I LOVE the direction in which tis anime is going. At the beginning of the first episode, the Chor Tempest had an incredibly high status. They were seen as the best of the best, most people probably thought that they were above humans. After the fiasco at the end of the first episode, the Chor Tempest began to collide. Slowly but surely, they lost their status. They weren’t the top Chor anymore. They were inches away from being disbanded. They had to move to a small, second-rate ship. And now, they have to share their ship with about one hundred common soldiers. If this line keeps going down, it’ll have some amazing results for the second half of the series.

She show is patially about the reactions of members of the Chor Tempest to these events. Both the ones who were in the original Chor Tempest (Neviriru, Paraietta, Kaimu, Aruti, Furoe, Rödoreamon) and the new ones (Aaeru, Limone, Morinasu, Yun, Mamiina, Dominüra). The old ones have to say goodbye to their lifestyle of luxury. The new ones have to get used to the fact that they won’t be flying for the best team anymore. It’s great that everyone seems so have a different reaction in this.

This episode was once again a great one. A bunch of soldiers has joined the Messis because of the plans of Dominüra. Now the Sybilla have to live with the soldiers, and the soldiers have to live with the Simoun. Dominüra seems to have taken command over the Messis, to the displeasurement of Neviriru, and decided that the Simoun were to be used as transport carriers, in order to help the soldiers win a town back which has been occupied by the enemy. Once again, it shows that the enemies aren’t just a bunch of pigs, as they have been planning for this to happen all along. Because of this, the Simoun are forced to aid the soldiers.

The character who gets the attention in this episode is Furoe. She’s fallen in love with one of the soldiers. A young man, he probably went to the spring not too long ago. This man will be the first outsider to see what the Sybilla are in reality. At first, he’s freaked out by Furoe and her cheerfulness, though I think they both felt a bit for each other. When Furoe gets scolded for the things she’s doing, she even goes as far as saying that she’ll go to the spring.

The town to be won back is the hometown of this particular man. During the operation, he managed to see the Simoun perform their Ri Maajons, and destroy half of the town, along with the enemies who had the bad luck to be in their range. This was the first time in which we see a citizen of Simulacrum freaked out by the Ri Maajons. He’s the first one to see what kind of killing machines the Simoun he always looked up to are. More people will probably follow him soon. I can’t wait for it. :)

There were two Sybilla who weren’t able to kill the enemy soldiers: Furoe and Kaimu. The former was too busy searching for the man she loved. She indeed was one of the Simoun who didn’t take her job too seriously, and doesn’t put flying the Simoun above everything. In Kaimu’s case, she just was scared. She saw the faces of the soldiers, and she wasn’t able to kill them. Much like Neviriru in the first episode.

Another thing I realized during this episode is the use of the background music. It may be more than just a tune to strenghten the overall atmosphere and tension. At the beginning of the mission, Neviriru had forbidden the use of Ri Maajons. This results in hte soldiers fighting the enemy, with the Simoun assisting them with the help of their guns. The background tune which plays is heavily tension-based. It just builds up and up. Then at a certain point (as there are only four Simoun who can actually do something) Aaeru convinces Neviriru to do a Ri Maajon. Right after the Ri Maajon hits, the tune switches to the standard accordeon-music that’s played every time during these scenes. The point is, that there’s no tension in this tune AT ALL. In fact, I think it’s meant to be some kind of symbol, to the devastating power of the Simoun.

I just can’t seem to figure out what’s up with Dominüra. Especially because of the way she talked to Limone. I think that Limone’s the only one who Dominüra treats kindly. It also seems that she was pretty enthusiastic with both the fact that she had to play as carrier and Limone’s steering. You’d think that, as a Simoun Sybilla, she’d want to do a job which doesn’t dirten the name of the Simoun. She’s clearly up to something, but what?

Rödoreamon and Mamiina have become a lot closer since the previous episode. Rödoreamon is still shy (heck, she got really scared when the soldiers arrived) and spoiled, Mamiina is still cold, though you can see that they really have become friends now. Paraietta also was interesting during this episode. It seems that she doesn’t have the perfect qualities of a leader, as she started yelling once the soldiers arrived. Neviriru and Yun were the ones to recover her mistakes.

Overall, if you ignore the little inconsistencies, you have to admit that the soldiers and the Sybilla delivered some effective teamwork. All of the grudges which were displayed at the beginning of the episode were gone at the end of it. I really like the way this is going. The Chor Tempest will be losing their status more and more. The episode was great as well. This show just gets better and better.

Memorable moment: The commander of the soldiers motivating the others by telling them that it’s their war, not the Sybilla’s.

Holy god, this really was a gloomy episode. The atmosphere was so thick, you could almost cut it with a knife. As the Arcus Prima is still in repairs, the Chor Tempest has been transferred to a temporary battleship: the Messis. While the Arcus Prima provided our Sybilla with all kinds of luxuries, the Messis is just an ordinary ship with no luxuries at all. Some members don’t have problems with this (Aaeru, Neviriru, Yun), some members love it (Mamiina) but most of the members are a bit unconfortable with it (Furoe, Kaimu). The latter part really accomplished a great atmosphere in this episode.

Apart from the Messis, this episode had two main focuses. The first was Dominüra, who’s been the one who got them into the Messis. She acts a lot different than when she was in the Arcus Prima. She also begins to get more bossy by the minute. Still, Neviriru trusts her. I don’t know whether this trust is real, or whether Neviriru doesn’t want to cause any unnessecary problems, though.

Another major point of the episode was the relationship between Mamiina and Rodoreamon. Mamiina still acts cold towards Rodoreamon, who still doesn’t have the courage to say something about it. She does make attempts though. She manages to ask Mamiina to talk to her, but again, her shyness stops her from actually saying the right things. In the end, she cuts one of her braids. It seems that Mamiina was always yealous of them. It also seems that there’s an actual story behind Rodoreamon’s braids, as she didn’t wear them just because her parents told her to. In any case, I liked this scene. I almost always like it when a character changes hairstyle. It suggests change.

Apart from that, lots of small things happened during this episode yet again. We finally get a bit more info on the strange windmill that Aaeru keeps carrying along with her. It’s a memento of her grandfather, who also used to be a Sybilla in his (her?) younger days. I’d love to get to know a bit more about the village Aaeru grew up in. I also loved it when I saw that Limone put all kinds of candy in her suitcase. ^^

There also seem to be mice aboard the ship. Furoe, Yun and Limone seem to be quite scared of it, though Neviriru remains neutral and Aaeru’s been used to mice in her village. Still, Limone was able to appreciate a joke Aaeru made about this.

Overall, the great part about this episode was the atmosphere. It’s been mostly meant to introduce the life on the Messis, and develop a few relationships.

Memorable moments:
- The expression on Rodoreamon’s stuffed toy. She really had a strange taste when she was young. ^^
- Rodoreamon cutting her braid off. It had it coming, though it remained awesome.

What we have here is Gonzo’s attempt at making a movie. Bad idea. The only good part was that it featured some fancy graphics, but even that couldn’t save it from the horrible storyline it features. The characters are all extremely dull, not to mention that the voice-actors never put any feelings in their work. Add that to the fact that the main characters are a bunch of twelve-year-old brats, and you have a recipe for a yawnfest.

The best part of this movie was the opening tune. It really makes you excited about the movie. Especially if you combine it with the pretty graphics. At that time, I still had a good feeling about this movie. It starts out okay, our main character is just living his life on a post-apocalyptic world, in which water is scarce and the forest turned hostile. It really reminded me of Nausicaa, though Nausicaa succeeded where Gin-Iro no Kami no Agito fails.

You see, what follows is one of the most horrible storylines ever. It starts out innocent when our main character runs into a girl who’s been sleeping for ages. The girl then gets to play for a damsel in distress, our main character gets superpowers for no reason at all in order to save her and the entire planet. All of this ends in an extremely cheesy and extremely convenient ending.

The graphics indeed are great, though you can see that the creators didn’t put any thoughts in the laws of nature. For example, the moon has been blown to pieces in the past. If that would be the case, it would send every piece of debris in a random direction. In this case, however, the pieces just conveniently stay together without any explanation at all. It’s also interesting to see that when girl jumps in the water, her clothes get wet, though whenever a guy does this, his clothes seem to be drying instantly. Yay for consistency.

Overall, if you want fancy graphics, you might try this one out. If you don’t, then stay far away from this movie. Far, far away.