I think that this can be classified as the first real filler of the series. Nothing is done to change the situations of any of the characters in any way, unless Ricardo really did lose track of Nadie and Ellis. I think we can expect episodes like these for the next month as well, until episode twelve or thirteen comes with the first major climax.

But, in order to make up for this, the creators did present us with a funny episode, and probably the coolest hunter yet. Seriously, though, it’s a shame that he died this episode, as he was hilarious and cool at the same time, I especially loved how he took his own horrible sense of fashion seriously. ^^;

As for the case of the episode, this time the anime starts playing around with raison d’êtres. We’ve got ourselves a girl who lives in an abandoned town, and works at an abandoned mine. How she gets her food is beyond me, but the reason she’s stayed as the only one was because of her father. He was looking for a strange silver relic when he still lived, but he never managed to find it. The girl then saw it as her task to continue this, even though everybody else gave up hope. In true anime-fashion, this relic is found and buried again, under the rubble. She then discards her father’s wishes, and chooses to live her own life: continue working on the mine.

It’s unfortunate, while I watched the episode, I never noticed anything, but as I’ve been writing this entry, I began to notice some considerable flaws in this episode. The scene with Blue-eyes illustrates this best, I think. While it was funny, it also shows how the plot is going nowhere. At least Wellber no Monogatari keeps track of where the main party is, but with El Cazador, the creators just can keep extending this journey as much as they like without it feeling strange.

The hunter, in fact, was the only really good point in this episode, now that I look back. The case itself was mundane, when compared to the others. Nadie was okay, I guess, not good, not bad. My main problem is Ellis, though. Her antics can only remain cute for a limited period of time, unless she changes somehow, which has yet to happen. This episode again, just showed her usual antics and nothing more, and for the first time, these antics began to drag.

The thing is that I’ve got nothing wrong with episodic series. Heck, I love them, but they’ve got one disadvantage: the episodes can either be incredibly good, or incredibly bad, depending on the case they choose. This clearly was a bad one, boring is the better word. Normally, I wouldn’t mind this so much, but the beginning episodes of this series have spoiled me so much when they had so many revelations in each episode, that it’s becoming disappointing to see a filler.

Let’s hope the case for the next episode is going to be a bit better.

This episode once again was amazing, even though I can assume that the manga-fans will dislike it. The greatest parts of the episode were the revelations at the end of the episode. Chizuru’s story was toned down from the things I’ve heard about her. I think this was to be expected, though. Gonzo does remain notorious for not keeping to their original source-material. I’ve yet to see one of their adaptations that wasn’t frowned upon by the fans of the originals.

But, having not read the Bokura no manga, I don’t care. This show rocks!

Chizuru’s downfall may have not been as shocking as Masaru’s, but certain parts of the episode were really touching. I originally thought that the flashback of episode seven happened before the events of episode five, but now it seems that Chizuru found out about her teacher somewhere in-between episodes 5 and 6. She still hates the guy, and in fact she plans to use Zearth to kill the guy. Her sister manages to save the guy, and even then he leaves the show with a bad impression, fleeing away like a little coward while his girlfriend can die any minute now.

Chizuru raises some interesting questions, reminiscent of the end of Jigoku Shoujo. If you’re going to die, why not take someone along with you? The only difference here is that Chizuru has ten people around her, who see her do these things. In the end, though, nobody can find a good reason to stop her from nearly killing her teacher.

The things that happen afterwards, though, are even better, when Yoko convinces Chizuru to fight the enemy. Especially when she told her that everybody’s going to have to do the same thing, which is quite ironic, see below. The then finishes off the enemy, and turns silent, while holding her hands around her belly.

And then the aftermath comes, with a really disturbing revelation. If you look at Zearth’s face, you could see a number of lights on it. When Chizuru died, two of these lights disappeared. In the end, these lights turned out to be the life-energy of the different children. When Chizuru died, the baby she carried also didn’t survive, which caused two of these lights to disappear.

But now the strange thing: there are eleven children left, but Zearth’s face only has nine lights left burning. This means that Kana will be surviving this whole drama, since she never enlisted. That, however, leaves another child who will be spared. One child will remain alive, while witnessing all her friends die in front of her eyes. There’s still the problem of Kokopelli, who seems to have mentioned that there will be fifteen enemies. Now that four of them have died, eleven will be left. This problem, however, can be solved, when it seems that the army is willing to offer sacrifices for the last two enemies. But who could the person who will survive be? After looking at some screenshots of the first episode, I think I know.

It’s Yoko! Remember, every one of the children enlisted properly, though she refused, and Takashi took her hand and forced her to sign up. I have no idea why, but that seemed not enough for her to become a pilot. Hence the irony when she told Chizuru that every one of them will be piloting Zearth and dying afterwards as well: everyone will, apart from herself. That’s why the OP features her, standing right next to a destroyed city! Obviously, this is 100% speculation, but it makes by far the most sense from all of the children.