix, and what to leave broken…
- Now I kind of fear for Natsuki’s (or someone else’s) life. Surely, up until now, Shuuya hasn’t gone as far as to kill or let somebody be killed in order to reach his goal, but I wonder what the last scene implies. Is he out of options? Does he have to do something he’s tried to avoid doing all this time?