During the entire episode, I sat on my chair with a big smirk on my face. It was so amazingly written, so many brilliant opportunities were taken, this episode was just utterly incredible. It’s easily the best episode of Higurashi yet. Thank god the series managed to pick itself up again, after a kindof weak start.

The main reason behind the awesomeness of this episode: Keiichi getting paranoid. It was so awesome to see his reaction when he started to realize that his whole plan backfired. That’s the beauty of Higurashi: its amazing number of incredible plot twists. At some times, it manages to forget this, though this episode totally made up for it.

We start with the flachbacks from the previous episode, with Keiichi killing Satoko’s uncle, burying him and running into Takano. The OP rolls, and we start with the real episode. But not before the usual sponsor-image is shown, showing Oishi and Keiichi, in the rain. I really dislike it when the sponsors are shown in this way, as it immediately spoils a part of the episode. Why can’t they just show a bunch of fanart?

In any case, Takano mentions the fact that if the body isn’t buried properly, stray dogs may pick up their scent, and dig the body up. Keiichi then mentions that the bicycle in the back is Tomitake’s. Takano, however, tells him that it’s her own bike, which Jirou picked out for her. Once she drops Keiichi off at his house, she tells him that they hadn’t met during that evening. It takes Keiichi a while to figure out what she means. Keiichi isn’t really tactless, as it’s clear that the two of them have both killed someone, and they’re kindof in the same boat. Takano tries to remain subtle, though Keiichi’s too paranoid to notice this. This reaction ticks Takano off, and we see her annoyed for the first time in the anime.

Then Takano takes off, and Keiichi wishes her to fall under the curse of Oyashiro. He then hears a splash-like sound from behind him, though the source of this splash remains unclear. The next morning, he wakes up late, and rushes to school. To his surprise, Satoko’s come as well, instead of mourning over her uncle. When he enters the classroon, the fun really starts. Rika, Rena and Mion are talking like Keiichi actually WAS at the Watanagashi! Brilliance! Rena was also too cute when she started talking about the stuffed doll. ^^;

Seeing Keiichi react to this was just brilliant. He’s got no idea what happened, so he starts asking around for his own actions, and behaves very weird in the eyes of others. Satoko, meanwhile, is incredibly gloomy. When Keiichi talks to her, she breaks down in tears. He then gives subtle hints about what happened at the last episode, and, GUESS WHAT, her uncle didn’t disappear at all. He even gave Satoko her most horrible treatment ever. Satoko was so sad at that moment, and seeing Rika comfort her was just too cute.

Anyway, Mion and Rena are starting to wonder about the things that Keiichi said, making him only freakier and freakier. Rena then suggests a treasure hunt with him and Mion. Keiichi tells Rena, however, that he’s got a cold, so he can’t come. Rena then suggests him to go to the clinic. It then seems that Keiichi has learned, as he actually goes promises to show her the receipt. Rena then replies in disease-mode, and she walks off.

Keiichi then gets on his bike, and goes back to school. He then checks whether Satoshi’s bat is still where it was before he took it at the previous episode. Well, it isn’t. He then goes to the clinic, because he promised Rena and he then runs into Irie. Keiichi asks him what he’s been doing during the night of the Watanagashi, and of course, he thinks that Irie begins to suspect him. Irie, however, acts just calmly, though Keiichi doesn’t seem to notice it. He gets more paranoid by the minute, and ends up confessing his murder to Irie! Hehe.

Irie then thanks him for saving Satoko. A strange reply. Keiichi also tells him that Satoko told him that later, it appeared that Satoko’s uncle didn’t get killed at all. Irie then gets some coffee for Keiichi in order to calm down, though then Keiichi overheards Irie talking with another doctor about adding some isomytal and brovarin to his drink. I’ve got no idea what kind of stuff that might be, but Keiichi doesn’t really see this as a good thing. More theories on this later in this post, as it actually explains quite a few things.

In any case, Keiichi doesn’t like this, gets a freaky voice, and then he hears about Takano being found, being burned again. Nothing on Tomitake was said. Keiichi then blames himself for killing her, because he wished for her to fall under Oyashiro-sama’s curse.

That evening, rain falls, and Keiichi makes his way to the place he dug the hole in, in order to check whether the body was buried properly. While he’s in the middle of digging, Oishi and a couple of other officers run into him. This isn’t the kind Oishi, more like a sadistic Oishi. Oishi then makes Keiichi dig up whatever he was planning to dig up. When Keiichi has no more stamina for this, one of the officers took over the digging work. Oishi, meanwhile, abuses Keiichi. Then, the fun part begins, as the officers seem to have reached rock bottom. No body. >:)

Keiichi’s reaction to this was just great. There are two theories which could explain what was going on:
1: Satoshi decided to visit the Watanagashi, while pretending to be Keiichi. He then had some fun with Rena, Mion, Satoko, Shion and Tomitake and gave Rena a huge stuffed animal. Keiichi, meanwhile beat Satoko’s uncle with a bat and buried him, though he forgot to make sure whether the guy was dead. This was not the case, and he managed to get out of the hole. Satoko’s uncle then covered the hole again, and made his way to his own house again, blaming Satoko for this, and beat her up like crazy.
2: The previous episode never even took place. Keiichi did get the idea of killing Satoko’s uncle, he did grab the bat and put it in the wooden shed next to the school. He then called up Satoko’s uncle, who in his place came to school. Then, Keiichi just abandoned the plan and headed for the Watanagashi, in which he had fun with everyone like he was supposed to be. The disease then made sure that Keiichi imagined that he never even went to the Watanagashi, and committed the murder instead. Satoko’s uncle, meanwhile, was extremely pissed that he had to come for nothing, blamed Satoko for this, and beat her up like crazy.

Both of these theories have strong points and weak points, though I’m inclined to believe in the second one for now, as it also explains some things which happened later at the episode. The scene in the clinic, for example. Keiichi confessed everything to Irie, and even told him that Satoko’s uncle seemed still alive afterwards. The doctor then attempts to put certain stuff in Keiichi’s coffee (the isomytal and bovarin). Originally, I thought that the other doctor warned Irie about the fact that this stuff would cause outbursts of mistrust and derangements. Though that’s not true. It causes drowsiness. And this drowsiness causes the sudden outbursts of mistrust and derangements.

This explains quite a lot. What if the syringe from episode four also contained the isomytal and bovarin? What if isomytal and bovarin are actually the cure to the disease? It also explains that Irie indeed knew about the disease, and he was about to save Keiichi in both the first and third arc, weren’t for the fact that he ran away at both times, leaving a couple of nice souvenirs in the first arc. Still, there are still a few things wrong with this theory. For example, why did the isomytal and bovarin have to be injected in the first arc, while they could have been just swallowed in the third arc. This could, of course, have been because at the end of the first arc, the disease had hit a more severe stage than during this episode. Then, another medicine was needed because the bovarin and isomytal weren’t strong enough, though this medicine isn’t able to survive the digestive processes in the stomach of the victim before it could enter in its blood, unlike isomytal and bovarin. If this was the case, it would also totally explain the ohagi from the third episode! Remember when Mion and Rena brought Keiichi some ohagi for lunch because his parent were away? Remember that he found a needle in it, and spit the junk back out again? What if there was some isomytal and bovarin put in these ohagi, in an attempt to cure Keiichi? In that case, the disease tried to protect itself, by making Keiichi imagine that there was a needle inside of them. Still, there’s one mystery at which I can’t find an answer. If Irie knew about the disease, why didn’t he call it by its name, during his conversation with the other doctor?

I also wonder what happened with Takano during the Watanagashi. She entered the temple, along with Tomitake. It isn’t clear whether Shion was with them at that time. She was at the Watanagashi in any case, though we don’t know for how long she remained with Rena, Mion, Rika and Keiichi. In any case, afterwards they went to the riverbed, and watched the scenery a bit. Then something happened which made Tomitake strangle himself with his own nails, right in front of Takano. I think she probably made him do it. Then, she used either her own bike or Tomitake’s bike in order to do something, she stuffed Tomitake’s body in the trunk of her car, and headed somewhere. She then ran into Keiichi, and she took her along with him. When she dropped him off, she drove off again. Then, she either killed herself by drenching herself with inflammable liquid and set it to fire, or she ran into someone she’s not on good terms with, who drenced her in inflammable liquid and set her on fire. As you can see, there are a lot of questions left in this, though I think that each arc is meant to reveal a bit more about the adventures of Tomitake and Takano every time.

Another thing I’m curious about is Rena’s treasure hunt. What was she referring to? Did they plan to go to the junkyard again, or does this have something to do with the plot? And why was Oishi just hanging around at the place where Keiichi thought he buried Satoko’s uncle? Someone must’ve warned them about the way he was acting, so who could it be?

Differences with previous arcs:
- Only Tomitake’s body was found in the first arc. Both Tomitake and Takano’s bodies were found in the second arc. Only Takano’s body was found in the third arc.
- The link between the Watanagashi-murders and disappearances is never mentioned during the third arc.
- In the first arc, Mion and Rena tried to use ohagi to cure Keiichi, but it didn’t work. In the second arc, Irie tried to use coffee to cure Keiichi, but it didn’t work.
- Oishi’s a heartless bastard in the third arc. This does show a lot about his character. He treats the key witnesses with respect, in order to find out what they know. However, if he doesn’t need them, he treats them in a total different way. That may indeed be the reason why he got into a fight with Mion (see first arc).
- Did it rain during the night after the day of the Watanagashi in the first and the second arc? It did in the third.

Overall, this episode was just totally awesome. The best Higurashi-episode yet. I’m hoping for even more awesomeness in the final episode of the arc, though it might fall victim to the fake, over the top, distorted emo-faces that plagued the fourth episode of the series. Let’s hope it won’t!

Okay, that was interesting… almost no angst, no heavy emotions. Just Firiel, Eusis and some others travelling to the dragon. Only the final minute of the episode showed the heavy drama of Good Witch of the West. I’m surprised that the creators managed to squeeze such a slow-moving episode in the fast pacing of the plot.

By the way, I strongly advice people who want to see this at a later stage to just marathon the entire thing. Otherwise, you’ll forget important facts, which only make you more confused when they get used again. For example, I still have no idea whether the queen (Firiel’s mother) is alive or not. I also found out that she has a sister, and the sister was the mother of Leandra and Adele. That actually explains a lot. Firiel isn’t the sister of Leandra and Adale, she’s their cousin. With Leandra and Adale either being sisters, or half-sisters (you wonder why Adale got adopted in the first place). Another example is that I already forgot about the big bird’s feather because of all the events that happened. It was to slay the dragon in the name of the country of the Good Witch of the West, wasn’t it? Or some strange country?

Ah well, enough wondering. Fact remains that the episode did build up perfectly. It has two major purposes. The most obvious is, of course, following Eusis who gets to tame a unicorn in order to beat the dragon. The second goes much deeper: following Firiel who follows Eusis, in an desperate attempt because Roux left her, while trying to act naturally. This goes well, until the climax of the episode.

Still, despite the fact that this episode was nice and slow, even now, there were some rushed parts, namely the people who lost their homes because of the dragon. So many nice things could have been done with this, but the anime just spends a small moment on them. Strange. I’m not sure whether I like the new unicorn-mascot, by the way. It depends on how it’ll act in the following episodes.

The fact also remains that while Firiel and Eusis were on their little trip, nothing was shown of Leandra, Roux, Adale, Vincent or the mysterious guy from the previous episode. They probably used the entire episode to scheme their little plans in order to bring a great final, which will probably come once the dragon has been taken care of.

Overall, did this unusual episode make for a great episode? To be honest, this peaceful mood does not suit the anime. The power of Good Witch of the West is its incredible use of awesome dramatic scenes. This is one of the few anime which is just entirely drama. A slow and laid-back episode doesn’t really fit in. Still, I did enjoy watching it. The climax seemed to return the show to its usual, overdramatic self, so I’m curious about the last four episodes.

Okay, so what we have here are two worlds, somehow linked to each other. The first world is where the previous episode took place. The second world is something like the past of the first world, in which the story of Ashura and Yasha takes place. At the beginning of this episode, Mokona teleported our two parties to the second world. What happened to Kurogane and Fye remains a mystery, though Sakura, Syaoran and Mokona end up with Ashura.

Don’t ask me why, there’ll probably be no reason for this at all, but Ashura immediately takes a liking in Syaoran and Sakura, and invites them as guests of honor in her palace. Sure. I’d do that to any stranger who just came popping in from nowhere. In any case, the concept of the world is the following: up in the sky, there’s a huge floating castle. Every night, certain people get transported to that castle. There’s got to be some way of selecting people, but that isn’t really explained. In any case, Ashura’s and Yasha’s armies seem to end up inside that castle. When the moon reaches its zenith, however, all parties are kicked out again. The legend goes that whoever can conquer the castle, gets his deepest desires. Apparently, Ashura and Yasha have been fighting each other for quite a while now (Ashura talks about centuries).

If we look at the overall story for this arc, I have to say that so far, I like it. The thing with the filler arcs is that they’re just too fast. One of the great points of the first season was its mystery which was put in every arc. The Piffle arc was a bit too fast in order to fully develop this (seriously, I read somewhere that the Piffle arc was the longest chapter in the manga. Why would the creators just reserve a mere three episodes for this, only to air three filler episodes afterwards… that makes no sense at all…) though this arc seems to go into the right direction. There is enough material to make this arc last longer than just three episodes, which will really give the mystery a chance to develop.

First of all, it’s clear that Yasha and Ashura love each other. Then were there differences in their statues? Why was Yasha’s statue crying, and Ashura’s not? Why did Ashura’s statue display an eye, while Yasha’s did not? In fact, how did the two of them even fall in love when they only see each other at the castle, in the middle of people fighting? Second of all, the Kurogane and Fye-clones. If they’re really different people with the same soul, then how the heck did Kurogane get his sword? If they actually are our Kurogane and Fye, why the heck aren’t they at least recognizing Syaoran? Third of all: Mokona mentioned a number of really strong powers. That means more than one, with the strongest one being in the castle. Will this be a country with two feathers as well, or is there any other huge power existant? In any case, it’s not Ashura. After all, when Mokona told Syaoran about this, he would’ve immediately poited at Ashura if she actually was one of the strong powers. If we consider Ashura just as strong as Yasha, this means that there really is more to this world than what was actually shown during this episode.

The way the art was managed in this episode was rather strange. On global level, everything looked awesome, though when you start to look at the details, some of the eyes of the characters recieved very little attention and thus looked horribly off. Still, evil-Kurogane looked just totally awesome, Ashura looked just beautiful, and Sakura, getting embarrased looked just so extremely cute. ^^;

Some interesting details which happened at the beginning of this episode:
- Fye calling Kurogane “Kuro-sama”, and not even in his joking way, but in his serious way. That’s a new one.
- Fye smiled in an evil way when he found out that there was something horrible going on at the second world.
- The leader of the circus troupe hopes that Ashura is not the one to blame for what’s happening, otherwise, she won’t be able to see her lover again. This means that the two worlds are linked in some kind of way, other than just future-past.
- The tears of the leader of the circus troupe are the ones who caused the Ashura statue to open up her third eye, after which the portal to the other world allowed Mokona to get in trance (first time he did that, by the way) and teleport the four to the second world.

Some interesting questions which will probably be some errors on the creators’ side:
- Mokona sent the bottle to Yuuko, but doesn’t she have an eye-for-eye tooth-for-tooth-policy? I wonder what she sent back.
- Why did nobody freak out with Syaoran’s crossdressing? I mean, it isn’t that often that you’d run into a guy, dressed up as a girl, now do you? O_o

Only a small amount of events happen each episode. But that gives the anime a great opportunity of building up to these events, and the events that do happen are just awesome. Apart from that, characters change, relationships change and the whole world is just living its life.

This episode was the second episode of the aftermath-of-Ovan-getting-captured-arc. The major purpose of this arc is to get rid of a number of characters, to break up certain relationships, and to create new ones. So far, Goad has quit the game, TaN has been disbanded. B-Set quits at this episode. Naobi and Ender return in some new forms (interesting note: this means that they’ve returned to beginners, or they must’ve had some kind of backup-account). Sakisaka and Tabby have left the Twillight Brigade. Shino changed her clothing and the only one staying the same is Phyllo.

Ovan’s disappearance really broke up the world. It appears that the only reason Goad and B-Set played the game was because of him. B-Set also thought about things a bit, which resulted in her quitting the game as well. It’s very interesting to see characters just being gone, like that. Phyllo makes a nice comment about this. The fact remains that if today is the same as yesterday, and tomorrow is the same as today, this cycle won’t be continuing forever. That means that the world will change. Even the side-characters can make this happen. That’s also the problem with the anime who refuse to kill off their characters. It just limits the change that can be possible in the world. I’m not saying to the creators to let all kinds of persons go berserk and commit genocide, though the right balance has to be found, in order to make for the best development.

Naobi seems to have secured some kind of place, which even the administrators don’t know, most probably a lost ground, in which he’s keeping Ovan. It seems that Naobi finally gets what he wanted, as Ovan’s left arm seems to have been cracked (pun intended, by the way). Now it’s up to the next episode to determine whether Naobi’s plan was a success, or that he won’t be able to control the thing that came out of Ovan’s arm. We also have to take into account that Ovan knew about what was going to happen, so he had a reason to do this. Still, I never even once saw a smile on his face while getting hacked. Either this means good acting, or it means that things aren’t going as he had hoped to, which makes you wonder how much he can predict.

Tabby begins to get more interesting by the minute. Yay for the fact that she’s not a little brat after all! First, when she talks to Haseo, the two get in a bit of a fight. Haseo, as he’s not good in dealing with other people, doesn’t really know what to say, and eventually Tabby walks away angry. The discussion mainly was about Tabby getting jealous that Haseo was around with Shino all of the time. And that Shino was her reason to enjoy the game. She also comfirms that she indeed doesn’t want to be with Sakisaka because she wants to. This actually means three things:
1: Haseo’s incredibly thick-headed.
2: Tabby actually likes Haseo, but she realize that she’ll never be able to reach his heart.
3: She’s using Sakisaka in order to make him jealous. This doesn’t quite work, because of point one.
4: This means that she’s actually quite an actor, able to lock away her true feelings, and pretend to be someone else.
I like this. For some strange reason, I like this conflict, while most love-triangles like this one actually totally bore me. First of all, we only got our first hint only at the previous episode. Only at the end of that episode there was a moment in which Tabby’s feelings lost to her acting. Apart from that, she’s been concealing her feelings all along. Normal anime would feature some kind of suspicious close-up, in which the character looks to the ground, rather unhappy. I find this kind of buildup better, though. It’s way more integrated with the storyline than just that simple, suspicous close-up. These close-ups are like putting a big sign on the character, saying “Hello, I am in love with the main character but I’m too afraid to confess, what should I do?”. Or something in that direction.

Sakisaka indeed is a pityful character. if the above indeed is true, he’s being used from all kinds of sides. He was right about one thing, though: leaving the guild. We finally get told the exact reason why Goad and B-Set left the Twillight Brigade (after all, being used is kindof a vague description, isn’t it?). It seems that when there was no sign of the virus cores yet, they used to skim through every single inch of certain fields. Or they would stay at a lost ground for a whole day and see what happens. I could so understand that you want to leave the guild who only does things like these. Sakisaka had enough beliefs in Ovan to last till the end, though his attitude quite changed when Ovan was gone, which drove him to the wild theories of Ovan who had actually been working together with TaN and they finally managed to get their hands on the Key of the Twillight, so they ran off with it. Eventually, this resulted in him leaving the Twillight Brigade.

Shino also came as a surprise. Not only because of her new clothing, but also because she mentioned Aura. Apprantly, the rumors of her have scattered around the net. It also seems that Aura ran away for some strange reason. Shin doesn’t plan to. She’s been gloomy for two entire episodes, though as expected, she got stronger out of it. She still wants to wait for Ovan, though she definately changed. It was also surprising that she got crazy enough to disband the Twillight Brigade, though Haseo managed to stop her.

Speaking of Haseo, the fact that he’s not good with dealing with people gets another major role in this episode. One reason for Tabby and Sakisaka to leave the Twillight Brigade was because he, as the only one who still wanted to continue the guild, never was able to stop them, or cheer them up. He didn’t know what to say, which only made Sakisaka’s anger greater. On top of that, his attempts at doing this only worked the opposite way, not to mention his thick-headedness. Only with Shino, he’s able to say a few words, and for some reason, these few words are the right words.

Phyllo has a busy day, it seems, as a lot of people stop by at the bridge (I loved Haseo’s joke about Phyllo’s reasons to be in the game. ^^). An interesting fact is that he was the one who brought the two of Shino and Ovan together. I really like his character, at the moment, although I’m getting annoyed by his voice-actor. He seems to know exactly what’s going on. Overall, the big thing still hasn’t happened yet, as the previous episodes decided to focus on character development, and on shifting the relationship with each of the characters. With a bit of luck, the supernatural thing will happen at the next episode, and decide the second half of the anime. Episode 10 showed a bad day of .Hack//Roots, though it managed to recover itself pretty nicely. I still have no idea what the second half of the series will be about, but it promises to be a lot different from the first half. I can’t wait for it. :)

Is there really no limit on Gamigami Maou’s brilliance? It really seems that he manages to come up with a genious invention at every friggin single episode! Ah well, not that I’m complaining. ^^;

Today’s models are a stylish radar in order to track down Hyuu, brilliantly code-named as the “love-love-sensor”, and a giant zeppellin, Gamigami-style. Especially the former was just awesome. It indeed tells Hyuu’s exact location, and displays this on a giant radar-screen. Gamigami’s only mistake was that he forgot to put up some kind of index, which means that he can’t even understand his own invention. It gets only greater when later in the episode, they finally manage to reach Hyuu, though it seems that they took a huge detour in order to get to her. ^^;

In any case, about the episode. It’s clearly another character-development episode, in which the episode doesn’t have too much plot progression, so that it can really focus on the character development for some of the different characters. In this case, Hyuu, Pietoro and Narcia. Apart from that, Gamigami, Ston and Sanda are just totally awesome once more and queen Sania shows some motherly affection.

Pietoro gets blown away by a huge gale of wind (Hyuu’s work, she unknowingly blew Pietoro away) and he ends up in some kind of desert, or sand plain. As the desert is a very nasty place if you come there unprepared, he starts having visions after quite a short time. These are all visions about the Popolocrois Castle, and the friends he made there. (Interesting note: no Hyuu in these visions). Still, his stubbornness gets himself back to civilized areas. The creators used an interesting little trick, which really worked out well. Pietoro struggles further, he has no idea where he is, and so, he doesn’t even notice that he’s near civilization. When he starts calling out people, Shirokishi and Narcia just used the right timing to run into him. It’s a nice effect, and it makes more sense than when they would’ve found him in the middle of the desert.

Narcia, meanwhile, as she is separated from Pietoro, gets a few lessons about loneliness. She’s extremely lonely without him, though a helpful townswoman comforts her a bit. Overall, she learned quite a bit from this.

Hyuu, meanwhile, still has her own problems. As last episode showed, she flew off randomly. She’s been doing that ever since, and she came to realize that she’s a Wind-kind, destined to be lonely (this really went well with Narcia’s struggles). She even blasts Gamigami, Ston and Sanda away when they come in the Zeppelin to look for her (which also blasted Pietoro away). (Interesting note: before she did this, all kinds of birds were following her. After the blast, even the birds wouldn’t come near her. She then spends the night in the open again, having nightmares about Ston and Sanda’s true feelings. In the end, however, she realizes that she really needs the three of them. Especially after they show up the next morning in the barely working remains of the zeppeling. It’s funny if you imagine that Gamigami spent the entire night trying to get that thing back to work. ^^;

This episode also featured Queen Sania’s theme song. It’s been a long time since we’ve had another one, but I still love them. Things are also going very good at the new location of Popolocrois castle, as the first plants start to grow. Shirokishi leaves again, though. In order to search for the great sword. I wonder if he’ll ever find it.

Overall, it was a very nice, laid-back episode. Not too many thing happened, characters got some healthy dose of character-development, and Gamigami, Ston and Sanda were just as great as ever.

Well, this is more like it! Bleach finally uses some strategy, and on top of that, it’s got the perfect set-up for characters: Chad, Nova, Matsumoto and even Ururu versus the old man. The beauty of things is that each of them isn’t a walking steam-engine (both in terms of raw power as intelligence), so each party has to use some kind of plan in order to win. The combination with some very effective comedy made this a worthwile episode.

First of all, the old man has the most creative doll I’ve seen yet. Come to think of it, it’s the first doll that didn’t annoy the hell out of me. Anyway, his doll is a small whale, which can travel through dimensions and which can create another dimension inside his stomach. Nova’s power matches so well with this.

Second of all: Ururu. Probably the strongest member of the Bleach-cast. And thank god the creators show this in a very creative way. ^^; It’s just awesome to see a little girl fighting like that. I kept waiting for a chance to see her really in action. Even though she didn’t last long, it was awesome.

Third of all: Matsumoto. I especially loved it when Chad was underestimating her a bit. She really showed him that she deserves her place as a vice-chief. ^^ Her overall joking mood really brightened up the episode.

Fourth of all: Nova. He was so cute when Matsumoto thanked him and he got embarrassed. ^^; He also really had the chance to show the other what he’s worth, as, in comparison to the other modified souls, there were no “important” characters which needed all the attention and screentime they could get (*coughInouecoughIchigocouch*). The result was awesome.

Fifth of all: Chad. I really like his backstory. It’s too bad that he hasn’t gotten too much development lately. Thank goodness this episode changed this a bit. I like the way that he wants to protect, and finally he has some more flashbacks of his past. Finally he gets his own struggles again. Ururu and the others really helped him in this.

Another thing that I loved is that at the climax of the episode, the animators suddenly decided to go very creative creative. I really mean it when I say that the climax was incredibly animated. It was great to see such messy art, especially the old man looked really freaky in this, I couldn’t help but love it.

Overall, Bleach needs to have more episodes like this, in which characters actually think, instead of just fire a bunch of spirit power at each other. It had a great bland of comedy and action, although I’m not too sure about the way the episode ended. Somehow, I’m again fearing for the next episode.

I finally managed to make my 300th post. Yay! Another milestone hit. On top of that, this blog is now exactly seven months old (I started it at november 22nd). I decided to use this as an opportunity to display some statistics.

- Over the past 221 days, I’ve made 300 posts, which equals to 1.36 posts a day.
- I’ve recieved a total of 244 comments. These are a total number of 160 if you don’t include the posts I made myself.
- Hopeless made a total number of 23 of the comments. Cos comes in second with 18, and Anga is third with 13 comments.
- The series with the highest number of posts dedicated to it is Jigoku Shoujo, with 24 of them. Bleach and The Law of Ueki come in to a close second with 23 of them, and Bleach will probably take the lead in a couple of weeks.
- The most posts on one day were made during my Christmas Update, on December 24th: a massive 12 of them.
- So far, I’ve reviewed 23 anime, and I gave each of them a rating. These anime averaged out at 80/100. (note, this doesn’t mean that 80/100 is the standard. The standard is 60/100, though I’m more inclined to finish 80/100 anime than I am with 60/100 anime)
- My longest post so far is my May Summary, which consists of a massive 4600 words. My longest post about a single episode belongs to Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - 08, with 2540 words.
- At the time of typing this, I’ve managed to gather 31095 visitors.
- The record of most pageviews in one day still remains at April 30th, when I was still on blogsuki and recieved 1554 of them. Ever since I was removed from blogsuki, this number has been halved, with a maximum of 609 pageviews at last sunday.
- The term most popular by the search engines was Saiunkoku Monogatari. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni comes in as a close second.
- So far, I’ve yet to discover any weird search strings. The funniest I could find is the following: “does bleach kill mosquitos”. I know, it’s out of context, but still.
- Best Series Ever: Mahou Shoujotai (couldn’t resist. I just had to mention Mahou Shoujotai in some way ^^;)

How cool, an Iggy-episode. It seems that he was infected with cogito after all. This, in combination with both Real, the infected autorave from the previous episode and a little bit of Pino turned this episode yet again into an incredible one.

As predicted, Iggy doesn’t return to Romdeau, but the cogito-virus drives him crazy. He only wants to live for Real, so he’s planning to kill the bastard who drove her away, and keep Real only for himself. In extreme ways. He locks her up inside the same sort of container that the Proxy from the previous episode was put in. (Claustrophobia, anyone?) All of this is inspired by the infected autorave from the previous episode, who, in her turn also gets inspired by Iggy in order to kill the one who took her raison d’être away. The girl then begins to chase Real, Iggy attempts to kill Vincent, which obviously doesn’t go too well. The four persons meet up with each other, the autorave attempts to self-destruct though Iggy sacrifices himself in order to save Real.

In essence, this is just the same formula as good guy turns bad, attempts to kill main character, climax, good guy turned bad gets the idea that it wasn’t such a good plan to leave the other good guys and kills himself in order to protect the other good guys from certain death. But this episode manages to delve so much deeper in the minds of the characters involved, that it makes up for everything. Both the girl autorave as Iggy as Real get so much character development. Everyone’s reasons are so full of details. I just loved it.

Take Real for example, the was so getting used to Iggy being with her that she took his existance for granted, up to the point at which she started ordering around, and stopped caring. When Iggy is away, as in the beginning of the episode, she really didn’t know what to do, and started ordering Pino around. Of course, this really didn’t help, so she sought help in Vincent. Then Iggy confronts her with this. And only then she starts to realize. Combine this with the fact that she’s just been betrayed, she’s locked up inside an extremely tight container and the fact that Iggy’s yelling at her, and it makes for some incredible moments.

It’s also great that Iggy just continued to serve Real, even though he was infected. He just acted normally, despite the cogito-virus. Only when he begins to think about his own raison d’être, and starts noticing how Real doesn’t notice him, it goes wrong. Pino, on the other hand, managed end up just fine. She’s being treated like a normal human, even though she’s an autorave, and just look at how playful she became. The fact remains that Iggy remained just Iggy. You can’t say that the Iggy from the past died, because he kept acting the way he did, even though he was infected. The way Iggy brings this to Real is just amazing.

Also, the dying speach-scene. The one in which one of the characters is about to die, and talks his last words, who’ll probably be some inspiring words, lots of drama and the person dying completely forgiving everyone and apologizing for the bad things he did. Still, Iggy is an autorave, a machine, still infected with the cogito-virus. During that scene, he kept switching from normal-mode to cogito-mode, so in the middle of his speech, he suddenly started screaming at Real, accusing her of being the source of all his suffering, and at the same time apologizing. The effect that this had was extremely interesting to see.

I’m not too sure about the relationship between Real and Vincent. Please, don’t let Real be a tsundere! Only now with Tsuyokiss and Zero no Tukaima, I’m beginning to realize how much I hate tsunderes. Still, I do have to admit that Vincent looked too cute in his attempts to win Real’s heart. He’s got no social skills at all, so he has to try in his own ways.

Pino was once again amazing. It’s great to see that she still has her bunny-suit, and puts that on from time to time. At the end of the episode, we also see that she has learned from the past, and knows what sadness looks like. Still, she hasn’t managed to fully understand it. She also was great when she replied to Real that she’d rather want to know that feeling. Oh, and let’s not forget Vincent looking for firewood, when Pino comes running to him with a couple of mushy mushrooms. ^^;

Overall, this episode was great. Especially the conflict between Iggy and Real, when he bashed her completely into the ground with his arguments. He was right about everything, and Real realizing her own mistakes was amazing to see. This anime’s just turning better and better by the minute. I can’t wait for the next episode.

This episode started up another one of the arcs, after the countless fillers that preceeded. That, or we have a two-episode filler arc here. After all, all of the events that happened were just enough for one more episode. Then again, the Outo-arc also had a few surprises left.

I’m wondering where Tsubasa Chronicle is going. The bad guys seem to have given up on directing the destinations for our heroes. This probably means that they’re preparing for something big, but what could it be. The fourth episode showed hints that they’ve given up the methods they used in the previous episode, so we might be in for a couple of twists in the future. After all, the show even has a third season, so something has to happen.

Anyway, the episode was once again light, but still enjoyable. This time, Sakura, Mokona and Syaoran are separated from Kurogane and Syaoran. Both parties end up with two rivalling parties. One is a group of traveling circus artists, and the other seems to be the owner of a japanese-like temple. Both parties value a god, which has its own statue. One of battle and misfortune and one of the night and the underworld (interesting note: Fye didn’t know what an underworld means). Both parties have leaders, and guess what? Yes, they’re secretly in love with each other. At the end of the episode, both statues lighted up, the sky split open, Sakura fainted and Mokona noticed another feather.

The comedy didn’t come from Fye and Kurogane, this time. They were like spectators to everything. No, the funny moments came from Syaoran, with Sakura helping him a bit. He was just thrown in such embarrassing situations. For example, the group of travelling circus artists he ended up with consists only of women. Men aren’t allowed. First of all, all of the women get all giddly over him (thank god he’s not a pervert or anything) and second of all, he has to crossdress in order to be able to stay. I especially loved the scene at which he first arrived in his girl’s costume. Especially Sakura’s reaction was too cute. ^^;

Anyway, we recieved another couple of subtle hints about the main plot. First of all, Sakura isn’t the only one with amnesia, as Syaoran also seems to be troubled by this. It’s probably the same day when he lost his eye. Something happened, when he was young that poked out his eye and made him lose his memory. When, why, how and where this happened remains a mystery. Korogane also comes from the Japan-Country. The temple he wound up in really made him nostalgic. This only shows how much he wants to be with Tomoyo again. Fye’s world also seems to have a god called Ashura (one of the two gods, the one the circus artists worship). He’s also been more serious than ever in one episode, instead of his usual playful and cheerful mood. This can suggest three things:
1: It’s an error of the creators. He’s supposed to be cheerful, but they kindof forgot.
2: This world is making him nostalgic as well. He just tries to hide this, instead of Kurogane.
3: The last episode still haunts his mind.
4: He’s unconciously beginning to see that it’s no use to conceal his feelings, or he’s getting less and less motivation to do this.
Okay, four things. Who cares? In any case, the episode was enjoyable, but nothing really more. It wasn’t anything outstanding, or something.

I was in a certain mood to check out as much trailers as possible. These are the results. I won’t be providing any links, if you want the trailer, then you can just use Google or YouTube. They were easy to find, so I don’t think that providing links is really nessecary.

Flag

I’m really getting exited about this series. The trailer only strengthened this. The character design will probably look very interesting, and the mecha-design and action scenes also looked very impressive. And that’s coming from a guy who isn’t too much into the mecha genre. The anime will indeed be action-packed. That’s certain. Though the thing to set this anime apart is the fact that the main characters have got nothing to do with these mechas. They’re just a bunch of photographers, set out to collect information. The music also sounded of very high quality.

Binbou Shimai Monogatari

I may be wrong, but I think the title means something along the lines of “Tales of a Poor Family”. It’ll be a slice of life-show. It doesn’t look too impressive, and it’ll probably revolve around the main characters, trying to make a living whilst living under poor circumstances. The trailer had some very cute moments, so I’ll at least check this one out, even though I dislike most of those slice of life-shows.

Demashitaa! Powerpuff Girls

I’m still wondering whether this anime will become a total succes, or a big failure. Still, the trailer gave a lot of hints. Apparently, the personalities of the girls will be changed. Blossom will be more of a fangirl and shopping-freak, instead of the bossy person focused on strategies in the cartoon. Bubbles will be miss-popular and have a very cool personality, instead of her crybaby version in the cartoon. Buttercup will be more ambitious, instead of her tough character from the cartoon. I have no idea about the professor, though he seems to have some kind of assistant. The major seems to have gotten some brains, and Mojo Jojo seems to be playing for villain. I’m hoping that we do get to see the gang-green-gang, though. Still, I’m a bit worried about the personalities of our three main characters, as they don’t seem interesting at all, and they remind me too much of certain american cartoons. The original series had some good points, but also some incredibly bad points. It’s up to the creators to remove these incredibly bad points.

Zero no Tsukaima

Alas, I was wrong. This won’t be the next Magikano. It’ll be worse. It’ll be the next Shakugan no Shana. I can’t believe that we have to witness such a horrible mess yet again. Not another Tsundere for this season! We’ve got enough of these already! The trailer just took away all of the enthusiasm I had for this Shana-clone. I can already see people going crazy about this. The katana probably gets turned into a magic wand and melon-pan gets turned into whatever favourite food of the main character. It’ll probably get its own SOS-fansite as well, including its own set of fan-made towels and t-shirts. I just know it! I’m so hoping for the side-characters to be able to save this anime.

Gedo Senki

This is the Ghibli-movie which is coming up in July. It’s promising to look awesome. I like the character designs, especially those of the main characters (which is a rare thing). A lot seems to be happening, and the graphics promise to look just amazing. It’ll probably take till january till it gets finally subbed (if it goes through the same process as Tsubasa and xxxHolic), though this is something to be watching out for.

Project Blue Earth SOS

After seeing the trailer, my anticipation for this anime has downed a bit. The art stopped looking amazing, it’s just above average. The two main characters are also exceptionally talented persons. At least, they behave like that. I hoped them to be just some ordinary high-school students who got involved against their will. Though I’m fearing more and more that they’ve got some elite goverment positions. In any case, aliens attack, and they’ve got flashy beams that destroy anything that hits them. Exiting. Not.

Coyote Ragtime Show

This was a trailer which made me extremely enthusiastic. The characters look amazing and unique, not to mention the music. It’s also got an interesting plot to back it up. This’ll definately be on my top list to watch.

Night Head Genesis

You know, this show might actually be interesting. At first, I wrote it down because of the horrible site, but the trailer showed some nice things. I especially like the look on each of the characters, and the girl on the moon also suggests at some mystery being thrown in. Who knows? The show might become very entertaining. In any case, if the creators make the little boy an important character, I’ll keep watching.

Le Chevalier d’Eon

The other good trailers really made me exited about the shows. That’s indeed what a good trailer’s supposed to do. This trailer, however, did not make me exited at all. That either means that it’s a bad trailer, or it’s a bad show. I’m hoping the former, as I like the setting. Still, the art didn’t look impressive at all, the animation was a bit buggy and none of the characters really grabbed me.