Ah, finally Terese arrives, and things go quite differently from what I expected. We first see a total shift of focus, with no Claire whatsoever. She also gets a child who keeps running after her, just like Claire, so I assumed that it took place at the same time in which Raki appeared. I was quite surprised to see that this actually was Claire herself, in a younger form. This does explain why she took in Raki so easily, it happened to herself in the past as well.

I’m quite surprised at Eclipse, who managed to get the episode out after less than one day. I think I’m going to continue following Claymore in the subbed version now, unless Eclipse pulls a TV-nihon, somewhere in the middle. In any case, the caped guy also looks quite a few years younger, either that or it was a different guy. I’m not sure how their system works, exactly. How do they manage to find the Claymores, time after time? And is there one guy for every Claymore, is there just one of them, or are there a certain number of them, who all work for an amount of Claymore?

In any case, the guy calls Terese the 182nd warrior of the 77th class of Claymores. Whatever that means exactly, I have no idea, but she does appear to be the strongest Claymore who’s running around. In fact, she’s so strong that she never needs to use her Youma-powers in battle. Perhaps that’s why she didn’t turn as cold as Claire, but rather sadistic.

It’s interesting, I thought that Elena was the only Claymore significant in Claire’s past, but it seems that she first ran into Terese, who took her in for a few years. Then, at one point, Helena probably handed Claire over to Elena, and around that time, something happened to cause Claire to become a Claymore herself.

In the current timeline, I wonder where Terese is now. It seems that Claymores turn into youma whenever they use their youma-powers too much, but Terese just never uses them. Because of that, it’s quite possible that she’s still alive. But then again, I don’t really know how long it usually takes for Claymores to transform

Ah, Saiunkoku Monogatari is finally back! The episode really reminded me of the first half of the first season again, when Shuurei still finds herself very busy in the main capital. The OP-animation has changed, there’s a new ED and I’m back in love with this series! Another thing I noticed: the OP and especially the ED never really focused on the people, back in the Sa-province. This does suggest that the current arc will be focusing on the old characters, instead of the new ones, and I’m SO glad about this. The characters from the first half definitely are more interesting than the new ones.

The most important development in this episode definitely came from Kouyuu. His uncle decides to visit him (Kou Kurou) and finally carries out his plan to get Kouyuu as the head of the Kou-clan if he accepts Shuurei as his wife. Obviously, he’s going to become very interesting in the future, as it’s probably clear now that he’s in love with her.

Shuurei was AWESOME. The episode focuses on Tei Yuushun and Sai Rin, asking to come and visit Shuurei’s house, when Shuurei suddenly realizes that nobody has cleaned there for ages. ^^; The male characters have gone to the “demon’s banquet”, or a place where everyone can drink his sorrows away alongside each other, and they decide to go to Shuurei’s place after that too place. Obviously, Shuurei demonstrates how dangerous she can be when Seiran, Shouka, Shuuei and Kouyuu keep getting in her way, time after time, because they’re all so drunk (or in Shouka’s case, just clumsy). She looked so cute when her efforts weren’t enough, and Tei Yuushun had to see giving a tantrum. ^_^:

Seiran begins to realize more and more that Shuurei actually doesn’t need him. In fact, he actually needs her, and it’s like that for Shouka as well. He goes to the Demon’s Banquet as well, because of this (and almost ends up shooting Ran after drinking a bit ^^;). I can imagine that it’s difficult for him. Shuurei and Shouka have done so much for him, and he can’t even repay her. In fact, he never really saved her, and the only times she actually needed to be saved (when she was kidnapped and when Sakujun kissed her), either Ryuuki was the one to take up this role, or he wasn’t able to do anything at all, even though he stood right before it happening.

Shuuei also attends the Demon’s Banquet, but it seems that he’s been avoiding it for quite a few years. I wonder why, as the previous episodes did show that he quite often visits the red-lights district. He’s quite interesting when he’s drunk, by the way. He’s very silent, and his usual witty remarks are gone.

Still, rule number one: NEVER make Shuurei angry. Never. ^^;

Heh, I’m beginning to like Wellber no Monogatari more and more with each episode progressing. This episode was surprisingly good, with far less annoying elements than the episodes before. It’s also got a nice sense of humour, which I really appreciate.

The beginning of the episode was the best part, in my opinion, where another couple of bounty-hunters have found Rita and Tina. In order to draw their attention away from the princess, Tina shamelessly hijacks a carriage that happened to be near them, belonging to two lovers. She gets shot down while fleeing, but the princess is safe when the bounty-hunters find out that they’ve been tricked.

This scene definitely showed that this show is also perfectly able to display the more serious scenes, as Tina looked great, when she was shot down. This makes me have high hopes for the future of this series. In the rest of the episode, Tina gets saved by a guy who notices her body lying around. She wakes up again, but she did leave Rita waiting for quite a while.

This part of the episode was definitely meant to give Tina a bit more confidence in Rita. After all, as a princess, Tina figures that Rita will probably go without her, assuming that she died or stopped caring at that point. Rita, however, really isn’t that irresponsible, and she does go out to look for her. Eventually, the two parties reunite.

The rest of the episode then deals with getting rid of Galahad, who seems to have followed the princes up to this point, and knows that she’s heading for Greedam. The guy who rescued Tina (and has fallen in love with her a bit ^^;) and his friends also help a bit. They’re travelling merchants, who travel from city to city with big horse-carriages, which are perfect to hide a large horse and talking tank in. Unfortunately, there is one person who also recognized Rita, and he goes off to tell Galahad that he saw Rita enter a red carriage.

Rita, though, comes with the idea to secretly switch carriages, just in case such a thing happens. The fake carriage then drives away from the other carriages, in order to really draw Galahad’s attention to it to that the others can get away. She really is smarter than she looks, based on this. The plan works, and Galahad is helplessly left, watching Rita and Tina get away.

Galahad, meanwhile, shows that he’s quite impulsive, and that his wishes to find the princess do make him lose sight of the important things. He could have easily gotten past the guards if he was a bit more calm, and then overtaking a mere horse carriage was a piece of cake. I could be wrong on this, but I think his reason to go after Rita isn’t the money, but the fact that she killed his superior. He probably looked up to him a lot, which makes the shock of seeing the guy get killed by his future wife.

I liked this case, by the way. It was nothing special, when compared to the others, but they do show that people still have a lot of hospitality. In some cases, they’re not interested in the money on Rita’s head, and in other cases, they are. This episode also already showed how much Rita has grown, as she was far less commanding than in the previous episode. I like where this is going.