Finally we have the Akazukin-episode, though she didn’t get any character development like Shirayuki, Ibara and Ringo did when they got their own episode. This episode was rather meant to show what would happen to Ibara and Shirayuki if Akazukin was absent from the three musketeers. Well, they’d get their ass kicked. ^^;

Basically, what happens is Akazukin getting sick due to the poisonous spores of another Nightmarian. Then it seems that Souta and the others ended up in another village with its own legend: Salamandra-sama. There’s a huge statue of a dragon at one place in the village. The villagers believe that it’s actually a good spirit who protects the village from all sorts of harm. In order to show their appraisal to Salamandra-sama, the villagers have come up with a very strange ritual, they perform in front the statue. Even if there’s a bloodthirsty monster right next to it.

Gretel then gets to be the one to track the group down, with the same basketball Hansel used in episode 6. She comes in, breaks the statue and remodels the rubbish in order to turn it into a giant seahorse, who charges after Shirayuki, Ibara and Baru. The interesting part in this episode was the way the villagers reacted. Taking into account that the spirit they believed for so long suddenly turned into a giant seahorse, destroying everything on its path, it’s no wonder that they’d get angry.

In the end, the Souta and Akazukin (who managed to wake up in the end) are able to concince that Salamandra still is a good being. Gretel then gets defeated, with a little help from Salamandra-sama himself. It’s quite ironic. While it was clear that Akazukin beat the Nightmarian at the beginning of the episode, the glory gets put to Salamandra-sama, while when Salamandra-sama destroys the giant seahorse, Shirayuki and Ibara thought that Akazukin had become so good that she was able to shoot huge fireballs in the form of dragons. ^^

It’s also strange that Gretel was the only bad guy who appeared in this episode. The villains from the previous episode are nowhere to be found, even Randagio and Cendrion were absent. Ah well, it does add some versatility. It’s great to see a villain again who’s been absent for a couple of episodes.

Also, never let Akazukin, Ibara and Ringo sleep at one place. ^_^;;;

It seems that we’re dealing with probably a three-episode arc. This one probably set up preparations, so that the next one can finish with a bang. It was pretty amusing, as some rather comical elements have been thrown in. These worked really well. ^_^

Anyway, a quick rundown on the important things that happened:
- Rona Fauna is a member of The Third.
- It’s better to charge in fast than try to take out every guard at Rona Fauna’s place.
- Ikus is back.
- Blue Breaker is back.
- Honoka will be coming in with an airplane. Both the airplane (Honoka named her Juliet) and Blue Breaker have been proven not to be taken over.
- It seems that Rona Fauna relied too much on the fact that The Third wouldn’t attack her base because Joganki was in it.
- Someone erased the data of Rona Fauna from The Third’s main database. Only a representative of “the House of Commons” could have done it. No idea what that might be.
- Rona Fauna has two helpers. One with purple hair, and one with very light, violet hair. They could be the same person, though.
- For some strange reason, Rona Fauna has the same face and hair as her helper (the one with light violet hair).

Hmm, the current arc isn’t really that good. Not enough pain and suffering. Except for the vision with the little girl. That one was great. It seems that the main plot is something else than the dangerous disease which spread, and if things all go well, the woman who attacked Naoya will be killing Kurahashi and end up in jail. With that, things are solved. I hope that the creators can bring some kind of twist to this, and I’m secretly hoping that the virus will be escaping in the end.

You could wonder whether the things Kamiya Tsukasa did are good or evil. From his point of view, he saw numerous of things, and I think that he couldn’t bear just telling nobody about them. But because of this, he does have influence on people. If he never spoke of anything he saw, then the woman who attacked Naoya would have never attacked him. I think he does realize this, but keeps telling himself that it doesn’t matter that much.

Even though this episode was rather bad, I do have hope for this show. Lots of times, we see a small reference to a future arc, which is afterwards never mentioned again. We already know that Night Head Genesis is great with toying with these things, so I’m looking forward to the episode in which the doll girl, the woman with the umbrella, Shouko and many others return. The next episode will also be a good chance to find out about the nature of the events foreseen. Shows tend to use them in two ways. The first way is show a vision of the future in which bad things happen. The one who saw the vision then rushes to prevent the bad thing and everyone’s happy again. The second one I like more. A vision is shown, and no matter what, it does happen. It’s like destined to happen.

You don’t often her people talk about Ningyo no Mori, or Mermaid’s Forest. It’s a shame, as it’s pretty darn awesome. You could call it a mystery romance with lots of morals and ethics, though it’s way more than just that.

Ningyo no Mori has chosen an extremely strong theme to be centred around: immortality. You can do so many fun things with it. The case is like this: there’s a legend about mermaids. Whenever you eat their flesh, you have the chance of becoming an immortal being. Still, only once every century someone manages to actually become a true immortal. Most people become disfigured, berserked humans, destined to spend the rest of their lives in agony. The story focuses at two people, who did manage to become immortal (after all, you wouldn’t have much of a story if they didn’t, right? ;)). One has been roaming around for 500 years, until he met up with the other, who had just been fed some mermaid’s flesh, in order to become food for the mermaids themselves (watch the show in order to know the reason for this. ;)). Right now, they’re travelling the world, in order to find a cure for their immortality.

With this concept, the show is able to do some amazing things. It consists out of a number of arcs, each focusing at a human who had some kind of experience with either a mermaid, or mermaid’s flesh. Each and every one of those arcs manages to drive to the boundaries of right and wrong, with amazing results. The fact is that being immortal isn’t that fun, and certain people become obsessed over the mermaid’s flesh, without even knowing that most people just get turned into hideous monsters for the rest of their lives. This anime really is excellent in toying with morals, ethics and most importantly, human lives. Most often, we run into people who have been suffering from the direct or indirect effects from the mermaid’s flesh for over 40, 50 or 60 years. One extreme case even lived as long as 800 years!

I have to say that each and every one of the cases, introduced in the different arcs were just awesome to see. They really belonged in the category of incredibly unique stories. Each episode, plot twists happen which you SO wouldn’t expect, only making each of these stories better and better. My favourite arc remains the one with the face-changing woman. So many original concepts are used.

And I haven’t even started about the art yet. Even though the characters look rather blend at first sight, the creators do know how to make characters scary. Evil characters are portrayed in such an amazing way, and during the climaxes of the show, the art really contributes to the overall feeling. The creators also came up with an extremely fitting soundtrack. By itself, it isn’t really special, but somehow, it really fits with the overall themes of this show.

Still, there’s one bad thing about this anime. The ending is rather anticlimactic, and left me with a rather bad feeling. Nothing really is resolved in the end, it’s really like some kind of open ending.

Overall, I really recommend this anime. It’s only 13 episodes, so it’s perfect if you have a bit of spare time. Especially if you like shows that really toy with human lives, it’s worth to check this one out. I greatly enjoyed watching it. ^^