… what!?!

Okay, I’m baffled. The last scene of the episode showed such a brilliant plot twist! It only turned my opinion of this series even better. It seems that this series is really kicking off now. The rest of the episode also was a real beauty to watch.

Okay, so here’s the deal. Ibara catches a giant talking fish, who seems to have something stuck in its throat. It appears to be a glass shoe. Ringo tries it on, and suddenly, she can’t stop dancing and disappears over the ocean. When the others go after her, Souta falls in the water, and has another vision. The girl from the mirror appears again, though this time a bit older and she wears the same glass shoes as the one Ringo found. Her name seems to be Maren, and she has a hard time remembering Souta, which suggests that she’s been living quite some time after Souta met her. It seems that she finally found a way to go to Erde, though when she sees the boy she loved, he’s suddenly dancing with another girl. Obviously, her heart is broken by this. I was beginning to like this girl more and more with these scenes. Heh, if I only KNEW about the things which happened afterwards. ^^;;

Randagio, meanwhile, seems to have found Ringo, and Hansel goes after her, as he figures that Souta will probably come after her. He gets the shoe off of her, which shows some interesting reactions at Ringo’s side. Surprisingly, both sides aren’t hostile to each other at all. Only when Akazukin and the others arrive, the fight breaks out. Gretel also helps a bit, as she’s been watching her brother from a distance. The fight was very nice, as it actually involved a bit of tactics. Then, Hansel pushes Ringo aside, which triggers his powers again. Hansel is impressed by the way Souta acted that he retreats for the time being. He then returns to Cendrion, and gives her the shoe. And then everything becomes clear.

Cendrion is Maren! God dammit, I should have known! Maren’s tale originated around 1000 years ago. That’s about the same time as the time Cendrion has been sealed. That explains why Hansel, Gretel and Randagio know so much about the mirrors. Maren was one of the few who knew about them, and as Cendrion, she of course perfectly understood their uses and benefits. Remember also the end of the episode with the village, covered in ash? Not only does this work as great symbolism, but when the group left the village, Shirayuki and Ibara suddenly realized that Cendrion used the same kind of mirrors as the one they ran into. At that time, I only thought that that was meant to explain a bit about the mirrors, but it actually was the first hint we got about Cendrion’s real identity!

The next question is of course: who was that boy? If it is Souta’s father, then how did he end up 1000 years in the past? If it isn’t, then who exactly is it, and what happened to him? As from the next episode, I’m also going to stop looking at the next episode previews. Right now, they’re just getting way too spoilery, as next episode, Souta’s mother will arrive. It’s promising to become awesome. :)

Whoa… someone turned up the pacing and intensity for this episode. I sort of figured that the second case would be more serious than the first case, which served more as an introduction to the anime, but I never thought that the creators would already go this far for only the second arc. There are much less dialogues than in the first arc, which makes this episode really event-based. Overall, it was pretty good. :)

Takigawa Hounshou and Matsuzaki Ayako also returned for this arc, the other ones didn’t. It’s interesting if you look at the roles of the two of them. Takigawa turns out to have quite some knowledge on supernatural phenomena, though Matsuzaki turned out quite useless so far. She tried another exorcism, but she failed yet again. It makes you wonder whether she actually has the ability to exorcise ghosts in the first place. Lin also has an interesting role as technician, though he hasn’t really had the chance to be fleshed out well. I’m guessing that’ll come later.

Mai also has a strange dream this time, again involving Naru-chan saying things to her. Does this have some special meaning? Are these dreams doing more than just reflecting Mai’s thoughts about Naru? Also, the culprit is definitely the doll, but how is she linked to Ayami. Is this ghost really strong enough to influence the way this girl is thinking? Perhaps it used Minnie in order to make contact with her. Then it started talking to her, and Ayami began to act to the things Minnie, and the ghost told her to do.