Short Synopsis: Things go bad with Claire’s brother, Rose gets closer to finding her father, Hervé starts to use Kate to his advantage, Rachel gets spotted with her teacher and a sad thing will happen with relation to Mireille.
Good: A wonderful episode; Hervé gets better with every episode; great ending!
Bad: We still don’t really know why Rachel exactly chose to date her teacher.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8.5/10

That was amazing! Especially Hervé, he’s really turning into my favourite character for this series. The episode starts with Mireille being in a state of near-death, his sister is about to lose her best and only friend. I couldn’t help but sympathize with him, though later, we see him start to use Kate, and act coldly towards her. I’d almost start rooting for him. In the end, Mireille died, and she had to be beaten by tons of security guards because she turned into a monster (what, they don’t have any more civilized methods for this?). This definitely was a stimulant for Hervé, to find a solution as fast as possible. But how does he think of using Kate to cure his sister? I also nearly cried when he tried to strangle Lise. So sad.

Still, Hervé wasn’t the only one who was amazing. Claire also got caught up in some very interesting events: the death of her brother. Suicide, to be exact. His business was doomed to fail, so I wondered how he’d react when that happened. I never imagined suicide, though. Also, do we get to see Claire’s father after this? Anyway, because of this, Claire got a lot of airtime this episode. We saw her in lots of scenes, along with Kate, which were probably meant to build up to this. It’s definitely interesting to see how she’s going to react to this.

The next episode will probably be a big one for Rachel, since Luke found out that she’d rather hang out with her teacher than with her (seriously, what is it with girls falling in love with characters way older than them in this anime?). I’m still not sure why she’s doing that exactly. She obviously likes to be with him, but is it love? Rachel, in any case, does know that Luke already cheated on her.

Rose didn’t play a large role, but she was too cute when she tried to inquire information about her father in a crowded bar. ^_^ It does, however, seem that her father has been desperately going from one job to the other. He seems to quit them for some kind of reason. What could that reason be?

Short Synopsis: The actions of the spirits become bigger and bigger, while some of the mysteries about Orikiri-san are revealed.
Good: This case is really getting more interesting with every episode. Great mystery once more.
Bad: How come nobody has yet to mention the fact that Takeuchi is the one behind all of this?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10

Whoa, that seriously was an intense episode. Especially the beginning. Mai got attacked twice within 12 hour. And this time, it’s more extreme than ever. First, she sees a body, lying in a bed right next to her, making the same movements she does. Then she gets smacked on the floor, which collapses afterwards. A few seconds later, the ceiling collapses as well. If it wasn’t for Naru-chan, Mai would bear many resemblances to a pancake.

The spirits eating each other right now bears much resemblances to a ritual named Kodoku. You put a number of bugs inside a pot, and you bury it. In a while, they’ll start eating each other, and in the end, only one of them is left. Using this bug, you can attain incredible wealth, though if you fail to feed this bug with human (!) bodies, it’ll devour you instead.

At the end of the episode, it seems that this case is similar, though different in some ways. What we have here all started because of Orikiri-san. It’s actually a tool to kill somebody. If you bury it under a cross-section, the designated person will go mad. If you bury it under a shrine, the designated person will die. Takeuchi couldn’t perform this ritual by himself, seeing as it needs the hands of an expert to do it. Therefore, he found it a good idea to let this ritual be performed by a huge amount of amateurs. I’m guessing that he wasn’t actually that knowledgeable. He was just obsessed over spirits, he tried to learn a few things about them, but in the end, he remained nothing more than a skilled amateur. Because of this, he didn’t know the exact consequences of his actions. I originally thought that he was the ghost expert behind this, but if he was, he’d never let himself get eaten.

Takeuchi was just one big wannabe, with an unusual hatred towards his teacher, Matsuyama. If I had to guess, he was treated like a dog by that man. I’m suspecting that Takeuchi liked to share his passion in class. Matsuyama clearly showed that he was against occult in the previous episode. This suggests that Takeuchi’s blabbering about them drove him crazy, which made him do some pretty horrible things to the poor guy in his turn.

This was a great episode, though I’d wish that this anime would stop using Red Herrings. A Red Herring is when all attention is drawn away from one event or person, in order to create mystery. Normally, it creates a nice effect, though Ghost Hunt just isn’t good at it, and it makes the story feel a bit unnatural, since nobody has yet tried to identify Takeuchi’s death to the things that happened.

Short Synopsis: The English launch their attack once more, Akizuki also makes his move. At least, that’s their plan. ;)
Good: Amazing plot twists, awesome climax. :D
Bad: As usual, Shouten-sama provides some nice background information, but again, I didn’t quite catch that.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10

Boy, that was awesome. There definitely were some twists in this that shouldn’t be missed at all, both for the English and for Akizuki. I really wonder what this anime has in store for us for its final episodes. In the first part of the episode, the Lord’s Head shows what kind of power it has towards others when the English try to take him out. Rook tries to kill him, but Enomoto just reflects his attacks, and starts playing with his mind. This makes you suspect that only people like Akizuki can really get rid of the Lord’s Head. The English retreat for now, as things aren’t looking good.

We then see a small aftermath, in which Akizuki agrees to let Kakunojou accompany him, and Rook starts to notice the effects of his encounter with Enomoto, as he keeps getting more and more doubts. The rest of the episode focuses on the English’s second attack, though both parties decided to handle things a bit bigger than with the first one. With the English, Kanna also participates in the attack, and they arrive in their own warship. Enomoto, meanwhile, called all his men to deck, while Soutetsu returned to the ship with Hijikata. Akizuki, meanwhile, also heads towards Enomoto, accompanied by Kakunojou.

And this is where the goodness begins. First of all, Rook dies! This can do some great things for the rest of his team, especially his sister. He has been so confused by Enomoto that he just rushed in, even though he knew that Enomoto could do the same to him again. This indeed happened, and he got stabbed by Enomoto’s henchmen. With this, the Englishmen have definitely turned interesting, as right now, their mission has started to get personal. I can imagine that at least some of them will want to take revenge of what happened to Rook.

The English and Kanna then decide to retreat. Akizuki, meanwhile, has had enough time to sneak up on Enomoto, starting the second part of the climax of the episode. Akizuki’s about to strike, though before he gets the chance, Kakunojou once again gets possessed by her sword. This time, Enomoto makes her cut Akizuki in the leg! Both of them were really great to see after that. ^^

The reasons for Kakunojou’s behaviour also were explained this episode, though as mentioned above, they were a bit vague to me. It has something to do with some kind of fog, though that’s all I could understand of it.

Cat Soup is most definitely one of the strangest movies I’ve seen in a long while. Heck, if you thought that Mind Game and Dead Leaves were absurd, just wait till you see this one. At least these two had some kind of sensible story. In Cat Soup, however, the thread that keeps everything together only appears when the movie is nearly finished.

Really, this movie jumps from one strange setting to the other. It’s about a little cat and his big sister, who’s sick, and they travel for some kind of strange reason. They end up in places like a huge circus, during their journey, Father Time messes up, which makes the time stand still, and think of more of these kinds of adventures. I might warn you that some of these cases are very disturbing. More often than not do people get cut into pieces, boiled inside a huge steel pot, and more of these rather gross events.

The thing I really liked about this anime is its huge amount of symbolism. A lot of cruel things happen, and I could be wrong in this, but they all seemed to try and bring some kind of message. I’m not yet sure what message, though. I’d say that it comes closest to people, and how they cling to their lives.

Overall, if you’re into absurd movies, you should give Cat Soup a try. I didn’t give this one a rating, as there is NO friggin WAY to give a good indication of how good or how bad this movie is. It’s different for everyone, and even I’m still not sure what to think of it. When compared to other absurd movies like Mind Game and Dead Leaves, though, it has one major disadvantage: it doesn’t drag. The entire movie manages to stay interesting.