After what happened the previous episode, Haseo needs some time to be able to process what happened in the previous episode. He’s not very good in this, as he keeps getting gloomier as the episode progresses. His main support is Phyllo. The latter also goes to the place in which Shino and Ovan met for the first time, after which Tri-Edge ambushes him. For some strange reason, Phyllo is spared. You’d wonder why Tri-Edge took the time to visit him in the first place. In any case, when Haseo found out about this, he went berserk. He ran to the church and kept beating up the chains on the table. I think that he really snapped when he found out that each of Tri-Edge’s attacks have got something to do with Shino.

While that may have been too bad for Haseo, that part of the episode was just boring. Haseo was a bit too gloomy in my opinion. The good stuff came from the former TaN. It seems that Ender and Naobi not only swapped PC’s, they also swapped usernames. Naobi now is known as Yata, and Ender is Pai. A thing that really shocked me is that Ovan appears to be perfectly fine. After his arm exploded in episode twelve, he managed to escape, and now roams around The World. Either data-drained or just perfectly fine. Still, there has to be some kind of reason why he hasn’t contacted Haseo or Tabby yet.

In any case, Yata and Pai are up to something else, after their failure. They are probably busy analyzing what caused Ovan to escape. They’ve also run into some problems when they try to analyze the waterfall-field. It appears to be a dump for save-data. Much like the Net-Slum from .Hack//Sign. In any case, something is providing an error when they try to analyze it. It’s good to see that things aren’t going perfectly for Yata and Pai as well. I’m still wondering whether these hackers will be responsible for the greatest threat in the game.

Pai also talks about something called an SF. No idea what that means, though. Later in the episode, Pai makes contact with a new character, a former TaN-member: Savurou. It seems that the two of them knew each other, though it isn’t clear from where they do. In any case, she managed to swap PC’s as well. (On a side-note: I sortof like Pai’s character design. It’s a lot better than her Ender-version, in any case).

Overall, this episode was kindof boring. Haseo needs to accept that Shino’s gone. Still, TaN brought some nice material.

Okay, and we now turn to the first batch of the summer-season. The first patch is very a very light-hearted one. The comedies work at certain times, though Akazukin is amazing.

Otogi Juushi Akazukin

First of all: OMG CUTE!!! Second of all: I really enjoyed the first episode. It’s got a very light feeling, and the character design is amazing. The story’s got a good base, though it remains incredibly simple. It’s a kid’s show, after all. I have to admit, though, the first episode of the OVA was better than the first episode of the anime. Overall, I certainly recommend this if you’re looking for a light-hearted fairy-tale story.

Demashitaa! Power Puff Girls Z

This show, is just stupid. It’s incredibly low-budget as well. Except for the transformation sequences, the major part of the budget seems to have been put in these transformation sequences. There have also been a lot of changes made to the original cartoon. The main characters weren’t made, they just were normal girls who were exposed to Chemical Z (a stronger version of Chemical X). Professor Utonium seems to have a son (who’s the mother?), and both he and his son have the ugliest character designs ever. His son also attempts to use the humour of repeated scenes, but he fails miserably. The major also isn’t the incredibly stupid guy he used to be before. The girl also seem to be 2-D stereotypes with just one personality. Still, there is one character which manages to save this show: Mojo Jojo. He actually was quite funny to watch and really brightens up the show.

Muteki Kanbanmusume

What we have here is a pure non-ecchi slapstick comedy. Characters try to act as outrageous as possible, mostly this goes along with lots of screaming. It was pretty funny at times, though I think this is missing something. This show feels like it’s Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu, without its brilliance. It’s a fine attempt at comedy, but it could have been so much better.

Another Hyuu/Narcia episode. This time, it’s a bit different from the previous one. In the first one, Narcia wanted to check out Hyuu’s intentions. This time, the two of them just run into each other.

Narcia starts out incredibly naive. She believes that Hilda sent her out only to do a particular errand, while in fact, she should be looking for Pietoro. Hyuu also sees this and she can’t understand Narcia at this point. She begins yelling at her, and she calls her a witch who hides her own feelings deep inside of her. She even goes as far as lying to Narcia that Pietoro has confessed to her. Narcia’s a bit startled with this, though she is the one who wants to be with Hyuu.

Eventually, the two make up. Most of these thanks go to the wind-kind, who continues to try and kidnap Hyuu. The creators did a very good jop of putting tension in these scenes. Especially the climax was great. The two of them also got to experience what happens when you lose all of your powers (wind-kind’s work, again). It was really cute to se them like that.

Anyway, about the other characters. Gamigami still hasn’t found Hyuu, though his determination hasn’t faded yet. Ston, meanwhile, shows signs that he actually cares about Hyuu and it becomes clear that Pietoro likes to talk to himself.

The Wind-kind also will be interesting. He clearly has been sent to retrieve Hyuu, though she doesn’t want to go along with him. He can’t see that. He only wants Hyuu to come back, and he can’t see that she wants to stay. He also gets enraged when he finds out that Hyuu made friends with a human-kind. Hyuu also makes a nice statement. The Wind-kind always live alone. It’s the fate of every creature, even human-kinds, though teh human-kinds are too scared, so they flock together. If you combine this with what Hyuu said at the beginning of the series, in which she claimed that she wanted to search for other wind-kinds, it really becomes clear that she’s just plain lonely.

Overall, this has been a great episode. The tension it created was perfect, although Gamigami needed a bigger role.

Memorable moment: Pietoro getting surprised by the rain. Not nessecarily his reaction, but the way the rain introduced itself.

The Eigetsu-arc is probably the best arc of Seiunkoku Monogatari yet. Not nessecarily because of Eigetsu, but all kinds of things are happening at once. The setting also is a very original one, and Shiurei continues to be awesome. Not to mention the original humor that the creators posess. ^^

I had a few troubles with the first arc of the show. After all, Shiurei only managed to get in the castle because of the high status of her father. If she would have been just a commoner, she would never have been able to accomplish that. She did show her strong character, but in the end she did end up as the damsel in distress, only to be saved by Ryuuki. Then the second arc started, and this element was immediately gone. Shiurei now advances because of her own hard work. Starting from the second arc, we really get to see what kind of an amazing person Shiurei is.

We start at Kougarou. Shiurei wonders what Ryuuki’s up to. He answers that he was here to see Eigetsu. Kouchou reveals that Shiuei was indeed the one who left her in the middle of the night and dropped Eigetsu off. Shiuei also is surprised when he sees Eigetsu with such a different personality. We then see a flashback of the previous night, in which Eigetsu beat up a couple of punks with a very evil look on his face. This suggests that the guy must have some kind of dual personality. In any case, Eigetsu doesn’t seem to remember what happened back then.

He also reveals that he lost his official wood token. Later in the episode, the importance of this token gets explained, and why Eigetsu was in such panic when he realized he lost it. Kouyuu and Ryuuki seemed to be shocked when they find out that the Seikintou have been collecting these official wood tokens.

Afterwards, Keichou seems to have arrived in Kougarou. When Shiurei finds out about the fac that he’s joined the Seikintou, she begins to yell at him. ^^; It seems he did it in order to be able to boast about something to the girl he loved. While Shiurei continues to unleash her anger upon him, Seiran reveals that Keichou used to often hit upon her when the two of them small. This even got so far that Keichou ended up in a river in the winter. ^^

Keichou then reveals that the Seigintou will be invading Kougarou that evening. What follows is a very enjoyable scene in which the Seigintou get ambushed by an army of crime-bosses. Kouchou happens to be the leader of the crime-bosses. ^^ Things start very nicely when the leader of the Seigintou gets bombarded with a giant ice-ball (nice haircut, by the way). Shiurei, Keichou, Seigintou and Kouyuu are hiding in a shack somewhere, as all of them can’t really fight. Eigetsu then decides to head out after all, as his token is very important to him. Kouyuu sends Shiurei along with him. Keichou follows them, though Kouyuu doesn’t really care about him.

The leader of the Seigintou meanwhile managed to escape the ambush, and he managed to invade the building of Kougarou. He then runs into Eigetsu, Shiurei and Keichou, searching unconcious bodies for the tags. He then manages to take Shiurei as hostage. Even though the two of them know they aren’t strong at all, they still try to attack the guy. Only to end up on the floor, knocked out in Keichou’s case, and in a barrel full of sake in Eigetsu’s case.

Then the mystery behind Eigetsu’s second personality becomes clear. It seems that whenever he drinks alcohol, he turns into Yougetsu, his total opposite: violent, strong, confident. Kouyuu meanwhile manages to free Shiurei by dropping a huge flower pot on the guy’s head. Shiurei also acts as a perfect hostage, as she just doesn’t want to stay still. the leader of the Seigintou has huge troubles to prevent her from checking whether Eigetsu is allright. Kouyuu managed to finish this in a nice anti-climax.

It seems that the creators were really enthusiastic in giving the leader of the Seigintou a couple of fun haircuts, as the guy now walks around with an afro full of flowers. ^^ Then, Yougetsu woke up, and kicks the guy’s ass. These fighting scenes looked very amazing. Shiurei also manages to find out the purpose of the wooden tags the Seigintou have been stealing. They’re indeed passes which permit a person to take the national exam. For a lot of people, these tags are worth more than their life, and so the Seigintou have found a nice way to blackmail persons.

At the same time, this explains the importance of Eigetsu in this story. Both Shiurei as Eigetsu will be taking the national exam. This means that they both will become government officials at the same time, they’ll be advancing together. Eigetsu will probably also end up living with Shiurei, Seiran and Shouka, so the two of them will be spending a lot of time together.

Eigetsu also seems to be the one youngest person to pass the local exams at the top of his year (therefore, beating Kouyuu). It also seems that his tag was not among the ones the Seigintou have been stealing. Then it appears that Yougetsu was responsible for the disappearing tag. He saw the danger of the ruckus he caused, so he gave his tag to a third party (Keichou’s father. Apparently, the two know each other). He also ordered a bottle of high-quality sake, which would explain Eigetsu’s empty pocket at that time.

Now that everything has been solved, the show still has enough time left to wrap up a couple of things. First of all, Shiurei’s last day. In the previous episode, Kochou promised Shiurei a surprise for her last day at work. It appears to be a make-up kit. (Shiurei looks beautiful with make-up, by the way) Kochou also reveals that both Shouka as Seiran knew about the fact that Shiurei was working at a brothel. They both came to her, begging to take care of Shiurei. It was quite funny that both of them said the exact same thing.

After that, we see Shiurei and Eigetsu heading to the palace, in order to take their national exams. In the palace, they run into a Ryuuren again, as weird as ever. (I loved it when he used his flute to talk ^^) The results are also announced afterwards. Eigetsu really is a genius, despite his shyness, when it seems that he managed to get the best results. Ryuuren managed to come in second and Shiurei third. Eigetsu and Shiurei will be working in the palace afterwards, though I think that Ryuuren will continue roaming around.

One more thing… what kind of “job” did Shiuei have to do at the beginning of the previous episode? He couldn’t have known about Eigetsu, could he? (*wink wink*)

Overall, this arc was great. Saiunkoku Monogatari really gets just better and better. I’d love to see the reactions of the ones who follow the subs. If they already thought that the first arc was awesome, I can’t wait till they find out about the second and the third arc. :)

Memorable moments: The leader of the Seigintou getting bombarded by a giant iceball, and Shiurei seeing herself with make-up for the first time.

Gin-Iro no Kami no Agito almost made me lose faith in original anime movies. I decided to check out Spirited Away, just in case (yeah, I know. Late). And thank goodness it showed that you can have incredibly bad movies, and incredibly good movies. Spirited Away definately belongs in the latter category.

What we have here is a beautiful piece of art, in which a young girl, along with her parents, ends up carelessly in another world. In this world, humans are extremely rare. Every citizen is some kind of animal and the humans that do arrive get turned into animals by the ruler of the world. The girl(Chihiro)’s parents get turned to pigs this way and she barely manages to escape this fate herself because of a boy she runs into (Haku). To be able to survive in that world, the only chance the girl has is to work for the ruler, in a very popular bathing resort.

The element which turns this movie into an astonishing one is definately the character development. The fact remains that Chihiro remains a little girl. She’s extremely scared, and this anime portrays this magnificently. Then, as the anime progresses, you’ll see that she’s an amazing person. She has to do the most terrible jobs. She is a clutz, but she puts hard work into it. Because of that, she managed to grow tremendously. The real highlight of the show lies in the middle of the movie, in which Chihiro showed that she isn’t afraid to do the most terrible jobs.

After these scenes, the movie decides to develop Chihiro’s and Haku’s relationship. While not as totally incredible as the previous scenes, the second half of the movie remains enjoyable. It’s so brilliantly written. The ending, even though rather cheesy, manages to be portrayed in a really enjoyable way.

The art also is top notch, but what really excels is the animation. At countless of times, this movie’s animation can even make Gin-Iro no Kami no Agito drool. The scenes really looked stunning at these moments. This effect only gets strenghtened by an amazing soundtrack included.

Overall, if you have yet to see this movie: Watch it! The first half is absolutely stunning, while the anime concludes with a very nice second half. It’s definately a must see.