Death Note’s huge power comes from the power of surprises. This anime really is one of the best anime out there when you look at that aspect. But, at the same time, while this is a huge strength, it’s also a huge weakness: because it’s so focused on surprises, it has almost no rewatch value. I’m seeing this from lots of sides. People who’ve read the manga really can’t seem to enjoy this anime, which is perfectly understandable. This is one of these anime you do NOT want to get spoiled on.

There was one thing I didn’t like in this episode: Ray Penbar’s girlfriend. She’s a former FBI-agent, but after she met Ray, he forced her to quit her job and work as a housewife. Emancipation, anyone? Ah well, it seems that she’ll become the next antagonist to cross Light’s paths, so I think we can expect a bit of background from her, which will hopefully explain why she chose to leave the FBI. Another thing I didn’t like about this episode was that L secretly hoped that Light was connected to one of the remaining police officers. It just remains too coincidental that Kira’s father just happens to be the police investigator who’s in charge of his investigation. That’s a chance of about one out of one million (or whatever the amount of people is who live in the Kantou-region and could have a child of Light’s age is).

Okay, those were the things I didn’t like. Now for the things I did like. :) First of all, Light’s actions at the first half of the episode really surprised me, in a very good way. You would suspect that he’d try not to be seen, though he actually reveals to Ray Penbar that he’s Kira, without showing his face, and makes him kill all the FBI-agents who were sent to Japan to investigate on Kira. Never thought that he’d actually attempt to do such a reckless task. It just shows how much research Light is putting into his plans.

Another thing I really liked about this episode was the police. Lights father offers every agent on Kira’s case the chance to resign, as it seems that everyone who stands in Kira’s way dies. This only leaves a total of six people on Kira’s case. And suddenly, the police officers all get their own personality. Something which couldn’t be done with such a huge number of people on the case. I’m hoping that each of these officers will turn into someone significant, later in the story, as they’re really interesting characters. L’s decision to reveal his face also was great to see.

And, of course, a number of small details:
- Ryuk not knowing that you can write the cause of death first, only to write the name of the victim later and the Death Note will still work, and especially his reaction when he found out about this.
- “L, do you know shinigami only eat apples?” A very creative way to tease L. (^^;)

This series is pacing forward really fast. You’d wonder how Light’s struggle versus L can keep up for 32 more episodes. Some strange things really have to happen in order to make this happen. I’m very interested to find out how this story will be continuing.

After the previous episode focused on Karada, this is another episode focused on Shoko. I think I’m starting to see a pattern. If things go right, the next episode will focus on Karada again, and she probably has to confront Tetsu with the way she’s become. It’s a choice the creators made, and it does make sense. So far, it’s worked out extremely well.

Like I said, the current episode focuses on Shoko. It’s a light episode, compared to the previous ones, but that doesn’t make it less awesome. Karada, Hiro and Shoko now are living in one house, and they’re starting to turn into a family. The episode focuses on Shoko, getting used to the lifestyle of a child again. For starters, Karada now sees her as a little child, and treats her that way, trying to place as less of a burden on her shoulders. You can see that Shouko’s rather pissed off because of that.

We also see Shoko, visiting a child’s playground, trying to imagine what the life as a child would be like. When she used to be a child, she never played with the other children, as they’d often say that she was a boring girl who’d never play with them. During her first visit, she runs into a new side-character. Kotomi. She seems to be an acquaintance of Tetsu, and, as she just thinks that Shoko’s a cute little girl who doesn’t have any friends, she actually asks a couple of playing kids whether Shoko can play along. So cute. ^_^

In the end, Shoko ends up playing till sunset with a bunch of children, and actually haves fun at it. Then it also seems how much Karada has attached herself to Shoko, as she actually starts to get very worried when Shoko doesn’t return home. This’ll probably be used in the later episodes. I can’t wait. ^_^

Seriously, this was such an excellent episode. Thank goodness Chaos turned out differently from the subtle love rival. In fact, he wasn’t subtle at all during this episode. Apart from that, there was lots of more goodness, both from Sakura, Syaoran, Fay and Kurogane, as this episode delves a bit into the past of each of them. Definitely awesomely executed.

So, here’s the case: Chaos ran into Sakura when she was young, when he sought an audience with the king of Clow as the king of his world. At that time, he promised Sakura to accompany her in her travels some day, when she was allowed to travel. Apparently, over the years, this promise turned into an obsession. Like I said, he wasn’t very subtle in this. When he confronted Sakura with the truth, he just assumed that Sakura felt the same way about the matters as he did, and would go with him no matter what.

Syaoran, Fay and Kurogane, meanwhile, are confronted with a bit of illusion magic, which takes the form of a person, dear to them. In Syaoran’s case, it’s Seishiro. I think we’ve seen him at the end of the first season. Though his case is the least interesting of the three. Kurogane meets up with his father again while Fay actually sees King Ashura. Both their reactions were so awesome, and the background music really gave a helping hand in these scenes. ^_^

Well then, when Sakura refuses, Chaos reveals that all this is his doing. He calls Syaoran, Fay and Kurogane back, in order to show Sakura how powerless the three of them are, and thus how pointless it is to continue travelling with the three of them. And he actually takes out both Fay and Kurogane. Something that doesn’t happen often. Especially the cliff-hanger was very, very powerful.

Then, there’s also the case of Wei Fong. Apparently, they’ve located a huge source of power. At first, I thought it was the bird, though when Xing Huo (apparently Fei Wong’s assistant’s name) enters the world in person, she actually heads for a strange tower, instead of the bird’s liar. Furthermore, they also don’t know that Syaoran and Sakura are in that very world, do they? The question then also remains whether this bird actually exists or not. It could be a creation of Chaos, in order to trick Sakura and find a good excuse for Syaoran to be busy for a couple of hours. After all, Mokona never felt the huge amount of feathers on the bird. Rather strange, don’t you think?

I’m seeing a lot of people get turned off by the second season because of the huge amount of ‘pointless fillers’. But these fillers are actually far from pointless. They dedicate a great deal of time in fleshing out our main characters. In fact, I actually think that the entire second season of Tsubasa Chronicle was dedicated for fleshing out its characters. Wei Fong was put out of the picture for a while because of Yuuko’s work, and because of this, Syaoran and the others were free to choose the worlds they could travel to.

During these travels, each of the members of the main cast changed. Especially Sakura got a lot of attention, as she changed from the girl who couldn’t do anything to a girl who can make her own decisions, and think for herself. Fay changed in a more subtle way. He’s actually getting more involved with Sakura and Syaoran, and I actually think that he’s slowly beginning to show things of his real self. Kurogane got a full arc dedicated to his past, fully explaining the way he lived, and why he lived the way he did. Syaoran changed more subtly, though I could swear that he’s more talkative than that he was at the beginning of the series. And Mokona also showed his worth, in the couple of episodes in which the fate of our protagonists rested on his… erm… paws.

The fact also remains that there’s quite an amount of manga-material left in order to fill the third series. I’ve never read anything of the manga, so I’m not exactly sure, but things would have to move very strange if the third season would follow the same format of the second season. From the few things I’ve read, the manga is actually nearing its closure, which means that with a bit of luck, it’ll be over when the third season starts. This means that if all the second season has been doing is building up for the third season, the third season will probably be awesome, from beginning to end.

I SO hope I’m right, as this series is too awesome to ruin.