Okay. That was an AMAZING episode! It’s centered around Waporifu, with Morinasu as an important side-character with a healthy dose of Dominüra. The results are just incredibly awesome!

We start with Aaeru and Neviriru flying around a bit, in search of the enemy carrier. They can’t find it anywhere. The enemy either moved it in order to retreat, or in order to use it for a nasty little plan. In any case, we won’t be seeing a lot from them, as they keep flying around for the entire episode, which equals about a day. It’s very interesting to see that even though Neviriru’s scared about Aaeru, she still managed to fly for more than 24 hours with her, inside a Simoun.

We then switch to Dominüra and Wauf, who conclude that the enemy has been forming alliances. Dominüra wonders about what the “Center” might be doing. I think she means her employers by this. Wauf also tells her that the Messis has to be stationed at the ground for a small while, in order to conduct some small maintenance. Dominüra reckons that there’ll be lots of sad things happening. And how she’s right. Haha! But not in the way she thinks.

Meanwhile, we turn to Waporifu and Morinasu. Morinasu reveals that she’s planning to become a man. Morinasu also is still surprised about the fact that the Simoun Gems can read the Sybila’s heart. It also seems that Morinasu and Furoe had a relationship once. ^^ They broke up, though. Waporifu couldn’t bear the fact that he (she?) was defiling a holy image. What follows is a scene which might be the start of the first actual couple in this series, as it seems that Waporifu starts to get feelings for Morinasu. Morinasu also wonders if the Sybilla really are the big-wigs they’re rumoured to be.

We then switch to the other Sybilla, having fun catching fish in a local stream. Furoe, Limone and Kaimu really are enthusiastic about a fish-trap that Mamiina managed to set up. Paraietta also smiles for the first time since ever. Yun is reading a book as usual. ^^ Dominüra, meanwhile has a little conversation with Waporifu. Dominüra wants Waporifu to dismantle one of the Simoun. Something which has never been done before. After all, if the Simoun were God’s holy image, how come they were shot down? Waporifu also reckons that the Simoun are just machines. Dominüra wants to find out about the secrets the Simoun have been keeping for so long. Waporifu, however, refuses. Like she refused Furoe and tries not to get too close to Morinasu. (On a side-note: Kyuukoku seems to be Simulacrum. At least, I think it does).

We then switch to later, that evening. Waporifu gets some interesting thoughts. When Amuria disappeared, the Simoun was not distorted in a way which did not suggest that she was dragged out. If that was the case, then where did Amuria go? That’s thus far, the only evidence pointing towards the fact that the Simoun indeed are godly. Dominüra, meanwhile, tries to put even more pressure on Waporifu. Morinasu catches the two of them on this, and she finds out that Waporifu’s a terrible liar.

Paraietta and Yun then have an interesting conversation. Paraietta’s getting worried about Aaeru and Neviriru, and she asks Yun to be her pair in case they needed to save the two of them. Yun then holds a cryptic speech. I’ve no idea what she meant, though it seems that she wanted to subtly make something clear to Paraietta.

Things really get awesome when we switch back to Waporifu and Morinasu. Waporifu reveals that she got the request to dismantle a Simoun. Morinasu then comes with quite an interesting opinion. Getting in the Simoun has made her realize something: the Simoun are indeed God’s crafts. I wonder what made her think that way.

We then switch to the evening. The Sybilla all go to sleep, except for Dominüra, and of course Aaeru and Neviriru, who still haven’t returned. Dominüra meanwhile has a conversation with Wauf. He has discovered that she belonged to the Chor Dextra (wait a minute… wasn’t she in the Chor Kaputo?) In any case, the Chor Dextra was only formed in order to complete the Emerald’s Ri Maajon. She’s now member of a certain “Audid Organization”. Wauf then comes with the interesting revelation that somebody’s watching the thing she’s trying to do. This only gets her cornered more and more.

Waporifu, meanwhile, has been thinking. She then heads to Morinasu, in the dormitory. What follows is the first kiss which actually feels like a kiss, if we ignore Limone in the previous episode. That was a great scene. Waporifu exits with her own conclusion: the Simoun are just machines. She spends the rest of the night dismantling one of the Helical Motores of one of the Simoun. Dominüra then returns to her the next morning, for some amazing results.

The Helical Motores were just empty! They just had one big spiral in them, and that’s all. Waporifu is quite astonished when she finds out, though when Dominüra sees this, the breaks down. The other Sybilla are woken up by this, and they see a mentally destroyed Dominüra getting carried away by some staff of the Messis.

Overall, that was just amazing. It’s probably the best episode of Simoun yet. Dominüra, Morinasu and Waporifu were just awesome. I wonder if it’s got something to do with Aaeru and Neviriru being absent. In any case, that was a nice touch.

Memorable Moments: Dominüra seeing the dismantled Simoun. Waporifu and Morinasu at night. Everything was just perfectly built up.

Eusis heads to defeat the dragon. In the world of Good Witch of the West, there are two types of dragons: carnivorous and herbivorous. Eusis first heads for the herbivorous ones, only to stand face to face with a ferocious herbivorous dragon. Firiel is watching him from a safe distance as Eusis grabs all his courage and slays the dragon with great honor. But wait, another carnivorous dragon approaches Firiel. She now has to run for her life in order to stay away from the angry teeth of this ferocious beast. But then, Rouxbow runs off on his own and Firiel rushes in to save the little guy. Then, the dragon closes her in. Firiel prepares for the inevitable. She’s only seconds away from death…

Only to be saved by Roux, who just happened to be in the neighbourhood. I didn’t like that scene. Talk about Deus ex Machinae

In any case, this episode illustrated once more the major flaw of Good Witch of the West: it doesn’t build up. At all. That’s the pity of only having thirteen episodes. This show would SO have profited from thirteen extra episodes. After all, the story is just amazing. If the first thirteen episodes could have been spent at building up and introducing the characters, countries and concepts while the last thirteen episodes would focus at the story, this anime could have been totally incredible. Right now, there were just too many moments at which I kept wondering about certain names which were used (Hermes? Vildo? Cheviat?) The Mahiru-star also has been left without any explanations so far. Does it also function as the major light source in that world, or is it just a pretty statue, which floats around in the air?

And I’m also having a bit of trouble concerning the “big bird’s feather”. According to r3dking, it’s actually called the “firebird’s feather”. Why did Ureshii choose for “big bird’s feather”? I would also have loved for this series to explain a bit more about each of the cities and strongholds visited. I still don’t know the real meaning of Hyragurion. And why did Marie become a maid at the castle?

Okay, that’s enough ranting for now, on to the good stuff. As there were quite some juicy things revealed this episode, which made the story take another turn for the best. :)

First of all, the big firebird’s feather mentioned two ways to become queen. Either hunt dragons or protect the country Torubato from the country Brigeonte. This was incredibly direct, so there’s got to be some kind of catch to it. I have a hunch that Firiel will be the one to figure it out, but that’s not the point. At the beginning of the episode, Leandra figures out why Torubato has to be protected. It seems that Brigeonte’s been rather hostile lately, and it aims to attack Gulair. As Torubato lies between the two countries, it would be troublesome if it were to fall.

Another interesting fact which gets revealed is that Duke Riez is actually alive. The only ones who know this are probably the ones who were present at the night in which he was supposedly killed, so that means Roux, the mysterious guy with the hat and Riez himself. It also means that Riez used some kind of doppleganger, who killed him off, which would explain the body that Eusis found the day after. Or it could be that the real Riez died that night, but the blue guy from the OP managed to survive.

Roux also reveals a major part of the storyline: The Wall. It seems that the Ephemeris-research was really close related to this. It seems that the entire world is surrounded by an invisible wall. What’s behind this wall, nobody knows. It just seems that a lot of dragons come from there. In any case, the Mahiru Star and this Wall seem to be competing with each other, or something like that. Whenever the star gets close to the wall, the wall opens. That’s what the doctor has found out. The Ephemeris will help Roux to prove that the star and the wall are interfering with each other. But what this has got to do with the darkness isn’t clear yet.

The final interesting thing happens when Firiel touches The Wall. Roux promised her to take her to the wall, in order to disappear forever afterwards. Roux’ plans change when a great light appears which swallows Firiel up, leaving no trace at all. This probably has a lot to do with the big firebird’s feather, though we need to wait till the next episode to find out. Nevertheless, it’s a very interesting development indeed.

Overall, despite its flaws, I’m still enjoying Good Witch of the West. It’s got an awesome story, after all.

This was a fun episode. It centered around Aaeru and Neviriru. Aaeru’s thick-headedness and Neviriru’s hestitant nature were put in the spotlights, with some satisfying results. The other characters also provided some nice development.

We start the episode with the characters reflecting the previous episode. Dominüra seems to have put Kaimu and Aruti together as an experiment. To see whether they would go well together. Kaimu and Aruti then acknowledge that the two of them can’t pair anymore. It’s because Kaimu rejected Aruti as her pair. Rejecting your pair is the same as rejecting your Simoun, hence the distorted Simoun-gem from the previous episode.

We then switch to the dormitory, in which the lack of enemy movement is getting on Furoe’s nerves. She’s getting bored with the lack of activity, Yun scolds her about this. Furoe unleashes her anger upon Rödoreamon’s stuffed animal, who doesn’t quite survive this ordeal. This provides some funny material for later in the episode. ^^

Rödoreamon meanwhile has decided to help Mamiina with the households, and she keeps getting impressed by her. The bond between the two really has increased a lot.

Meanwhile, outside, the inevitable happens: Aaeru learns about the Emerald Ri Maajon (Doremi translated this as the Jade-Remergon, for some unknown reason. Emerald seems to be the right way to translate it, though). In any case, I was expecting her to do something stupid, though Aaeru really surprises everyone when she does the most stupid thing you can ever imagine.

She runs towards Neviriru, in the middle of the dining room, and promptly asks Neviriru to do the Emerald Ri Maajon with her. Aaeru speaks about Amuria like she was just ordinary dust. Aaeru doesn’t seem to realize that Amuria’s a sensitive subject. But that only makes that scene more fun. Aaeru really proves that she’s able to do things nobody would dare to.

The others have interesting reactions when this happens. Neviriru gets incredibly scared and walks away. Paraietta begins to yell at Aaeru, though she follows Neviriru in the end. Limone wants to help Aaeru, though Rödoreamon stops her. Mamiina rushes off immediately when a couple of plates fell on the floor (an interesting reaction. She, didn’t really care enough about Neviriru, so she noticed that she needed to take action). Yun and Kaimu both scold Aaeru after Neviriru left. Dominura observes everything which happened without involving herself and Furoe takes Aaeru towards a quiet place in order to teach her a few things.

As Aaeru’s incredibly thick-headed, Furoe isn’t able to make clear to Aaeru that Neviriru loved Amuria. Aaeru hasn’t fallen in love yet, so it’s only natural. Still, Aaeru does seem incredibly oblivious to the phenomena called “Love”. Aaeru did, however, pick up one thing about the definition of love: if two people want to kiss outside of a Simoun-flight, then it’s love. Overall, Furoe was quite funny in this discussion. You can really see that she’s having trouble with Aaeru’s incredibly to-the-point personality. ^^;

Neviriru, meanwhile, locks herself inside an empty room, gets some freaky flashbacks about Aaeru and Amuria, she begins to scream and faints. In one way, Aaeru acted like an incredible idiot. But on the other hand, Neviriru has been locking herself in. She still has a trauma from when she lost Amuria, which keeps haunting her mentally. At the moment, Aaeru keeps bringing this trauma to the surface. It may be painful at first, but it does make Neviriru confront her fears. That, or she might totally lose it. Depending on her own strength.

Paraietta managed to find Neviriru, and put her on a solitary bed in a dusty room. Aaeru, meanwhile, tells her new discoveries about love to Limone. The results are quite amusing when Limone ends up kissing Dominüra, later that evening. (^^;) Dominüra was a bit agitated before, as permission to go after the enemy carrier from the previous episode kept getting delayed. She was also getting worried about a certain “Kyoukoku”. It was interesting to see Dominüra worrying about the decisions of the officials like that. It was even more interesting to see Limone’s actions towards Dominüra, and seeing her reaction to this. ^_^

Aaeru, meanwhile, keeps trying when she enters Neviriru’s room through the window. After this, another kissing scene follows. (I bet the yuri-lovers will be very enthusiastic with this episode ^^) Neviriru keeps ignoring Aaeru, though. Paraietta gets to be the one to break them apart. Neviriru then wants to be alone again.

Meanwhile, a very funny scene follows in the dormitory. Every main character except for Neviriru, Paraietta, Dominüra and Aaeru’s there, and they first reflect a bit about Amuria. It seems that she was a very strong person. Everyone was scared to mention this to Neviriru. Then the amusing things begin when Rödoreamon finds out about Furoe’s treatment to her stuffed animal. It seems that Furoe tried to sew it afterwards, while she can’t sew at all. The results are quite hilarious. It’s great that they people can still laugh, even with such a gloomy atmosphere. It was a nice touch. ^^

The next day, Dominüra decides to not wait for official orders to destroy the enemy carrier from the previous episode, and she sends Aaeru and Neviriru on a solo-mission. Aaeru’s very enthusiastic when she hears this, though Neviriru and Paraietta object. It’s the first time that Neviriru really objects, and Paraietta manages to send her out anyway. It’s probably because Neviriru believes that the Simoun-gem will probably get corrupted, just like in the previous episode. After all, after what happened, she believes that she’s got no other choice than to reject Aaeru as a pair.

The look on her face, when she saw the Simoun-gem shining to its full extend was amazing. What was even more amazing was the statement with which she ended the episode. She wonders how it could be possible for her to accept Aaeru, when she’s actually scared of her. This can promise to be incredibly interesting for future episodes.

Overall, this was a very fun episode. Especially Neviriru’s development was awesome. Dominüra also was quite interesting. It seems that she indeed has a personality. Furoe’s also quite funny, despite her bratty behaviour.

Memorable moment: Limone x Dominüra ^^