cameo necklace, red suitcase, socks & a paper bag

Top: Shibata’s drawing of Mayama she uses when he goes missing, Keizoku
Bottom: Nonomura holding a note and picture aid at the airport while waiting to meet Toma for the first time, SPEC ~Zero~

“Mayama-san. Do you think…?”
“They’ll survive this? We did.”
“But we -“
“We had each other. So…”
“They’ll be okay.”
“They’ll be okay. As long as they…”
“Have each other. They’ll be alright.”

“Ohayou gozaimasu!”

So I’m rewatching Keizoku and SPEC (prepare yo’ self for caps and mindless waffling) -my original copies are in Australia, so I had to procure new ones. The copies I found happily had the opening scenes with Nonomura and Miyabi-chan Mark 2 subbed, which my original copies did not.

Episode 2, and I almost lost my shit.

For those who don’t want to click through and make the pics bigger:

NONOMURA: 
Tsubosaka…was he alive…? Or dead…? Is it depending on the sale of the DVD…? Is it right to manipulate the person’s (sic) life or death depends on the sequel? Ueda (nb: producer/Tsutsumi’s right hand man)? What happened to Taniguchi…?

MIYABI-CHAN MARK 2:
Kochi, listen, listen to me!

NONOMURA:
Oh, Miyabi-chan, I’m sorry…I was at the underworld for a second…

—

Bar the fact this is well and truly breakin’ dat fourth wall (like all the opening sequences do), Nonomura spoils the entire last episode at the beginning on Episode Two, then hints at what could be or what may be the answer to that whole “are-they-dead/aren’t-they-dead/is it Limbo” situation (making me suspect that the SP and movie were planned and designed from the outset to fuck with us). Given that this is only the second episode, and 1999 so there would be no chance to download/rewind until home VHS copies were released? I seriously can’t even.

Well played, Tsutsumi et al. Well played.

SPEC～結
Teaser

Updated: Movie Website | SP Website

Nakatani Miki & Watabe Atsuro 
Meiji Precious Black&Milk Chocolate CM (c. 2000)