Program was very interesting. The art style this time resembles that of old japanese samurai-anime. If you combine this with the extremely fluent animation and choreography, the result turns out interesting.

We’ve got a woman, inside a mini-matrix. Another guy comes up, and challenges her for a spar. He then makes a confession to her, while he has blocked the signal so nobody can hear him. He plans to go back to the matrix. The woman doesn’t agree. She can’t turn back from the truth. The two make a small chase, after which the woman kills the guy. In the end, it appeared to be a test for her, to see whether she’d react in the right way. The woman isn’t really happy with it.

The interesting point of this film is the emotional effect the matrix can have on a person. The guy appeared to be a simulation, but when you’re in the matrix, or mini-matrix in this case, you won’t notice. A program was created so, that it would look like the guy she knew in every single way. If that’s the case, how ever can you recognize whether that guy is a fake? In normal anime, people often recognize this because they feel something different, or that their heart knows that they’re being deceived. But the fact remains that the matrix can create these feelings.

Program also had a few claustrophobic moments. The program tells the woman that he’s blocked the signal. When she starts screaming for help, nobody reacts because of this. It must be quite a scary feeling, when you always know that you can escape a “dream”-world because of your comrades. I think that that’s a reason for people to be calm in situations like these. It must be a huge shock to find out that you don’t have a means of returning to the real world. Especially if someone’s about to kill you.

Overall, it isn’t the best. It has yet to reach the brilliance of World Record. Still, it was an interesting watch. The fights also were well-coordinated and full of details, though I admit that they lacked a bit in creativity.

Ah, CGI. Yet another style of animation, totally different from the others. This, however, doesn’t really mean that Final Flight of the Osiris is good. It’s actually the worst film so far.

See, the problem with Final Flight of the Osiris is that it has awesome graphics, but zero substance. Basically, what happens is a man and a woman are inside a mini-matrix, sparring with swords in sexy outfits when their ship suddenly gets attacked by robots. The rest of the film basically features lots of guns fired at these robots and the robots getting inside the ship and destroying it, causing as much explosions as possible in the process.

The action scenes it features also aren’t very exciting. The fight in the mini-matrix is basically two people stipping each other’s clothes off. The sound effects also made no sense at all. Swords cut way too easily through air. And even though the choreography looks interesting, it remains uninspired. The robots attacking the ship also aren’t very worthwile. Basically, we see lots of guns shooting and robots crawling, but nothing that looks impressive.

Also, sorry for the lack of screenshots. I played this one in a weird format which doesn’t support screenshots, and I only managed to take one of them before my computer started acting weird. And I’m not exactly motivated to spend time to this one.

Wow…

This episode was just incredible. This is what Tsubasa Chronicle should be, in every single way. A true masterpiece.

We get to see an episode entirely devoted to Kurogane’s past. He used to be the son of a demon-slayer and priestess. The country he lived in was the Japan Country, or rather Nihon Country. In this country, monsters and demons have been roaming free. Kurogane’s mother has been creating a barrier to keep their lands free, which takes a toll from her health. This border isn’t really perfect, and his father slays the ones that get through. An interesting fact is that Kurogane and Tomoyo seem to have different names. I think that that’s because of the different languages spoken in the worlds.

In any case, when he was young, Kurogane was an energetic little fellow. He really loved his mother, and he always looked up to his mother. Because his father was a demon slayer, he became inspired to learn how to fight. Over time, he began seeing his father as a rival. Then, at one night, it happened. Kurogane’s father ran into an extremely strong demon. His mother attempts to weaken it, even though her health already is incredibly weak, in order to help her husband. Still, she fails, and dies. Kurogane breaks when he sees this. When he sees his father, being devoured by the demon as well, he loses his mind and goes berserk.

That was so amazing. Afterwards, Kurogane has slain the demon, and continues to idly sit in his rampaged state. Tomoyo and her big sister then arrive, because of a dream she had. She then manages to calm him down, and he starts crying. In the end, it seems that Syaoran picked up a book in a library somewhere. This book told him Kurogane’s history. It’s indeed no wonder that he also starts crying afterwards.

With this episode, my respect for Kurogane has gotten even bigger than it already was. This episode explained bit about how he became the person he is today. We still don’t know what happened to him while he was under Tomoyo’s service, though I do have some theories. I believe that afterwards, he was admitted to the royal army, though somehow, he kept setting his mind on battles. He only wanted to fight stronger opponents, probably in false hope of getting his father and mother back. Over time, these feelings subdued a bit, though his lust for fighting didn’t. That’s why, once he was the strongest in the country, and kept causing trouble, Tomoyo decided to send him to Yuuko.

Interesting. Someone actually named the Seirei of Darkness. The name was Yasm, though it’s unknown who it was that named it. But then again, it does make sense. After all, Yasm is about to be defeated and we still have 15 episodes to go. Something has to be driving the latter half of the anime.

In any case, this episode was pretty straightforward. Pinon and the others are in the Holy (holy?) Precincts of Darkness, head to Yasm’s castle, battle a bunch of monsters, Pinon slays Yasm, the power of darkness grows weaker and Yasm transforms into a huge owl-like monster.

There was one interesting part about his episode. The darkness was making people uneasy, and the group got separated. They then began seeing illusions of others, talking behind their back, portraying their worries. Pinon began to fear whether Luna, Marco and Papu were really on his side, because of some jokes Marco made earlier. Marco believed that Pinon and Luna just saw him as a nuisance, while Luna still worries whether Pinon and Marco accept her.

Popolocrois continues its story about the adventures of Pinon and his friends, but it does seem to be missing something. I’m hoping for the second part of this anime to redeem it. It’s not like this anime is bad, or anything, but it just crumbles if you compare it to its predecessor, Popolocrois Story 1998.

Aah, I’ve been waiting for this! I’ve been dying to know how Pietoro’s adventures would continue, and I have to say, this was an awesome episode!

It all starts when Gamigami discovers that the roses he prepared for Hyuu have been eaten by someone. He immediately blames Pietoro, though Sanda seems to be the culprit. This doesn’t stop Gamigami’s grugde against Pietoro from becoming worse, so he puts it all in building his new invention: Gaminator. And yes, it is as scary as it sounds. Probably Gamigami’s strongest invention thus far. It’s powered by the anemoritos.

Still, like every invention of Gamigami, something goes wrong. This time, it’s the target detection system. The robot first has to lock on a target, though this takes a while, and the target mustn’t move during that time. Once the target has been identified, Gaminator will stop for nothing until he annihilates his target. Guess what happens? Because Pietoro can’t keep still, Gamigami forces him to stop moving. Gaminator then scans both of them, making both of them the target.

And if you think that this wasn’t great, the story takes another turn for the better when it starts focusing on the main story. Narcia ran into Hyuu, looking for Gamigami, Ston and Sanda with the message that Pietoro’s in trouble. The wind-kind, meanwhile contacted Ston and Sanda. Hilda, meanwhile, got her hands on the item she set Narcia out to deliver for her. It’s a seed from an ancient tree, it’s able to tell the history of the world. In her first attempt, she goes a bit too far back in time when the seed tells her about how the world was born. Once there was darkness. Into that darkness, the will of light, Duon was born. Duon then created the heavens, the earth and the seas. Nice info, though not really useful.

The second attempt reveals quite some interesting information. Once, the wind-king, the dragon-kind and the human-kind tried to unify their powers by using the anemoritos. Once this happened, a huge catastrophe occurred. At the same time when she discovers this, Hyuu tries to take out Gaminator by using her wind powers. The same Gaminator, carrying the anemoritos, already filled with the power of human and dragon kind. The wind-kind realizes this and tries to stop Hyuu, though he gets hit by the Gaminator and disappears. That was so awesome. Hyuu doesn’t realize this, so she fires at the anemoritos once again. Because of this, its power has become too big, and it explodes.

We also get some nice background information about Gamigami. He’s born with nothing, and because of this, and his eccentric personality, he decided to build his own country. Beloved by everyone. That’s why he hates Pietoro, because he keeps getting in his way. Man’s romance seems to be his way of living. It was a surprising, though appreciated bit of information.

This episode entirely changed my view of the wind-kind. After all, all he’s been doing is trying to get Hyuu back. He does love her, in the end, though he has no idea what’s happened with her on when she was away. He also really tried to protect Hyuu, no matter what.

The tombstone, shown at the end of the episode also was quite interesting. Remember around episode two, when the small print of the wind-kind was shown? It seems that it was part of a larger image. A dragon is flying at the top. Wind-kind are flying below it while humans are working at the ground. I’m not sure about its meaning, yet.

Something happened in the past. The dragon-kind, human-kind and wind-kind tried to unify their powers, using the anemoritos, as a step towards the future. This, however, backfired an a huge force was unleashed. Something happened, in which the wind-kind and dragon-kind were severely damaged. The human-kind possibly as well. In the end, the wind-kind died out for some reason afterwards. The dragon-kind still are alive, though they’re very rare. The human-kind somehow managed to recover a bit. It’s probably because they’re the hardest workers of the three. They’ve got the least amounts of power, so they had to already live their lives working hard. Something the dragon-kind and wind-kind had less problems with.

Overall, this episode was amazing. Not the best, but definitely among the better ones.