Short Synopsis: During their travels North, Akizuki and Kakunojou run into a new main character: Hijikata.
Good: Great atmosphere, as usual. Kakunojou can become very interesting in the future.
Bad: Even though Intermezzos contribute greatly to a series, they’ve never been very exiting.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6.5/10

Interesting. We’ve actually been dealing with a 3-episode intermezzo. It basically features the journey from Edo to some other coastal city in Japan, where Enomoto’s ship is waiting. The first episode was meant to bring Akizuki and Kakunojou together, and as a farewell to the rest of the troupe. The second focused on Kakunojou getting her sword and this one, the third, introduces another, and probably the final, character important to the story: Hijikata.

Regarding the troupe, it’s interesting. They really were left behind, and they did not follow Akizuki. I finally realize the importance of the fourteenth episode. Akizuki is chasing after the lord’s head, so he’d obviously be following Enomoto. The troupe, however, managed to carry out its revenge, which means that they’ve got no more purpose to fight. The fourteenth episode indeed showed them going separate ways, and taking a step back from the main storyline. Kakunojou, however, had to make an important decision: Akizuki or Troupe? In the end, it seems she wanted to be with him, and she followed him. I wonder if we’ll see the troupe again, and more importantly: when?

Regarding Kakunojou’s sword, she can become very interesting. This episode showed that it holds some interesting powers. I’m suspecting that the following episodes will focus on her, trying to master this sword. It’ll be interesting when she finally has it under control.

Regarding Hijikata, it seems that he’s an ally of Akizuki. The two of them and Okita were related in the past somehow. We also see him as an army commander at one point, which does suggest that he’s currently in favour of the new government. It’ll be interesting to see what role he has.

The rest of the episode gets filled with a side-story, about a young soldier. I didn’t manage to really follow it, though it seems that he wants to visit his hometown, which happens to be on the way of Akizuki and Kakunojou’s destination. It seems his mother lives there, though apart from that I didn’t pick up much. I did see, however, that the guy learned quite a bit from Hijikata, a person he looks up to. Hijikata starts out with continuously keeping his sword ready, turning the boy a bit paranoid. When he also gets to the town he wants to go to, Akizuki once again shows that he can’t leave children alone (he’s been talking more and more recently, has he? ;))

Short Synopsis: A girl who found a stray cat keeps getting harassed.
Good: Beautifully paranoid. It really takes a while to understand what’s really going on.
Bad: Absolutely none
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5

What a brilliant episode! After the past few episodes, I almost never expected this show to turn even better, but damn… it did it again. It perfectly developed its main character, Shizuko, combining it with some paranoid moments full of mystery. We have this girl, who’s just moved in to her new apartment. There, she finds a cat, and decides to adopt it. Little does she know that the cat belong to her neighbour. When the neighbour finds out, she starts making all kinds of strange phone-calls, and she starts harassing her in all kinds of anonymous ways. But that’s not even the real beauty of this episode.

[SPOILER]Huge spoiler up ahead. Seriously, if you haven’t seen the episode, close this window NOW. You really NEED to see the episode first before reading it.

Seriously!

I’ve been depending on Memento’s summaries to fill in the small gaps of things I didn’t understand. I’m SO glad that I did this for this episode, because otherwise, I probably never would have gotten the real meaning of this episode. It’s basically one huge punishment-scene! We see the real Shizuka pull the string off the straw doll, and afterwards, we see an extra-lengthy punishment of her neighbour, who is basically being put in the same scene as she was! Brilliant! I kept wondering why Wanyuudo, Ichimoku Ren, Hone Onna and even Ai appeared so often in all kinds of different forms, but that totally explains it.

When Kyouko, the neighbour, also gets carried to hell, it’s also great to see her side of the story. It seems that the cat has been the only friend she had for a long time. When she was asked why she didn’t just “talk to Shizuko” about it, she answers that she just didn’t think about that. It’s so interesting, she was so obsessed over her cat being taken away, that she didn’t notice the best solution. It’s now also really clear why Ren, Wanyuudo and Hone were lashing out at Kirika like that. They were in the middle of their play, while Kirika was trying to mess things up. ^^;

It’s really too bad that so many people have dropped this in the first season. It’s starting to get more interesting by the minute right now. It’s such a pity.

Short Synopsis: It’s Christmas, and a local church gets pestered by a hide-and-seek-playing ghost.
Good: Great to see a different side of Naru-chan and Lin. Kenji’s case is interesting.
Bad: What can the creators do to make this arc special?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10

Ah, the beginning of the next case. This seems to be another small one. We have this church, who’s taking care of foreign children who can’t live with their parents for some reason. 30 years ago, a child named Kenji lived there. He loved playing hide-and-seek, though during one game, he never came back. People also never managed to find his body. Right now, 30 years later, he’s started to haunt the children who live in the church by possessing them, and forcing them to play hide-and-seek.

I’m actually wondering whether this anime will be able to surpass the fifth episode. Sure, the episode was nice and all, but I’m feeling that the past few episodes got nowhere near the huge quality of episode five. Still, it could be that this is the intention of the creators, to make the middle arcs focus more on the characters and their development than on the ghost stories. If it’s indeed been building up for the second half of this show, I’m interested to see what the next arcs have in store for us. :)

Short Synopsis: Hone Onna seems to have normal human friends. One among them is a cute little idiot named Tetsuro.
Good: Great direction, a real pitiful case this time.
Bad: The toilet with teeth could have been better
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7.5/10

Oh, my. That was very interesting. We have a Hone Onna episode this time. It seems that a year ago, she met a guy in the train who wanted to recruit her for a movie he was making. The guy is named Tetsuro, and he’s quite the idiot. He keeps running after women and he acts like a little kid at times, and most importantly, he never learned to take responsibility. He keeps relying on his wife, girlfriends and Hone Onna for everything by using his cute puppy-dog eyes.

I don’t believe he really has any evil intentions at all. He’s just an ignorant fool, without any realization of the things he does. I guess that that was the reason the women stayed with him. Still, in the end, this ignorance sent him to hell, when he accidentally messed up the car of a guy who’s probably been having a hard time, making this the final straw. Especially when Tetsuro splashed him with hot coffee afterwards. I wish we could have seen more of this guy, but I guess it would have hurt the episode. Right now, the mystery surrounding Tetsuro, and how he could ever be related to Jigoku Shoujo was very interesting.

The strange thing is, that I really liked Tetsuro as a character, despite him being a huge idiot. He indeed was too cute to stay angry at. That’s what made his being-sent-to-hell scene also so great. Especially since Hone Onna had to say goodbye to a dear friend of her. Actually, three dear friends of her, since she decided to cut ties with his wife and girlfriend as well. I just wish the creators chose something better than a giant toilet with teeth to begin with.

Also, why was Ai blushing at the beginning of the episode? I’m also glad to see that Kirika is getting better with every episode progressing. She was actually funny this time, when she appeared in a frog raincoat, flying away with a green umbrella in front of Tetsuro.

Wanyuudo has been getting surprisingly little attention, by the way. There was one episode in which he stood in the centre, the one with the punk guy. Apart from that, it’s either been Ichimoku Ren and Hone Onna. Also, will Ai also get a few episodes in which the case relates to her?

In any case, I have to say that the second season is well on its way on becoming better than the first one. It’s only been episode ten, and we’ve already been treated to some wonderful cases. I was beginning to worry a bit after the first six episodes, but the quality suddenly made a huge leap in the right direction with the seventh episode.