Interesting. An Anubitifu/Guraghief episode. Didn’t see that one coming. It’s an interestingly paced episode, one you wouldn’t expect at this point of the anime.

The thing starts when Anubitufu makes some decisions Guraghief doesn’t agree with. Remember when Mamiina was shot out of the air? Anubitufu also realized something was wrong when the Sybilla transporting her coffin never returned. Anubitufu sees this as a sign that they don’t have control anymore over their own airspace. He also orders Guraghief not to tell the members of the Chor Tempest about this. That’s where Guraghief doesn’t agree. And he gets angry.

Later, we see them in the church, and Guraghief surprises himself over the fact that Anubitufu would hide things from him, and he no longer understands what he desires. Was this only over the fact that Anubitifu told Guraghief not to tell the Sybilla about Mamiina, or did something happen which we don’t get do see. After all, it’s unlikely to make such a fight because of this. In any case, we later see Anubitifu make a little talk with Wauf. Wauf seems to know that the two of them are hostile to each other. Anubitufu reckons that Guraghief’s too earnest. Wauf makes a comment about how it’s such a pity that he’s a man and he advices Anubitufu to make up with him as soon as possible. After all, you never know, don’t you?

Anubitufu tries to make up in a very original way: by piloting a Simire and commanding the Simoun from the battlefield itself. It works in the end, and it seems that Guraghief has also forgot his grudges with this.

Other interesting characters were Aaeru, the Official, especially Paraietta and a bit of Rödoreamon, Morinasu, Kaimu and Waporifu.

Morinasu gets a small injure after a rather reckless attempt to stop an enemy flyer from being able to hit the capital. It’s not often that you think of such a radical method to stop them. Rodoreamon, meanwhile, shows that she’s not good at all with first aid, and she offers Yun Mamiina’s braid. She seems to have put her trust in Yun to take care of her. Waporifu, meanwhile shows that she’s very good with first aid.

The official’s temper keeps going worse and worse, as the Sybilla keep annoying him more and more when they go against his orders. I think that he isn’t used to people disobeying his orders. He’s probably had a lot of experience in wars, in which everything was strictly regulated. The member of the Chor Tempest must be really new for him, making him unable to deal with them.

Aaeru and Neviriru, meanwhile, spend a part of the episode giving their blessings to the common people who seem to have lost their homes. For Aaeru, this is totally new. We know that she doesn’t believe in Tempus Patiem, but still she’s giving out her prayers. It must’ve felt really weird for her to do. But Neviriru tells her that she remains a Simoun Sybilla, a priest of Tempus Patiem. It’s an interesting view on religion. Teh fact remains that Aaeru’s giving a lot of people the placebo-effect. That’s why religions arrived in the real world in the first place. To give people hope and reassurance. Only later, people began to misuse this, resulting in some bloody events.

Paraietta was awesome. Suddenly, she seems to have realized her importance, and she has made a huge change to herself. She’s decisive, serious. Everything a good leader should be. Kaimu’s reaction to this also was too cute, as she actually started fangirling over her. ^_^;;

Speaking of cute, on a side-note, the eye-catch for this week actually showed Guraghief and Anubitufu in their younger years.

Anyway, about the story, an unexpected twist happens. Both the highlands as the archipelago are actually proposing a peace treaty. That, while they can annihilate Simulacrum any minute now if they want to. For some reason, they also attack after they proposed peace. It seems that this was some kind of warning from them, to put more pressure on Simulacrum and make sure it accepts peace.

I’m wondering what the last four episodes will be about. As of right now, it seems that there won’t be much material left. After all, nobody in the Chor Tempest seems to have any problems, peace has been made, that takes away some big plot holes. But still, there are so many details which still haven’t been solved yet. Why was peace proposed? What happened to Amuria? Will Dominüra and Limone come back? What about the sparkly stuff from Onashia?

Still, I have to admit that Simoun’s reached its height at episodes 14, 15 and 16, in which almost each of the characters was feeling unstable. Right now, it hasn’t been able to reach the awesomeness of these scenes. Mamiina’s death was a very good attempt. It worked perfectly. But there are just too many moments outside of this which, while they are very good, are in no way awesome. I’m hoping for the final four episodes to deliver a bang.

Aah, I’ve been longing to see more of The Third, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint. The episode mainly focused at showing yet another side of Paife, though many more things happened at the same time.

First Honoka. She’s getting really unstable now. I really noticed that she’s trying to keep cheerful, in order to hide all her worries. Still, once she’s with her PSP, she really is cheerful. ^^ It also seems that there’s something more to the last episode, in which Honoka cut down the man-turned-monster. She was extremely shocked afterwards. The reason seems to be that she never cut any human before. For some reason, cutting a human feels different from cutting a Desert Ant, Sand Worm, or Blue Breaker. Honoka found out at that moment, and it keeps haunting her, even in her dreams. Still, this gives evidence for two very interesting things. 1. Honoka did kill before, but not with her katana. What happened at that time? Who did she kill? 2. Honoka has been having nightmares like these every night. There must be more things occupying her mind than just Ikus being gone and having killed a human.

Paife seems to be very annoyed when men are around. That becomes clear when Ikus rejoins Honoka. Her personality is totally different from what she was before. She’s more blunt, and not afraid to hide her annoyance of Ikus. In the end, this annoyance leads to a fight between her and Honoka. She’s noticed that Honoka’s feeling uneasy. This also becomes evident when she practices her swordfighting in the evening. That’s why she steps up to her, to try and talk her out of this depression. She thinks that Honoka should know what reality is. She also lets Honoka know that she’s done some horrible things in the past and that Honoka wouldn’t want to be with her if she knew the things she did.

I’m not sure what she tried to accomplishing by fighting Honoka. I think that she wanted to beat some sense into her. In the end, Honoka beat her in both fighting with and without weapons. Ikus, meanwhile, displayed interesting behaviour when he found out about Honoka’s first kill. This does suggest that he was somehow involved with these punks, and apparently, he felt bad about letting Honoka kill a person.

Over in space, preparations are meanwhile taken to activate the Wormhole Drive, or a huge cannon, used in the great war. Just what went on during the great war anyway? It must’ve been pretty bad. In any case, Joganki has found out that Ikus was located near the site of the warped space. It seems that The Third are indeed tracking him. In any case, he then realizes that Honoka has to be with him. Long story short, Honoka will be blasted if she doesn’t move away from the warped space. Ikus knew this, and tried to stop her from going, though he didn’t really try this with enthusiasm.

There are two main reasons why I’m so in love with The Third. The first one is that it doesn’t seem to have any obvious weaknesses. That almost never happens in anime. Even the best ones have one or two small parts that annoy me. The Third has absolutely no flaws at all. It’s building up perfectly. The second one is the characters. Never have I seen characters who are so fleshed out as in The Third. Especially Honoka shines like no other in this department.

Also, someone from within the warped space was calling Honoka. Who could that be? Who wants to contact Honoka from such a place?