I love the huge contrast between the serious scenes and the laid-back scenes in this anime. The Seirei of Darkness really works as a bad guy, which turns the scenes in which he is featured quite dark indeed. However, Pinon, Luna, Marco and all of the others are just little kids, having fun. The times at which they’re playing with each other really have a very light overall mood. When you combine these two opposites with each other, the result turns out quite interesting indeed. :)

This episode was quite interesting. The Seirei of Darkness comes into action again, he wonders how a little brat called Pinon could have defeated his minions. He therefore makes a plan in order to spy on him. Pinon, meanwhile, is playing with Ulala, Luna, Papuu, Hirarin and Bobo at the ocean. General Gon, who’s supposed to be guarding them looked quite sad in the huge heat in his uniform. The subject of conversation then gets brought to the school. In the end, Luna wants to go to school, and Pinon has to go with her. Something he doesn’t really like.

That evening, the Seirei of Darkness takes an innocent monster over, in order to do something. The next day, Pinon tries to stop Papu, Bobo and Hirarin from going along with them to school, as pets aren’t allowed. Then he and Luna head to school. It seems a small tournament is going to be hosted that afternoon. What follows is just an ordinary day at school, full of detentions as three certain “pets” have been following Pinon into school.

The three annoying classmates also became a bit less annoying during this episode, as they actually played a very major part in it. It starts when they end up cleaning for detention, along with Pinon and Luna. It seems that they indeed were just curious, though Pinon runs away every time they bother him with it. But yeah, I guess he doesn’t like the attention on him. After all, people begin to immediately compare him to Pietoro.

Then, the Seirei of Darkness carries out his plan: create a huge barrier around the school, infest that barrier with monsters and see how Pietoro reacts. Marco, who was supposed to be attending the tournament, also arrives, and meets up with Papu, Bobo and Hirarin. Inside the barrier, General Don managed to turn everything into a tournament: five monsters versus Pinon, Luna and the three annoying classmates, in one-on-one duels.

Meanwhile, it seems that I was wrong on assuming that the third and final Seirei was to be the Water-Seirei. In fact, it’s an Ice-Seirei, as suddenly, the entire ocean has frozen over. Marco, meanwhile, has found a way to go under the barrier through a corridor Pietoro often used to run away from school. Papu, Bobo and Hirarin join him.

In any case, the tournament was predictable, but fun. Luna starts first, after which the three classmates have to fight and Pinon will be last. his indeed meant that one of the classmates had to win against a monster, though the way the creators solved this actually was pretty creative. Thanks to Pinon, for giving them some advice on fighting. In any case:
- Luna has to fight against a Bird of Paradise. These mainly use sound waves which put people to sleep. A couple of earplugs and Luna’s magic were enough to overcome this.
- Second is the first of the classmates (I wish they’d give them some actual names) against a Pitcher, or a squirrel who throws with walnuts. In the end, it turns into a baseball game, in which the classmate attempts to hit the walnut right back at the pitcher, and overpowering it in the confusion. Good plan, though he misses, the walnut bounces back from a tree and knocks the poor guy out.
- The second classmate (Lorris, thank god this one does have a name) doesn’t do much better when he suddenly runs off for a bathroom visit. It seems quite random at first, though surprisingly, the sneak route Marco’s using actually leads to the bathroom. And so, the two of them end up making the school monster-free.
- The third classmate wins in a very amusing way, when the monster, a weak version of a humanoid bull, trips and lands out of the ring.
- Pinon then has to win against the last monster, who was overpowered by the Seirei of Darkness. Bobo, Hirarin and Papu attempt to help him, though Pinon thankfully declines, as everyone has been fighting on their own accord. In the end, Pinon doesn’t win because of his dragon powers, but making the enemy trip as well. This time, though, it wasn’t an accident. ^^;

Still, the Seirei of Darkness exits with the message that he’s found Pinon’s weakness. I wonder what it might be. And I wonder if it’s something Hirarin and Bobo aren’t able to fix. In any case, Luna’s quite upset when she finds out about the ocean being frozen over. Next episode, it’ll be time for the Ice Seirei!

The three classmates were very interesting. It’s clear that they aren’t skilled in fighting at all, though in the end, all of them ended up fighting. Okay, some weren’t as successful, but Lorris actually helped Marco, and saved him, and the other actually won because he wasn’t scared to run away.

For the ones who haven’t seen this episode yet, I’ll just give a small warning: Night Head Genesis is one disturbing anime! You could say that it’s the Higurashi of the Summer-season. People really are driven mad during some of the scenes. Especially the fact that we’re only at episode three of 24/26 shows that there’ll most probably be a lot scenes to follow, which will be even more disturbing than the things we’re shown here.

Heh, I’m beginning to like this show more and more. Remember the vision Naoya had about the woman in red? Where she was strangling that woman? Well, it appears that she’s a serial killer. That totally explains her behaviour from the previous episode. She and her companion were hungry and looked for something to eat. A bar in the middle of nowhere was perfect for this, in order to keep the amount of suspicion as low as possible. This plan, however, backfired once Naota and Naoya dropped by. Once she heard about Naoya’s ability, she wanted to leave as soon as possible. She grabbed her chance after Naota went out of control, though she carelessly pushed him aside, which was enough to trigger Naoya’s visions.

The thing is, that both Naoya as the woman are still being haunted by these visions. The heavier the images are, the bigger the size of the impact is they make on Naoya. Naoya gets plagued by the visions of the woman violently struggling five different women with purple clothes, while the woman keeps seeing eyes everywhere, in combination with the fact that her mind became unstable once she touched Naoya. I think that that’s a nasty side-effect of his powers.

Naoya does realize, however, her motives: she’s crazy. For some reason, she considers every woman in a purple dress as her enemy. And enemies in her eyes have to be killed immediately. It’s not yet clear how she came to think of this. Bad youth? Dumped by a guy for a girl in a purple dress? Blackmail? Her male companion also is an interesting case. He’s in love with the woman, and even though he knows what she’s doing, he’s so blinded by his love that he’ll help her in anything. It’s strange if you realize what a person is willing to do for his loved one.

Naota investigates a bit, and notices that only four victims have been found. The fifth one has yet to be discovered. However, the woman never made any effort in hiding her victims. It’s as if she wanted the victims to be found. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be strange that this fifth body hasn’t been found by anybody? The preview for the next episode had the answer, surprisingly. *note to self: the previews of Night Head Genesis are not afraid to display spoilers. Skip them.* In any case, Naoya also has the ability to see in the future. The fifth woman he saw being killed has yet to be killed. That’s why her body hasn’t been found yet, as it it’s still alive at that time. Not aware of the things (ropes, in this case) to come in the future.

Meanwhile, we learn where Shouko has ran off to: space. It seems that from there, she’s able to see everything. I think that you can compare her power a lot with Naoya. Still, the differences remain. While Naoya needs to touch people in order to get information, she needs to be in space in order to make her powers work. Shouko also has the abilities to see events, while Naoya can see thoughts. It’s not yet clear whether Shouko can read people’s minds as well, but both of them have the ability of foresight. Shouko´s goals, however, aren’t clear yet. Also, does she work alone, or does she have superiors?

We also get a bit more info about Elder Misaki. It seems that Naota and Naoya never knew that he was the one who created the barrier. This explains why they haven’t tried to kill him. Though I wonder why Naoya wasn’t able to just… read his mind and find out that he created the barrier. Or the guy had some special skills which enabled him to forget any memory he has, including the fact that he was the one who created the barrier. We also see some shots of him at his death bed. It seems that the last thing he did was point at the sky (Shouko?).

This series’ art actually surprised me. During the first episode, even though the music was awesome, the art looked really low-budget. Though in the second episode, the art only showed flaws when Naota went out of control. And now with the third episode, the art looks even better. It’s strange. You would expect that the creators would try to make a good impression with the first episode, concerning the art style. They of course did, but the low-budgetty art-style could have turned some people off.

In any case, I liked this episode. So far, the first episode has definitely been the best one in Night Head Genesis, though it’s not very easy to make an episode better than that one. Still, I do love the themes of this anime. And for some reason, this anime reminds me of two other ones: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Jigoku Shoujo. Could that be some sort of sign?