That. Was. Incredible!!!

Seriously, though, Wyrdward kept hyping the final four episodes of this show, and HE HAD ALL REASON TO DO SO. The death in Gurren Lagann made me think about how to successfully kill off a character. Since to really do it, the element of surprise just isn’t enough, and I actually could care less about that death in Gurren Lagann, it was way too long and drawn out, the creators really tried to make him go down like some sort of Messiah-wannabe or something.

So, what makes a good death? THIS EPISODE! And the strange thing is that I have NO IDEA why. The death wasn’t significant to the story, it was predictable, technically, it should have just been an ordinary death. But when the crab shattered on the rocks, something I can’t describe hit me. It’s been a while since a death scene moved me like that.

I really wonder what the creators have in store for episode 24, which is rumoured to be even better than this one. What was this about the darkness in Luna’s mother’s heart? Did Luna really hurt her mother so much? And what was that last warning on the stone tablet?

It also was great to see the usual battle-tune back, when Gaude first appeared in front of Pinon and the others. I’m definitely going to get myself the soundtrack for both the Popolocrois series (you can find it on the forums of Anime-BT, credits to Aquagon and Wyrdwad ;)) as soon as the series are done.

Gaude, your role has been small throughout the series. You’ve been an insignificant character, who was overshadowed by your companions Paanya and Zephys. But I’ll definitely remember you after this episode. Your loss has been a sad one.

Keith’s story now also begins to draw to its climax. This episode again was better than the previous one, and it featured quite some important plot events. Still, I think that this anime will really kick off in its second half, when all the characters are fleshed out properly. As of now, I can’t really connect to Keith yet, due to the fact that his character just isn’t as interesting as Jomie’s yet. But that could change when he finds out about his secret. I’m not sure what it is, but Shiroe’s words last time, about how he’s like a robot may have held some kind of truth.

During this episode, Shiroe hacks into the database of the ship, in order to find out about Keith, and eventually, he runs into a strange room full of strange test-tubes with humans in it. He believes that Keith was raised in the same way. And if he did, then it does make sense. Nobody from the place he grew up remembers him, not because their memories have been erased, these memories never existed to begin with. He needed a birthplace for administrational records, so he just got assigned a random city/planet. It also explains why Mother Eliza looks the way she did, in combination with some other information given in this episode: she looks like the woman closest to the person she talks to. Some people see their girlfriend, while others see their mothers. When Keith woke up, he never had a woman close to him to begin with, so I assume that she was taking on a random form.

In the end, Shiroe gets caught, though. I’m not sure whether him, being a Myu is being found out, but he does manage to escape. He hides in a park somewhere, looking to tell Keith his secret. He’s looking pretty bad, by the way. It’ll be very interesting to see how Keith will react to this. And how the heck is Shiroe going to survive this? And when will we see Swena back again, if she does return in the first place?

Sam also went through quite a bit of development when Jomie hacks into a practice plane he was flying in to send a message of peace. He now knows that Jomie is the leader of the Myu, and he really shows this. We never really see this explicitly, but I think that deep inside, everyone on the crew has negative feelings for the Myu. Otherwise, Sam wouldn’t have reacted the way he did. We also see him, at one point, admit that he just isn’t good enough to become a member, unlike Keith. This again shows how insensitive Keith can be.

It’s great to see Jomie back, by the way, even though it only was for a few seconds. I’m looking forward to the next episode, it’s promising to become a major one. :)

That was another excellent episode, if I had to say so myself. It’s meant to develop the other character called “Yuuko”, or Yuuko II, as I’m going to refer to her from now on. This probably is one of the few anime that dares to feature two characters with the same name. Anyway, this episode still continued to introduce new things, how more extensive can this world get? Anyway, my favourite new feature was the phone, which you use by putting your thumb near your ear and your pinkie near your mouth. That really would be so cool if we had this in the real world. ^^;

Anyway, the chase which started in the previous episode comes to an abrupt halt when Mega-Baa’s back starts complaining. She gives Kyoko, who happened to be passing by the feature she displayed at the previous episode, but instead of catching the fur-balls, Kyoko starts zapping everything she runs into. ^^; The fur-balls then finally manage to catch Densuke. He’s quite a smart dog, by the way, outsmarting these fur-balls for so long. Him, crying in the trashcan does show that he’s got a few human traits.

With the help of Oyaji, Yuuko and Fumie are able to track down Densuke, though. But then two Sacchis appear, I think that they’re after both the illegal and the fur-balls Yuuko II set free. I’ve been wondering, though, what happens if you get seriously hit by a Sacchi? I mean, it is the virtual world after all, but the reactions of Fumie, Yuuko and Yuuko II seem to suggest that these huge moving child toys are actually very dangerous.

Anyway, eventually Yuuko II gets her hands on Densuke, by tricking Yuuko. She then gets the illegal out of the creature, and then sticks a key inside a keyhole that just appeared on this illegal. I first thought that she wanted to destroy it, but in the end, her goal doesn’t seem to be getting rid of all illegals in the world (but then again, we’ve got Sacchis for that). It seems that there was something inside of that illegal, but it blew up before she could get this out of the creature. The explosion did quite a bit of damage to the surroundings as well. Heck, it looked like a virtual earthquake had just occurred. Quite interesting.

It’s also quite interesting that Yuuko II doesn’t need any meta-tags. Instead, she just has to draw lines on the floor with chalk. The simple, Full Metal Alchemist-like ones create shrines, while the more complex (and very interesting-looking, by the way) ones are able to halt creatures like the Sacchi for a while. It’s interesting that unlike FMA, the drawings themselves actually have a lot in common with their functions. The four lines, symbolizing a shrine, with a closed circle drawn around it makes perfect sense for if you want to protect yourself, after all.

Bakuretsu Kagekidan Gamigami Shinkansen, DOSUKOI!!

*ahem*… now that that’s out, I’m really happy that the next instalments of Popolocrois have been released again. Many thanks to Wyrdwad for continuing to sub these wonderful series. The current episode for the 1998-anime was a typical “calm before the storm”-episode, before the finale really begins. Still, despite this, lots of things happened, and I couldn’t help but love the episode. :)

The major focus is for Hyuu, to finally sort her thoughts out. For nearly the entire anime, she’s been in doubts, but now that Gamigami has left her and she can’t return to him anymore, she can’t flee from Pietoro anymore. And with a bit of help from Kai and Narcia, she finally realizes that she wants to stay in Popolocrois.

The best moment of the episode, though, was when Pietoro saw his parents again. So cute. ^_^ He definitely is one of the more unique children to get featured in anime, and he probably really missed his parents while he was travelling. Gamigami also was as brilliant as always, for the short screen-time that he had.

It’s strange to think that this anime is nearly over. I’ve been blogging it ever since I started thIs blog, back in November 2005, and there are only two episodes left. It’s promising to be a huge treat, though. I’m really curious how Hyuu’s problems will be resolved, or whether the Anemoritos will cause another tragedy.

Whoa, this was such a lovely episode! Stories about the mothers and fathers of characters have always been excellent, and Kaze no Shoujo Emily makes no exception to this. The current episode was mostly about Emily’s mother, and it couldn’t have been better executed. It’s been a really heart-warming episode. :)

But first, the episode starts with Teddy, and probably gives us a few small hints of what’s to come in the future episodes. His mother continues to worry about him, and even comes to pick him up when he’s fishing, along with Emily and Ilse. Especially Ilse is getting more and more worried about this.

Anyway, I believe that Elizabeth has been really lucky to meet someone who has so many differences, but just as much similarity in morals and views. This episode really shows that, when it introduces Juliet, Emily’s mother. It seems that she has had a weak health since she was born, and was frequently forced to rest for long whiles. Elizabeth was really different back then, and she genuinely worried about her sister.

The problem came, though, when she met Emily’s father: Elizabeth didn’t approve of this. I think she didn’t find the guy trustworthy enough, and something tells me that she had been clinging to Juliet for a bit too long, so that she didn’t want to hand her over to someone else. Ever since she left, Elizabeth had closed off her room and didn’t open it for ten years. For these ten years, all went well, and she was able to forget about it a bit. That is, until Emily came to live with her. This forced her to stop running away from her memories with Juliet, as Emily would obviously want to see the room that her mother used to live in.

When she finally opened the door, after all these years, I think that both her and Emily both got healed a bit. They really form the perfect team together, and I nearly cried when Emily saw a picture of her mother on the fireplace. The two of them really look alike! Please, Kaze no Shoujo Emily, give us more awesomeness. :)

The current episode closes another chapter in the story. Shuurei is finally done with all her tasks that she set out to do in the capital. She collected the permissions to turn the Sa-province into the centre of intellect for the country, and she gathered enough doctors to cure the disease that’s been plaguing in the Sa-clan. All that’s left? Get Ryuuki’s permission. The largest part of the episode focused on this.

Yet again a huge dialogue, though fortunately this one was a bit easier to understand (emphasis on “bit”). Ryuuki was gathered along with all his advisors, and especially the advisors were angry at her for spending so much money (see previous episode) on the medics. Shuurei’s speech blew these guys away, though. At least, for a short while, they then started blaming Shuurei for the reason the disease spread.

Ryuuki then silences everyone, but who was that person he turned into for a short while? He had the same glow as Sho Taishi’s younger form and Sa Enjun’s spirit-form. We never see any trace of him again, though. The rest of the conversation was a bit fuzzy, though in the end, it came down to Ryuuki giving his permission.

The rest of the episode was more character-based, when Shuurei rests after her hard work, she says goodbye to Ryuuki and leaves towards the Sa-province again. Reishin and Kouyuu were hilarious as well, whey they stand besides a sleeping Shuurei and have to flee when she wakes up. ^^; Still, it seems that nearly everyone in the palace was worried about her, since she encounters lots of acquaintances who seem to have fallen asleep on their chairs in the library, where she was sleeping herself. Kouyuu found an interesting way to hide himself as well. ^^;

Also: what happened to Eigetsu? He wasn’t featured at all during the episode, even though he’s about to die. He should be getting some spotlights in the next episode, though. I really wonder whether Shuurei will be able to see him again. Like I said before, Eigetsu at one point had less than a month to live, while it’d take Shuurei at least a month to get to the Sa-province. But then again, right now she’s in a hurry to go there with the doctors as fast as possible, so I can imagine that the journey would only take half the time when she puts some speed in it.

Whoa… this probably was the hardest to understand episode yet! Anime like Seirei no Moribito and Saiunkoku, who already feature lots of talking, sometimes have a tendency to show entire episodes who just focus on a bunch of people talking, with nothing more. This was one of these episodes. Eighteen minutes just play inside a small blacksmith’s house, nothing else. No flashbacks, other characters, nothing.

Well then, there was one thing I did understand: Barsa’s spear had been quite damaged, so she goes to a famous blacksmith in order to get a new one. At the end of the episode, we see her happily practicing with her spear. What happened between these scenes was extremely different to grasp.

I do suspect that the blacksmith wasn’t keen on helping Barsa at first. This is probably because of her past, and judging by the fact that Tanda had to heal her quite often, she probably frequented his place as well. Either that or he’s seen her wanted-posters. Then, after a while, two of the hunters enter the shop, picking up some swords that they ordered.

What follows is a long discussion, between the blacksmith and the hunters, while Barsa and Chaggumu hide out in a different room. The blacksmith nearly betrays them when he tells the hunters that their swords are in the same room where they’re hiding out in. At the last moment, though, he changes his mind, and puts up a discussion, so that it’ll be natural for him to pick up the swords himself. At least, that’s what I suspect.

To find out the subject of this discussion, I’m probably going to have to wait till Wrex posts his summary, but I suspect he was telling them about Barsa’s history with her father. The way Barsa looked seems to suggest this. The hunters then compare this story with probably Chaggumu’s.

This really was a discussion you’d expect in a novel, not in an anime like that. But still, I liked it, even though I didn’t understand a word of it. The music also was amazing, near the end of the episode. I was surprised we saw nothing of Shuga. You’d suspect that this episode would show him talk to various people, to convince them that the drought isn’t over, but we saw nothing of him. Torogai-shi also was absent.