The end of the year is coming near, and so are my exams again, unfortunately (next week, to be exact). There are some particularly nasty ones among them, so I’m unfortunately forced to cease my blogging activites for a while, in order to properly prepare for them (seeing as blogging does take up a bit too much time to prevent me from concentrating on them). I may be able to make one or two posts, though don’t expect too much. I’ll be back in about 1,5 weeks.

Whoa… seriously! This is a message to everyone with a younger sister: KEEP ALL DOLLS AWAY FROM HER! BURN THEM!!!

Seriously, I can’t believe how good this episode was. Never have I seen such a high-quality tv-series about ghost stories. There is so much mystery going on around Millie, especially considering that every child who entered the house ended up dying. Judging by the climax, it’s the work of the mother of the first victim. Her child probably died due to a natural reason, and she was broken because of it. She couldn’t live any more without thinking of her died child, and when she died herself, she remained as spirit, killing off all children who entered the house, hoping them to be her long lost child.

Also, this episode finally showed that exorcisms do work. At least, with the Monk and the Priest. I’m still wondering about Ayako, who has to do some interesting jobs in the meantime. ^^; Still, it’s an interesting approach, contrasting with the first arc, in which it became questionable whether their powers really worked or not.

Though seriously, there were so many good moments in this episode, it’d be almost impossible to list them all. I especially loved the professional approach to all of this, contrasting to other ghost stories, in which it’s usually a bunch of kids, chasing after a spirit without any proper plan or structure. This time, everyone has a task, there’s a clear leader, things go much smoother, and because of this, the creators can be more creative with the concept. Not to mention that the different characters get more interesting by the minute. My favourite character so far is the Monk. :)

Ah, it indeed was too easy. Souta never met up with his mother during this episode. He only met up with a disguised Cendrion, in order to find his weakness. It’s interesting to see that she’s now actually starting to act for herself, and we also learn that she does have the ability to escape the mirror she’s locked up in. That explains how she managed to recruit Hansel and Gretel in the candy house.

The most interesting part of this episode definitely was Akazukin. For some reason, she sympathizes the most with Souta of everyone. For some reason, she can understand the fact of growing up without the presence of a mother, even though she doesn’t like it. When Souta also leaves the group, in order to return to Erde with who he thinks is his mother, we also see her being more serious than she’s ever been. Even when Baru ended up wounded. This suggests that Akazukin lost her parents at early age as well. This series has been keeping the pasts of both Akazukin and Shirayuki rather secret. All we know is that Akazukin grew up together with Hameln and that Shirayuki is from some kind of prestigious family. I’m really looking forward to the episodes in which their pasts get revealed. :)

There’s also this matter of Cendrion, somehow knowing what Souta’s mother looks like. This means that she has seen her before, which does suggest that she was the one who kidnapped Souta’s mother in the first place. Well then, there are two possible reasons for her to do this.
- She kidnapped the mother of Erde’s key, years after she’d start to chase after him, in order to make use of his weak point as a really, really well planned move. Not a really plausible theory.
- The second reason assumes that Souta’s father indeed was Maren’s loved one who ran away with Souta’s mother, and it was simply an act of revenge. Still, that doesn’t explain the fact that somehow, 30 years on Erde are equal to 1000 years in Fandavale.

I’m actually secretly hoping for our group to get separated somehow, like this episode suggested. There have been a few moments in this anime, which almost suggested that the group would be split in two, but every time, this was just barely avoided. It may be me, being paranoid, though it does seem like a hit towards the future developments in this anime.

Another thing I’m wondering is how Shirayuki will behave in the future episodes, after what Cendrion told her during this episode. Sure, it wasn’t Souta’s real mother, but I’m sure that these thoughts are still inside of her. After all, she was pretty down afterwards.

I don’t know what it is, but I’m really liking the story for Otogi Juushi Akazukin. :)