Unfortunately, what I’ve feared has finally happened: Saiunkoku Monogatari got licensed. While that alone isn’t such a bad thing, it does mean that both We Suck and Shadow Dreams are going to stop distributing their fansubs. This just forces me to start watching the raws again, simply because:
- Being Dutch, I could care less about what shows America licenses.
- I really don’t think I can wait that long till the English DVDs appear anyway.

Still, I switched from raws to subs once for a reason, as this series is very difficult to understand without subtitles. I remember when the show first started, and I completely missed the main points (if you don’t believe me, then check out the entries I made of them, they’re really full of non-sense ^^;), so I’m going to be heavily depending on Usagijen’s and Impz’s episode summaries. Especially Usagijen deserves credit, with the huge summaries she writes. :)

Anyway, this episode had two major focuses: Ensei and Kouyuu. Eigetsu reveals his past in the episode. It seems that when he was small, his parents attempted to kill him once, in order to solve their poverty. A kind man named Doushu then took him in. And with “kind” I mean really kind. Whatever happened to him, he just continued to smile, and he taught Eigetsu to do so as well. Even when people would steal all his medicines, he would still not mind a thing. In fact, he was glad that people would actually find his medicines useful. Because of this, Eigetsu probably got the idea of getting a job to help people. His first idea was to become a doctor, though he then figured that he could do way more as a government official.

Kouyuu, meanwhile, continues to get pressured by Kurou when he finds out that the Ran-clan has future plans to marry Shuurei off to Ran Ryuuren. Obviously, he fancies her, and the people from the Ran-clan would love to use her as a leech to control the guy a bit. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when Shuurei finds out about this.

Shuurei, meanwhile, has been busy to collect permissions from different chamberlains and governors. At the beginning of the episode, all she needs left are Kijin, Reishin and the governor of the Koku-province. At the end of the episode only the Koku-province governor is left, with the help of Tei Yuushun, Sai Rin, and amusingly, Kouyuu as well. ^^;

This probably was the first time the Koku Province was mentioned. I also don’t recall having seen anyone from the Koku-family as well. I wonder what kind of role it will play in the future episode, especially its governor. We aren’t shown what his relation to Doushu exactly was, but the fact remains that the two of them are at least acquaintances, when Doushu trusts the guy with a bunch of books that he really wanted to give to Eigetsu, after which he dies. Could it be that Eigetsu grew up in the Koku-province? That death-scene, by the way, was a great one. It seems that Eigetsu told him all about Shuurei in his letters, and it was great to see him thank her for taking care of Eigetsu.

I think we’ve also got our first glimpse of the new antagonist for this season. The way he was presented really screams “hey, look at me being mysterious. I’m evil and pretty”. Still, he somehow knows Shuurei, or he heard her name somewhere. Where did he come from, and what’s going to be his goal or purpose?

I also do wonder, when are the creators planning to further develop the relationship between Eigetsu and Kourin? For quite a number of episodes, all they’ve been doing together is look embarrassed and cute after their eyes or hands meet each other. While this is nice once or twice, I want to see the two of them get on with it. :P

The fansubbers labelled this as “the best movie of 2006″, and I’ve seen other sources claim this as well. Whether this is true, I can’t say for certain yet, because some of the big names as Tekkon Kinkreet, Gedo Senki and Eien no Hou have yet to appear. But one thing’s for sure: these movies are going to have to be reeally good in order to be able to top this one.

Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, I think we’ve all read about its premise by now, but for those who haven’t: a high-school girl suddenly gets the power to leap through time. With this, she starts using it to alter the space-time continuum to her own advantage. When I read the premise for the first time, I thought that she’d go and alter major time events and really alter history, but she just sticks to making her own life better. Basically, it’s a high-school romance, but that description doesn’t really do it justice, as some pretty horrible things happen along the line.

I really praise this anime for that last part, by the way. It’s obvious that things won’t go as Mokoto (our main character) expects them. And it’s predictable for bad things to happen, but this movie developed its characters so well that the predictability didn’t matter, and that each major event felt like a huge shock. From my own experience, I’ve seen movies fail more often than series did, but this movie is just a must-watch.

The backgrounds that we get to see are what you expect from a movie: crisp, detailed and beautiful, although one or two scenes may be trying a bit too much (like a fridge which may have been a bit too stuffed for a random family). As we’ve got ourselves a romance here, there aren’t a lot of flashy action-scenes, but still the overall animation was really life-like and natural. The music was simple, consisting out of mainly piano-tunes. But it fits the movie perfectly. It was especially stunning during the heavy scenes.

Seriously, only if you really need some action in your anime, you may want to skip out of this. Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo has been a great watch for me, and I can imagine others liking it just as much as I did, and probably even better. I’m glad that this movie reminded me that a well-done anime movie can be as satisfying as a tv-series.