When I saw a pre-OP-intro, and noticed a shortened OP, I immediately knew this was going to be a special episode. And HOW I was right, but I don’t think I can explain this without using some spoilers. I’ll be continuing in the comments, just in case someone sees something he probably didn’t want to see.

This was an important episode, as we get some more character informagion about Ginko himself. We learn why he chose to be a traveling mushishi, even though it’s only briefly mentioned, and for the first time in the series, we meet up with another mushishi (Majiko). In his younger years, this guy resembled Ginko somehow, before something very tragic happens to him. This episode featured him finally solving this problem he created years ago. We also see Ginko getting nervous for the first time in the series.

Anyway, this was another brilliant episode, typical of mushishi. It was worth every second of seeing it.

Aha, after a couple of weak episodes, The Law Of Ueki shines again. This time, every criminal goon gets poked fun at (aah delightful :)). We basically have a big strong guy versus Ueki. This big strong guy strongly believes that listening to people is the right thing to do. While that’s a very noble cause, this guy believes in it a little too much. With hilarious results.

Also his powers are another beautiful piece of creativity you hardly see anymore in anime.

Candles, huh? Nice metaphor. Anyway, we finally get another Utena episode. This one is centered around her and Akio. It seems that the creators wanted to put extra emphasis on this fact, as this episode moves much slower than most of the other ones.

It was an interesting watch. There aren’t a lot of anime in which the main character falls in love against his or her will, so seeing Utena struggle like that was nice to see. This episode was also full of symbols, like Akio collecting the shoes of his victims (seriously, what the heck?!), the shadow-play girls performing a little act about the dancing shoes (any connection?) and of course, the candles.