This episode showed a flashback, in which Ryuuki told Shuurei and Eigetsu that he hid the seal of the Sa-clan at a very safe place. He didn’t say what that place was, but Shuurei would know immediately if she saw it. It made me wonder what Ryuuki might have meant. What could be safe enough, when the Satsujinzoku checks even checks all steamed buns? Then the next episode followed.

That most definitely was one of the most awesome scenes I’ve seen in a while! While it’s already at this extremely high quality, Saiunkoku Monogatari only keeps improving with each episode progressing! Of course Ryuuren would be the perfect person to trust the seal to. I should have known. ^^ But that’s not the only thing that made this episode great, seeing as Shuurei finally had the chance to display her strength again, being away from “Lin Senya”. Go Shuurei! ^^

Speaking of that bastard, I think I’ve got an idea who he might be. There’s one member of the Sa-clan who keeps getting mentioned, but never gets shown on the screen. It’s Sa Soujun’s younger brother, Sa Sakujun. There has to be a reason why he hasn’t been mentioned yet. Something’s telling me that both Sa Chuushou, as Sa Soujun as Sa Sakujun as Sa Kokujun have their own plans they want to get executed.

Also, Eigetsu and Kourin are into a bit of trouble now that they’ve been discovered. I wonder how they were discovered. I’m suspecting that Sa … had some kind of role in this. Eigetsu also revealed quite an interesting thing. He isn’t really a genius at all, just someone who studies. Still, he did find a number of creative ways to study. Just for that, the guy deserves credit.

Ooh, a new OP. At least, an enhanced op. The still frames from the original OP now have a bit of movement added to them. Makes for an interesting effect, I like it. Anyway, about the episode, I’m beginning to love this show more and more.

Especially Hervé. I love this guy. Especially when he he’s near Lise, he really is too mean against her. ^^ It may be a bit mean, but I loved how he told her that he was meeting Kate, in that extra-mean voice. It’s been quite an eventful episode for him. First the date with Kate and at the end of the episode, … collapsed. He’s quite pitiful, seeing as it now seems that the two girls aren’t really necessary anymore for the survival of his family, so doctor Bender starts ignoring the two of them more and more. It really gives Hervé a good reason to hate Lise.

Apart from Hervé, the episode focused mostly on Kate. Rose also made some interesting development, and we learn something interesting about Lula and her companion. It seems that they’ve got connections with the school’s headmistress. That might explain how they learned about Rachel and the others in the first place, and something tells me that a lot of their victims come from the same school.

Meanwhile, the inevitable happened: someone told Rose about how useless she is. She finally gets inside a situation in which she has no option of running away or hiding behind others, and she gets too scared. While Kate, Rachel and Claire grew while they fought, there actually was no real need to have Rose around. Because of that, she didn’t really have a reason to grow as well. Though things got a bit tougher with two monsters appearing at the same time. Still, I like Rose. Instead of sulking on what Rachel said, she actually immediately goes to train herself.

Kate, meanwhile, found out something interesting: how to use their special powers. Great scene, great scene. Still, her problems at school are becoming worse and worse, now that a note has been sent to her parents. I’m looking forward to the moment in which she finds out about Hervé, by the way. :)

Okay, with this post, I’ve made up my mind. Deltora Quest will be blogged, Himarari!! won’t. That makes three series I’ll be blogging this season. Will Venus Versus Virus make four?

In any case, I really like Jasmine and Barda. Jasmine got introduced in this episode, and she has quite an interesting character. Already she’s moving away from the usual female side-kick. She’s got a rather sad case. When she was 9 years old, her parents were abducted by some evil guards, and ever since, she spent her time alone in the forest. Because of that, she learned quite some interesting abilities, like the ability to talk to trees (What? You can’t do that? ^^;), and she trained a cute pet and crow quite well. She’s also probably one of the first female side-kicks who actually knows what she’s talking about.

Barda (I keep spelling his name as Baruda… damn katakana) on the other hand, is the skilled warrior with the subtle sense of humour. These first two episodes also showed that he isn’t perfect, especially when he fights and has to keep an eye out on Lief. He first collapsed because Lief was doing something stupid, making him get hit, and later he takes his eye off Lief in order to ambush the monster. He obviously starts yelling at him when he finds out that Lief also went to try and slay it. ;)

This anime also is moving surprisingly fast. I originally suspected that each country would get a large number of episodes dedicated to it, though with a bit of math, it seems that in order to give all seven countries some attention, each can only have three episodes for itself, with the ±5 final episodes dedicated to close the story. It’ll be interesting to see this, seeing as I’m currently watching Futago Hime as well, which is a show which spends a lot of episodes dedicated to one country.

I love this show. In the past, before I became an anime-fan, I used to play my fair share of anime as well, and I love how this show parodies all kinds of clichés and aspects of your usual MMORPG. This show plays into some crossover world between a MMORPG and a cute fantasy-world, and I love how it combines the two. ^_^

Still, I’ve been wondering during this episode… who the heck is the main character? I originally thought that it was the pink-haired girl of the previous episode, but she didn’t appear during this episode at all. This makes me suspect that the real main character is still hiding somewhere, waiting to be introduced. In fact, I think we saw a small glimpse of her when she fell down the huge castle.

It also seems that every episode has a number of returning sketches, and a number of random ones. The first returning sketch is the introduction, in which the Elmony and the white haired Cognite introduce the episode, and explain something about the world of MMORPGs. In this case: dying. We see them bickering while on the background, a Pandemos gets slaughtered. (If you’re wondering what Elmony, Cognite and Pandemos is, that’s how the races are called. The human-like beings are called Newtar).

Another sketch which also seems to return every episode is the fishing sketch, in which random characters, quite often with Warage Pink included, randomly sit and wait for fish to bite. We also have the Warage Sentai Team, who does random MMORPG-things. During the last episode, they were PK-ing, right now, they try to enter a dungeon, but get too scared because of all the rumours floating around. ^^ The final returning sketch is the news broadcast, in which we have the same Elmony as before on the scene, this time with a newscaster being a yellow-haired Cognite. This time, the Elmony wants to interview someone but this guy seems to be asleep. ^^;

The rest of the episode is filled with random scenes of characters acting cute. Warage Pink is often seen in small scenes, often accompanied by the traveller-Pandemos. I think he’s trying to impress her, but either fails, or she does something incredibly scary, like eating a bat alive. This episode also introduced a girl who dislikes fighting, so she tries to find ways to live in this world, without having to fight monsters… and fails miserably. ^^

The male Cognite also returns this episode, but he isn’t quite as fortunate as he was during the previous episode. We first see him get beaten up by two sandworms, who appeared in front of him while he wasn’t expecting it, and later in the episode, he returns into a super-cute chibi-form, only to get slain by a bunch of axe-wielding swines, along with his companion who gets beaten up just as miserably.

Ah, the recap episode, I was wondering where it went. Still, I’m glad that this episode consisted out of 2 minutes recap, and 18 minutes of the usual goodness. This time, the dwarves are visited. Of course, when there are elves, dwarves can’t be missing, can they? ;) Okay, so what if flowers bloom strangely underground. Heck, I’m not even sure why there even was light, but the episode was damn good. :)

This especially was because of the beginning. The episode has barely started, Souta has barely finished his first recap-block, or we immediately switch to a battle with Gretel, Randagio and two huge snails. I like it when they do that. Fights like these don’t necessary need building up, they also work good as a build-up for other, better scenes. Like the one in which Souta and Ringo ran, and fell into that hole. ^^ Randagio also was brilliant in this episode. :)

But OMG, what’s happening to Gretel?! First of all, how did she obtain so much power, and second of all, is she going to be alright? It seems that she has the power to enlarge her sword many times, though that seems to take a huge toll on her. To what extend is she willing to prove herself to her brother anyway!?