The goodness continues. Somehow, the third episode managed to follow the second episode’s brilliance. The first half of the episode shows several characters struggle with Oiwa’s curse. It was lovely to see all of them become so paranoid at her sight. The second half of the episode, we get to see a bit of Osode’s story. That one is so full of unexpected plot twist, I really had to control myself not to fall off my chair…

I really like the way this show is heading for. It’s not often when deaths of characters are so common, that the creators manage to make each and everyone of those deaths awesome to witness. Not to mention all of the different complots that are going on. At first you might think them to be boring and repetitive, but once you see more of them, you’ll be able to see the unique aspects of all these complots.

Never did I have such hate/love relationships as with these episodes. Like I predicted, this filler arc ended at episode 68. The good thing is that the awesome bad guys get to stay a bit longer. Let’s hope they’ll get some nice airtime. The bad thing was, that the way the creators resolved this, was horribly uncreative. It doesn’t make any sense either. Why would Yoruichi have interfered with them in the previous episode? Well then, we get some boring explanations, Ichigo discovers that he can’t use his bankai anymore (seriously… not the training stuff again? *dies*). Then a sentence appeared that horrified me. "The Hougyouku that he took has another year’s worth of preparation before it can be used." I kindof feared that something like this would happen, but are the creators seriously trying to put another year into this? I so hope they find a very creative way to solve this.

Anyway, we have some talk, a new bad guy gets introduced, who appears to be the woman in the ED. I wonder when we’ll get to meet the big boss… Ah well, then we finally see what the ED has been hinting all along: the arrival of the three stuffed animals. I’m kindof disappointed with this. The three in their human-like form were extremely amusing, but right now it seems that they’ll be spending most of their time in stuffed-animal-mode. Anyway, their reaction to this was certainly amusing. It’s just too bad that Kon managed to ruin this with his whining.

The rest of episode 69 shows us a bit more info on the new bad guys. One of them lets just go of Chad and Inoue. I don’t see why he had to… apart from being convenient for the creators… The new bad guys themselves also seem like a bit of a disappointment. From the outside, they really look like two-dimensional villains. Especially if you compare them with the previous arc.

The episode ends with something that had to be inavoidable for this show. On one side, it can prove for some nice situations, but on the other side, the creators certainly could have spent a bit more time on thinking this over a bit, as it couldn’t have been done in a more cliché’d way.

Bleach shines when friendly characters annoy the hell out of each other. Bleach falls when it tries to be serious. I think that’s the best way to describe how I feel about this show.

Jigoku Shoujo’s episodes may have been amazing, there was always one clear good side, and one clear bad side. This epidose, even those borders are torn apart, as good and bad change rapidly int each other. I can’t say anything other than that I loved it.

The way this episode resolved was also amagreat. It may have been a bit predictable once you see it coming, (about a minute before it actually happens), but the tiny moment you see it coming like that will be blowing you off your chair.

We also see Ai, for the first time, making some decisions, and it’s also clear that her servants also don’t really know what she’s up to all of the time. That might be good for future episodes.

Anyway, this wasn’t the best episode yet, but that doesnt mean that it wasn’t a great watch.

Ooh, how awesome. For a minute I was afraid that they were going to let Ueki have all the fights, but right after his first scene, it became clear that this was going to be a Sano/Mori/Hideyoshi episode. You’ll get what I mean with this if you watch the episode.

Anyway, I loved this. Both teams have really creative plans (and powers too), and each plan is extremely well though-out, without becoming too vague. It was really noticable that everything was used to its full extend.

As Marylin seems to be superpowerful, I guess the creators wanted to wait a bit until showing her in battle. The reason they used to keep her away from it is pretty creative, especially when you take the last episode and Ueki’s "adventures" in account.

Anyway, the next episode probably features Ueki getting back again. I so hope it’s not at the last possible moment. Anyway, I’m extremely curious about the coming roles of Mori and Hideyoshi. If they get to shine in the coming episodes, it’ll certainly be great. :)

My goodness… wow, just wow. These are some very, very, very interesting turns of events. I love it!

We first get the impression of a Nanami episode. This time a serious one, along with her brother playing the role of antagonist. A bit of Utena is shown, but mostly we see Nanami struggle. Then she (and we as well) realize something that was so incredible for the plot, that I don’t know how to describe it.

Anyway, if this wasn’t enough, we see tons of symbolism (I recognized the four Bremen city-musicians, or however they are called in English), smart dialogue, and funny tidbits. To top this all, we finally get shown what had been hinted for entire seasons. And it’s shown in an AWESOME way. I can’t wait for the next couple of episodes, as this was one of the best ones yet.

I think that, along with Wings of Rean, this will be the only new series that I will be blogging this season. It’s kinda ironic, as both series are from a genre that I’m not really into. But ah well, this shows that you shouldn’t be afraid to try out new things.

Anyway, I was anticipating this show, as it’s been done by none other than the creators of Samurai Champloo (which I loved). This was also a show that had been hyped to death. If I have to say, it lived up to it pretty decently. It’s not the best show ever, but I certainly enjoyed watching this.

I think the best part about Ergo Proxy is the mood it creates. Along with the creepy backgrounds, the awesome audio and the dark characters, this was awesome to watch. I like the main characters, they certainly have potential to turn this into a great direction.

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.