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.

This show is really getting more excited by the minute. Now that all of the Seirei are present, the story moves forward with huge leaps. Ever since the previous episode, the world has been engulfed by darkness. It’s interesting to see what happens when it does. I like the fact that this anime actually tries to make its magic system believable. Darkness is taking over, making light from both the sun and the moon stop reaching the surface. This means that only man-made light sources can provide a bit of visibility, and even these are restricted. This darkness makes people feel uneasy and worried. This actually is the first anime ever to associate darkness with a feeling of uneasiness and worry.

Luna was great in her worries. The fansubbers also provided an some interesting fact about general Japanese citizens. They’re extremely xenophobic. They just can’t stand anyone who stands out, mostly foreigners. Luna feels the same. She thinks that nobody would accept her if they knew her true form, that’s why she tried to hide it, while she in fact, like Pinon mentioned, looks beautiful.

Narcia also comes with a huge revelation: she’s a forest SPRITE instead of a forest WITCH. With this, Popolocrois Story 1998 also becomes a lot clearer. I always wondered why she was able to fly. It also explains why she has her two-point hat. It’d be perfect to hide her two antennas. She seems to be the daughter of the queen of the forest sprites. It’s also very ironic for Luna to think that Pinon would be totally different from her. After all, he’s 25% human, 25% dragon and 50% forest sprite himself. ^^

At the beginning of the episode, Pinon also admits that he’s scared of the darkness. Marco then begins yelling at him, as a real man should never admit to be scared. Still, he’s shaking while he says this. It’s interesting to see that both of them react differently to the sudden events. Pinon’s more of a honest person. Too honest, perhaps. That’s why he’s so quick to admit he’s scared. Marco, on the meanwhile, has been raised by his mother. No wonder that he’d like to look cool in situations like these. ^^

Also, I like the small detail the creators put in the Water-Seirei’s eyes. As it’s the Seirei of water, its eyes are very quick to get watery, making it cry over absolutely nothing. Very creative. Pinon’s character development also became evident during this episode. He actually proposed to go along with Pietoro on his own. He seems to have gained a lot of courage.

Still, overall, at the same point, Popolocrois Story 1998 as featuring an insane Gamigami who was having difficulties stealing Paolo’s crown. Even though Popolocrois 2003 has been amusing, it has yet to reach the level of amazingness its predecessor did. Unfortunately.

This was probably one of the most neglected shows to air in the fall 2005-season. It’s imaginable why. After all, it’s a shounen-series featuring dogs battle each other. Most people wouldn’t even bother checking out such a stupid concept. Still, this anime definitely didn’t deserve this incredible lack of attention. Because yes, believe it or not, but it’s actually quite good. Some of the scenes it featured were amazing.

I have to admit, I laughed myself through the first couple of episodes. I just kept comparing it to Excel Saga, with hilarious results. The scenes were just too incredibly overdramatic to be taken seriously. We’ve got the son of the legendary leader of a pack of dogs, who’s been living with his mother ever since their homeplace was invaded by a huge bear. Now, one year later, Weed, our main character (appropriately named after a patch of weed), must go back to this homeplace, as another huge monster has invaded it. It indeed seemed like the standard pattern of a shounen-series, in which our main character would fight enemy by enemy.

But then I suddenly caught myself actually enjoying some of the scenes which were shown. The prediction at the previous paragraph was smattered as the series progressed. You see, this is an anime about fighting a war, with our main character as leader. Weed actually assembles an entire army of dogs, creating a huge cast of side-characters. All with their different story and motivation. We get to see some very interesting war tactics, which show that it isn’t that simple to just win a war. The creators also managed to create a number of very interesting bad guys. Who not only have interesting backgrounds, but also look scary at certain times.

There is one aspect in which Ginga Densetsu Weed really shines. Whenever a character dies, this anime is just incredible. The scenes are turned into an incredible spectacle, all dedicated to give the end of this protagonist or antagonist an as large impact as possible, and it works perfectly. At times, these really make you think about war ethics. If you combine this with the fact that this show’s got lots of characters, and lots of them die, then you’re in for something special.

Like I said, this anime has lots of characters. Surprisingly, most of them are just adults. Weed is one of the few kids among them. Another interesting fact it that the story likes to focus on characters other than Weed. There are plenty of chances in which he takes a step back, so that the story can focus at some of the interesting side-characters. Because of the huge quantity of diverse side-characters, this works great.

Still, this anime remains a shounen-series. Even though it breaks away from some clichés, it still follows others. We’ve got a young male in the lead. He’s got superpowers. He survives. Characters fight each other for too long. Weed’s whining and desire not to kill anyone can also get annoying at times, just like other parts of episodes, in which the characters are just having some fun.

The creators have tried an attempt to try and draw the dogs at a serious way, though it’s clear that they never tried to be realistic. After all, dogs would never do what was being shown in this anime. Dogs also don’t pant or do other things which is typical for dogs to do. When characters talk, their mouths don’t exactly move synchronic with the voices. Still, the background music does deliver. It contributes greatly to the overall mood.

Overall, the show’s got bad points, though the good and creative points totally make up for it. If you like anime centred around wars, you’ll probably like this, though you have to get used to the fact that the main characters are a bunch of dogs. ^^

A Shirayuki-episode. And a great one. The group runs into a boy, who offers them a free ride. He also seems to be running a restaurant, so the group decides to eat there. In the end, it turns out that they don’t have any money. Ringo then asks the boy (Hansu) to let them work for their meal. Especially Shirayuki doesn’t like this.

She keeps complaining that she’s one of the best graduates of the magic school, and that she’s not fit to do a job like this. She then start to use magic to do her chores, though Hansu begins to yell at her when she does that. In the end, it seems that Nightmarians once attacked his town, killing his parents with magic. Ever since he hates it. Shirayuki then tries to make it up by doing her chores by hand, including carrying a heavy bucket of water. She was SO cute at that moment. ^_^

Then, a couple of Nightmarians attack. This time, they’re a bunch of frogs. They easily die, and they make Hansu and Shirayuki on friendly terms. Furthermore, Fernando indeed was captured by Cendrillion and he let his pet, Kyupi, escape in order to find the three musketeers. The tale Souta was told by his mother also seems to be common knowledge for everyone, and at the end of the episode, Souta gets a strange card, which makes him glow. When it’s put on those strange devices of the Musketeers, it displays part of this story. I’m not sure why it happened, as I didn’t understand it too well.

An interesting scene happened when Kyupi was being chased and about to be caughed. Right before it happens, the screen switches and the creators decide to show a roasted chicken, Souta was about to feast on. Do you think that would be some sort of sign for Kyupi’s future? ^^

Shirayuki seems to be eager to fight with others if she’s given a reason. She’s already on bad terms with Ringo, and this episode showed the same behaviour with Hansu. Still, when she realizes her mistakes, she’s incredibly cute.

Randagio, meanwhile, got scolded by a scary-looking Hansel, while Gretel seems to have decided to stay out of the action for a while. Cendrillion seems to be excited that Erde’s Key has arrived. I think she’s actually glad that Kyupi’s leading Souta to her.

Seriously… this is the first anime in which I feel that a deaths or disappearance of a character was a huge mistake to do. Apart from Wolf’s Rain, perhaps. Goad, B-Set and Sakisaka really could have been able to contribute to the horrible mess which was episode 20.

Tabby still doesn’t do anything, Phyllo still stands at the same spot, Ovan and Shino are still missing and Haseo is still going berserk. This time, however, not to get stronger, but to find Tri-Edge. He seems to have turned into an all-devouring zombie. Tri-Edge meanwhile has been kidnapped by god-knows-what and Yata and Pai are planning to test Haseo’s power with a strong opponent. Oh, and Pai seems to have awakened just as Haseo did.

Still, there is hope! Touta finally does something useful, ever since his comeback, by trying to get through to Haseo. If the following episodes will feature Haseo, getting back to earth, I’ll be happy. If that’s the case, then this anime won’t be a total waste either. It seems that during the next episode, Haseo’ll also be defeated by some stranger, so who knows.

Phyllo also made an interesting analogy about Haseo. Even if you try to force open a shellfish, it’ll shut itself close instead. But seagulls have an interesting method of opening these: by dropping the shellfish on a rock. Will that have the same effect on Haseo, I wonder? What happens if you just break him. Will he open?

Still, what is this awakening? Why is it so important? And why is Yata after someone who awakened when he can just use his subordinate? And why does it just happen to certain people? And what causes it? What is the connection between Haseo and Pai’s awakening? After all, Pai awakened in a normal field. It also seems that different people react differently when being awakened. Pai seemed to be in pain, though Haseo began to look even more as an undead zombie.

A while ago, when I was browsing through AniDB, I ran into a this anime: Haru no Ashioto The Movie - Ourin Dakkan. It was supposed to air at March 31, but absolutely nobody talked about it. It made me curious. Judging by the artwork, you’d think that people would want to see this. After all, it looked very cute. Still, nobody even mentioned a bit of it. I became interested in it, and after a bit of searching, I found an online raw version. A long time of downloading later (very sloooow torrent), I finally got the chance to find out whether this anime deserved this much neglect.

First of all, let’s face it, this movie isn’t going to win any contests. The low budget really becomes clear after the first minute watching, especially when you look at the character designs. The story isn’t very special either: the setting is an all-girls middle-school. One of the teachers, along with some other students have taken over the school, and beaten up the principal. This movie follows three schoolgirls, trying to free the school. Basically, it’s just a couple of cute girls, fighting each other.

Still, I have to admit. It was actually kindof fun watching this. The girls are surprisingly cute, especially in their antics. The movie also featured some pretty funny moments, because of the fact that either the girls keep either screwing up, get distracted or act just plain random. The fight scenes also were very creative. The creators somehow had to find a way to display fight scenes on a small budget. Somehow, they solved this in a very interesting and amusing way.

Overall, this anime needs to get subbed. The characters are interesting to see. Especially in their cute and funny moments. It’s perfect if you’re in the mood for a light watch.

Honestly… there aren’t few anime who would let their characters make a long journey to some distant place, only in order to discover that the key to solving their problem lies in the place it all began. But for some reason, Ergo Proxy is one of them. And actually, there’s nothing wrong with such a plot twist. It keeps the characters busy, in any case.

But now that I’m looking back, this twist had to come. After all, it was the only way to bring Real, Vincent and Pino back to Raul, Daedalus and Monad. After all, Monad did for a large part of the story but at the same time she was still in Romdeau.

In any case, the episode focuses around Real and Vincent realizing that they have to go back to Romdeau. Remember the rocket from the previous episode? Well, apparently, it hit Moscow. Now nothing’s left of it. While Real and Pino explore the ruins, Vincent seems to be bothered by a nasty headache. In there he has a strange dream. He’s in Proxy-form, somewhere in Moscow. He uses his pendant as a key, to go inside a door, in which an autorave is waiting for him. It seems to be the autorave he left in charge with his lost memories. Apparently, Proxy One let this autorave copy all of the memories he was planning to give to Monad.

The autorave then thinks that Proxy One came back to get his memories. Proxy one, however, kills the autorave and starts crying out of happiness. Vincent then wakes up, back in the Usagi. Real and Pino have returned as well. They then too, somehow find the same room. Vincent then uses his pendant again to open the door. In there, they find the dead autorave, nearly dead. He keeps repeating one sentence, after which he starts uttering the word “Romdeau”. Then, he finally shuts down.

Now, the question remains, when did Proxy One kill the autorave? Was it before he came to Romdeau, or was it in Vincent’s dream? The fact that Real and Pino noticed him sleeping suggests the former, though the fact that the autorave looked just recently destroyed suggests the latter.

Raul, meanwhile, is given his title back. He then pays a visit to Daedalus, who seems to have forgotten about Real, and selected a new one as if nothing happened. This does suggest that Real is replaceable, and it explains why Daedalus said that Real would never betray him. Whenever she does, he’d just create a new one. Still, what do the old Real and the new Real have to do with Monad Proxy? (interesting note: when Raul finds the ball of yarn, he grabs the ball, while the new Real holds the end of the string. Then, she comes running to him, this string is gone and she takes it like nothing happened. Maybe I’m just thinking too much.)

Oh, and Raul still has visions, and has sworn to kill Vincent. It must be convenient for him to know that Vincent’s coming back, isn’t it? Also, who was this person at the beginning of the episode, right next to the explosion? And more importantly, when did it happen? Overall, it was an interesting episode, though it wasn’t extraordinary in any way.

Well, that was rather cure, wasn’t it? This was probably one of the first really slow paced arcs of Tsubasa Chronicle. Clearly, the creators couldn’t manage to fit these two episodes into one, so they decided to stretch them a bit. The result is interestingly enjoyable. Still, a lot of strange things happened during this episode.

Remember when Syaoran planned to steal one of the bad guy’s motors during the previous episode? Well, somehow, this plan gets lost and he and Kurogane only manage to chase them away. Then, they board the bus again, as if nothing ever happened. ^^; The silent, long-haired woman also appears to be a former mechanic of the rail bus, now fleeing as well because of the usual things. She worked too hard, lost sight of the important things in her life, broke down and now attempts to take a break.

The true identities of the two eloping lovers? An idol and her manager. This gets found out when a news reporter conveniently mentions the fact that they’re missing. I have no idea why those bad guys are after them, by the way. It seems to be some kind of revenge, or something, but that’s never explained. In any case, the two of them are eloping because they believe that a relation between idol and manager is taboo.

Also, for some reason, either changing tires on a truck takes an awful lot of time, or the truck managed to catch up an interesting distance. Then the cute stuff begins, when Syaoran manages to land on the back of the truck and the bad guys arrive. All of the passengers on the rail bus are cheering for him, and Kurogane, Fye and even Sakura spend their time with attempting to shoot down the bad guys. For some reason, the bad guys keep their attention at Syaoran, and never even aim for the others. All of this is accompanied by an “interesting” background tune.

Despite the obvious flaws, the episode just remains very enjoyable. It’s like I’ve said before. You don’t need to think too much while watching Tsubasa Chronicle. It’s got a story it wants to tell, and it will tell this story no matter what, even if some parts don’t make any sense at all.