Seriously. This was an amazing episode! I can’t believe that the creators would go this far, at this stage of the anime.

Okay, so Honoka got mortally wounded. That by itself already was amazing. It’s clear that she’ll recover somehow, as we haven’t reached. But why was I so hoping for her to be safe? Why did I keep wanting her not to die. If an anime manages to do this with me, it seriously has done something special.

Okay, a quick summary. The episode starts rather gloomy, when it seems that Millie still keeps her feelings inside of her. Ever since the previous episode, Bogie has been travelling for three days. During those three days, Millie only smiled once. And that’s when she managed to hit a can with the gun she got from Honoka. Then, they reach the sandstorm with the desert fairy in it, as well as Kanwei and Leon. Leon starts shooting at Kanwei, after which Honoka runs up to him and the two end up in a fight. Honoka looks to be winning, though then Leon blasts two small lasers through her body, and she faints. Ikus takes her back to Bogie, and there it seems that even his healing powers aren’t enough. In the end, all hope is left on Kanwei, who also dropped by.

There’s also a bit of info given about the fairy and Leon. The fairy seems to be called Star Seed. She’s the seed of life, which seems to be spread over the entire universe. Within her, all the genetic data of all living beings is stored. She seems to be travelling all kinds of worlds, collecting DNA, in order to transport lives from here to some kind of newborn planet. I think that she uses the DNA from those she saves in the desert as guidelines. Leon seems to be a phantom, made out of liquid metal. Usually, these phantoms have degenerated into pieces of nothing, though nano-machines make them smart. Phantoms also can absorb each other, in order to become smarter and stronger. It seems that Leon’s absorbed quite a few other phantoms.

The highlight of this episode definitely was the reaction of Ikus, Millie and Bogie to Honoka’s wounds. Millie really was too sad when she found out about this. And especially Bogie surprised me. He always is as objective as possible. But when Kanwei starts doing strange things with Honoka, he suddenly starts yelling, telling someone to stop the wolf. Especially if you consider that he’s actually just AI. In any case, this was a wonderful episode. I won’t be surprised if The Third ends up as the best series of the spring season.

This episode’s main purpose was to introduce a number of new characters. The problem is that their relationships are quite complex. If you combine this with my lack of Japanese, things become quite hard to understand. This episode also was pretty dark, with themes you wouldn’t expect in a children’s anime. The bad guys are no longer the only ones who get slain. Something I never saw coming.

Anyway, a quick rundown of the new characters.

First, we have a strange villager, carrying an accordion. We see him at the beginning of the episode, where he discovers some strange eyes, glowing out an abandoned building. Later in the episode, he warns Souta not to go inside that building, as a monster is wandering around in its wine cellar. I’m not sure whether he’s an important character, or just appeared during this episode. At first looks, he just was a random villager who ran into the monster in the wine cellar, but then again, why did he carry an accordion? And why did he have to act so mysterious (as in, randomly disappearing without a trace)?

Second, a new bad guy. The one with only a single eye. We see him for the first time when he talks to Randagio. He seems to be his superior, or something. His name is spoken, but it’s even harder to figure out how to spell it than with the Bremen City Musicians. I’ll go with Rarudo for now, even though it’s a rather strange name. In any case, he looks quite scary.

Third, another bad guy. He appears along with Rarudo. It seems that his name is Jedo, though for some reason, he wants Randagio to call him “Eternal King Jedo-Sama”. The conversation that he and Rarudo have with Randagio could also mean that Eternal King Jedo-Sama is another major bad guy, who wasn’t present at that time. Otherwise, the guy would be speaking about himself in third person.

The fourth is a character who only appears this episode, seeing as he disappears afterwards. He’s a monster who lives in the wine cellar at the abandoned house, mentioned above. He’s able to take the form of a human, and when Souta meets him, he learns that he isn’t a monster after all. It’s just that he’s become lonely after everyone labelled him as a monster and stayed away from him.

The fifth is the strangest of the bunch. I’m not really sure what he’s up to. He seems to have come to town to slay the monster in the cellar, but he acts nice towards Souta when he finally did so. When Baru found out that the two of them have met, he suddenly got extremely serious. For some reason, the monster names Jedo’s name as well when he’s about to get killed.

I’m not sure who belongs to which party, but it’s great to see that this is not just a fight between good and evil. We have Souta’s side, we have the side of the Bremen City Musicians, we have Cendrillion’s side and now Jedo’s side has also appeared. And why does Randagio seem to have connections with each of the last three of them?

In any case, Randagio was pretty funny during this episode, when he tried to get his hands on the key yet another time. The Nightmarians he summoned were quite creative as well. Instead of summoning one huge creature, he summons a bunch of flees. ^^ Quite annoying if you have no idea how to deal with them. During the end of the episode, he also has a very funny discussion with Cendrillion. She tries to say something to him, but because he’s forced to keep such a large distance from her mirror, he can’t hear what she says. ^^ I love it when he gives the more serious characters a funny side.

Oh, and Raikan, that was the person who was with Cendrillion in episode 10, wasn’t it? *kicks memory*