When the episode started, it took a while before I got used to the time-leap that took place between this episode and the previous one. I’m not sure how many years passed, but probably two or three of them. Those who paid attention during the OP noticed that next to Keith, Sam and Sweena there’s another person. This guy gets introduced in the current episode, sortof. He appears to be the kid that Jomie failed to rescue, back in episode five.

Keith has grown out to become the most elite student of the academy, still befriended with Sam and Swena. Shiroe turned into a rather cocky brat, totally opposite from his younger version. An interesting detail is that somehow, nobody detected that he’s a Myu. It’s interesting, but in a way, he’s quite similar to Jomie.

And whoa, Swena just left like that, getting married to a random guy! I never expected her to disappear from the plot again after just less than two episodes. At this point, I was really wondering whether I missed an episode, or something. Still, I must commend the creators to come up with a twist like that.

The episode gets really interesting, though, when Shiroe starts investigating on Keith’s past. At the previous episode, I thought the fact that he lost his memories meant that he failed the growing-up test. But in fact, this was because he knew something that shouldn’t become known. And judging by the fact that his entire memory has been removed, including that of all the people he grew up with, he must have done or been something pretty important or dangerous. Seeing Keith punch Shiroe at the end of the episode also surprised me, after being called a cold robot without any emotions (for sending his “girlfriend” off like that).

I do wonder what Jomie has been doing for the past few episodes, though. I originally thought that he’d be heading straight for Terra, but now it seems that it’s either very far away, or the coordinates are gone. He’s currently probably looking for a way to get there, I believe. It’s interesting, though, that the main character doesn’t appear for more than two episodes. It’s not often that you see such a thing happen in an anime.

That was the coolest old lady ever!!

Seriously, though. This episode showed that Dennou Coil doesn’t only have a huge amount of imagination, it also showed that this series is going to be heaps of fun. Most of the episode was standard character-fleshing out, but I loved the climax. It starts with Yuuko and Fumie escaping from the strange red creature called “Sacchi” by hiding near a shrine. Apparently, shrines and schools are off-limits to them.

Then we see a bit more about the girl we saw briefly in the previous episode. She seems to be after the black speck, which seems to be called an “illegal”, or computer virus. It seems that this virus has entered Densuke, and isn’t planning to let go of him soon, as later in the episode showed. She sends a bunch of strange furballs to track it down.

We then get to see the rest of Yuuko’s family. Her grandmother runs a cyber-tore, where all kinds of strange items and cyber-items can be bought. She and her daughter (aka Yuuko’s mother) seem to be arguing a lot, though, so I wonder what made them move in to this city in the first place. Yuuko’s grandfather seems to be dead, but notice the picture she has of him on his death altar and understand why the two ended up married with each other. :P

I also wonder, if you pet a cyber-pet, do you feel anything? I mean, Yuuko touched Densuke like it was an actual animal. And if you can feel it, what happens if a cyber-pet bumps into someone who doesn’t wear glasses? I also kept wondering what “unchi” meant, so I decided to look it up….

I wish I didn’t. It seems that Kyoko learned a new word recently…

This episode, I also noticed the use of papers for all kinds of purposes. One version attempted to cure Densuke (either that, or to stop the virus from downloading stuff), and one was even able to change the lights in a traffic light. They seem to be produced from these strange crystals that were introduced in the previous episode (sorry, forgot their names), which does explain why Fumie charges these crystals instead of money for her services.

When Yuuko’s grandmother also sells something to her, she seems have gotten a number as well (8). Fumie herself is 7, while grandmother herself is 0. I’m not sure what these numbers mean, though.

The awesomeness in the episodes begins with a strange dream Yuuko has, which suggests that the mysteries in Dennou Coil go way deeper than what meets the eye. Inside this dream, someone who claims to be Yuuko’s brother and stuck in one of the shrines asks her to free him. The next day, Kyoko gets the “interesting” idea of using her cyber-crayons on Densuke, with hilarious results. The furballs then make their move, though, and when Kyoko grabs one of them, it actually manages to zap her, which causes her arms to get all… cybered up, by lack of proper term.

Yuuko’s grand mother, however, then shows that she doesn’t run a cyber-shop for no reason, as she starts chasing them and the episode ends. That was really nice, and I feel that there are many more mysteries that will be introduced in the next couple of episodes.

After the events of the previous episode, this episode was more of an aftermath, in which the things that happened during the climax are resolved. The episode specifically focuses on stopping John to cut down the forest, and for Emily and John to make up again. John is quite the interesting character, and he never really was evil, it seems. He just doesn’t know how to control his anger, especially towards Elizabeth. After the things she said to him in the previous episode, he just had to retort somehow. And the only thing he could think of was cutting down the forest that belonged to him, even though this hurts Emily and Jimmy more than Elizabeth.

In fact, through the course of the episode, John keeps hoping for Emily to return to her. Emily, however, doesn’t know this, and is very busy with thinking up a plan to stop John somehow. It’s interesting how she doesn’t confront him directly, but goes to the local priest instead. This definitely shows how naive she still is, but then again, I wouldn’t suspect anything different from a poetic girl of her age.

Overall, this was more one of those heart-warming episodes than the exciting ones. Still, I found myself really liking it. I’m looking forward to the next episode, by the way, as something tells me that it’ll be the turn for either Perry, Teddy or Ilse to get fleshed out a bit. Kaze no Shoujo Emily definitely is the most underrated series of this season.

Heh, after actually watching the previous episode with subtitles, and with the help of a few commenters (especially minhngoc and wrex) I finally understood what happened back there. The whole chase was put in scene, and the Barsa and Chaggumu we saw tumbling down the cliff were actually fake bodies, created by Torogai-shi. Barsa, Chaggumu and Tanda, meanwhile headed on foot to the west, and they passed that big rock. Barsa continues to surprise me with her plans.

While watching the episode, I kept wondering how the heck the story would continue next. I mean, everyone thinks that Chaggumu is dead, Barsa is smart enough not to screw up somehow, and we still have twenty episodes left for this anime. But after I looked up what Shuga tried to say at the end of the episode, I understood. He was looking at the machine that made the prediction of the upcoming drought. I’m not yet sure how, but after Chaggumu’s death it should return to a more peaceful prediction. Shuga, however, notices that it still indicates that a drought is going to happen. When the warriors are going to find out about this, they’ll probably figure out that Barsa went west, and they start chasing her again.

This does provide quite a challenge for Barsa: how to hide Chaggumu, while everyone can see the guy’s still alive. She’s going to have to come up with an impossible hiding place. Also, what was Torogai-shi up to? It seems that she did head north, after fooling the two warriors, but to what purpose, what does she carry in that bag of hers?

Most of the episode was quiet, though, when it focused on Barsa and Tanda, who can finally have it easy again. Chaggumu acts kindof cute when he tries to figure out how to spend the rest of his life, and then it seems that Barsa’s actually planning to reunite him with his mother (I might have misunderstood that part).

Once again, Saiunkoku continues to stun me with some amazing episodes and plot developments. I do admit that the struggles within the Sa-clan dragged on a bit, but the current arc more than makes up for it. I can’t believe how awesome Shuurei is when she’s determined. (On a side-note: only now I noticed that Shuurei still wears the make-up that she received from Kochou).

So, in the last episode, it seemed that the cause was somehow spread through the snow foxes into the water-system, and the disease wasn’t contagious. In this episode, we finally get to know the truth about the disease: it’s caused by the bugs that live on the snow-fox. People swallow them while drinking the water, and the bugs start to take over the human body.

The only cure: manually removing it by cutting into the human body. This is where the problem lies, though: nobody of the palace-medical team knows how to do this. And this is where the strange guy we’ve been seeing with Sho Taishi comes into the picture: he actually was the doctor who took care of Shuurei when she was sick, and he turns out to be a legendary medic who knows how to properly cut into the human body. He then agrees to go with Shuurei to the Sa-province, along with the medical staff from the palace, with whom he spends the rest of the episode teaching how to properly cut into the human body (I know there has to be some kind of special word for this, but I just can’t seem to remember it), by practicing on a pig.

If this wasn’t already enough, we also get to know why Doushu’s death means Eigetsu’s death: Doushu died once already. Yougetsu then put half of Eigetsu’s soul inside Doushu, so that he could remain alive. Apparently, this only kept him alive for about six or seven years, before this part of the soul died along with Doushu. Now that Eigetsu has lost half of his soul, I can imagine that he can’t live without it.

I’m glad to say that I actually understood the first half of the episode quite clearly. The second half… however, was a different story. I know that Shuurei went to a department to ask permission for something, but which department that was, and what she needed from them still remain a big mystery to me. Shuurei also exits the episode with the message that she only has one job left to do, and I do wonder what that job might be…

It’s interesting how you can compare the pacing of Saiunkoku Monogatari with Les Miserables. With both shows, you just know some things are definitely going to happen. With Les Miserables, it’s for example Fantine’s death and Jean, revealing his own identity, while for Saiunkoku Monogatari it’s for example the scene where Eigetsu either dies or gets saved somehow, and the revelation of who the mysterious Li Senya actually is. With both shows, these scenes are definitely going to happen, and with both shows, you won’t be able to predict exactly when these moments will come. It can be the next episode; it can also take five more episodes. That’s another thing I love about both of these series.