Seriously, this episode turned out incredibly exciting. I know I already wowed over the first half of the series, but as things look now, the second half of Toward the Terra is going to beat it in every single way. If the series can keep up the pacing for the final episodes, then when we’re talking about one of the best science-fiction anime of the past few years.

Anyway, things didn’t turn out like I predicted after the previous episode. Toni and Physis get taken hostage by Keith, to help him escape, but both of them manage get away safely from him. Karina, however, is not so fortunate, and she dies through her worries of having lost her only son. Her death certainly was a memorable one, and it puts Toni in an interesting position, because some day, he’ll have to face the fact that he indirectly killed his own mother.

We also see Blue back in action, and for some reason, he sees the same memories in Keith as the ones in Physis. The question now remains: why was Blue the only one who could sense the guy’s real memories? The link between Physis and Mother Eliza still remains a huge mystery. The bubbles seen in the memory probably stand for the strange place Shiroe ran into in episode eight, but that doesn’t explain Physis’s role in it.

Anyway, right now, the Myu are in trouble, and the younger ones are going to have to accept that they’ll have to leave Nazca. After all, Keith sent enough back ups to take care of them. I suspect that they’ll be heading for Terra again, but I wonder how they’ll find out its location. We’re in for at least one more major time-leap, up to the point where Tobi has fully grown up. I suspect that next episode will be spent on escaping from Keith, where Blue probably plays his final trump card, after which the Myu manage to remain hidden for a number of years.

But then again, this is all based on the information in the OP, and we all know how misleading that one can be. ^^;

Oh my god, I loved this episode! Not necessarily because of the story used, as it’s a standard one that’s been used more often by other stories. It’s neither because of Emily, okay, she was as awesome as usual, but she didn’t really add anything new. But seriously, the background music was magnificent. This episode introduced a few new background tunes, and they’re absolutely beautiful! The original soundtrack already was great, but these tunes were still much better than anything I’ve heard on this show up before.

About the rest of the episode, Emily visits her grandmother this time. It’s nothing new, it’s nothing special, but Emily’s character alone made this episode yet again so incredibly sweet, so that it was well worth watching, even without the awesomeness of the soundtrack. There was a really creepy atmosphere through the course of the episode, because Emily’s grandmother’s house was supposed to be haunted. Obviously, Emily wouldn’t like that, due to her abundance of imagination. ^^;

On a side-note: that eye-catch really scared me! You’ll understand when you see the episode yourself. Anyway, Emily keeps surprising me as one of my favourite series of the spring-season. I can’t wait till the series draws near its end, and even more drama is going to be included. :)

Oh, and *note to self: get hands on soundtrack!*

The building up of the first number of episodes has finally started to pay off. Until episode eight, this was just a show with a large amount of imagination and some interesting fights, but starting with episode 9, I started to really care about the different characters. This episode provided a great aftermath for that action-packed episode, with also lots of new information regarding the characters revealed.

Isako really was scary in this episode when she easily took care of the Sacchi, and yet we see a total different side of hers when we suddenly learn that she’s got a big-brother-complex. We also see her visit her grandfather who is in the hospital, and it seems that she dislikes her grandmother, whom we briefly saw visiting him (at least, I think that woman was her grandmother). We should be seeing this brother quite soon now. In fact, something tells me that it’s that suspicious guy we saw at the end of the episode.

Another interesting plot development comes from Daichi, when he and Denpa leave Isako. It’s quite surprising, but it does make sense. The look on his face when Isako enrolled him really showed that he’s very impulsive, and doesn’t think the things he does through. In this episode, he became scared of Isako, so he left. It was quite cute to see Denpa follow him.

I also wonder what was up with Akira’s pet, who kept following Isako wherever she went, especially since we never see Akira actually controlling it. I’d like to know how he reacts, when she finds out that Isako has a cute side as well.

We also see the identity of the mysterious Yonyon nii-san revealed. It was indeed the voice who talks to Yasako in the strange dream she had. It turned out that he helped her when she was young, at the same site as Yasako’s dream, when she lost Densuke. She then was so impressed that she promptly proposed to marry him in the future. I suspect, though, that she never saw him again after that, but this episode showed that the guy still has a huge impact on her, when at one point she wonders whether that guy may be Haraken. Of course he’s not, as he looked much older than Yasako at that time, but the question remains: what kind of relation does he have to Haraken? Since Yonyon is definitely related to both Yasako and Haraken. (By the way, a girl with a big-brother complex, a girl with a mysterious figure in her past who made a big impression on her but whose face she can’t remember? Am I the only one getting Utena-vibes out of this?).

The only thing I didn’t manage to follow was the scene between Yasako and Haraken, concerning Kanna’s diary. It seems that the password for Kanna’s diary finally is found, and Yasako accidentally reads it before she can give it back to Haraken. When Haraken reads it, he somehow gets obsessed to find something, but I couldn’t quite understand what that was, and why he’d do that. He looked quite pitiful, though.

Okay, so I was wrong. This episode still spent its time building up. There were a number of events important in this episode: Saggumu’s fate, getting Shuga, who finally has been convinced that Chaggumu is still alive out of the library, and the fact that Chaggumu will certainly die if something isn’t done, because a certain “Rarunga” will be after his life once the egg inside of him has developed past a certain stage. For the latter, Barsa and Chaggumu will be going on a journey to try and find a way to stop this.

Still, I’m getting worried. The episode was nice and all, but it should be about time for Seirei no Moribito to get fired off. The fact that there is a huge amount of detail doesn’t impress me anymore about this show, and I’m really hoping that the plot will turn up a gear in one of the next episodes. Lots of building up can be nice and all, but if the things they’re building up for are unimpressive, then the building-up would have been for naught.

I’m not sure what happened to Saggumu, to be honest. The entire episode seems to suggest that he’s feeling unwell, and that cliff-hanger seemed to suggest that he actually died at the end of the episode! I suspect that he just needed a lot of sleep, but still, I’m surprised that his health is so bad.

If you have yet to see this episode: STAY AWAY FROM THIS ENTRY. Seriously, this is one episode you don’t want to be spoiled about. This is an extremely important episode in Saiunkoku Monogatari, featuring lots of major plot twists. This sentence is meant to fill some space on the blog-aggregators like animenano and animeblogger to prevent spoilers from showing up there. So, this should be enough.

Sakujun lives!!! We’ve been given enough hints to suggest that this was the case, but now we actually see it confirmed. The question now remains: what the heck is he up to? He definitely made clear that he wanted to meet Shuurei, with his fake name of Li Senya. While this makes his death less beautiful, he could be providing some interesting scenes for the future, especially combined with Riou.

Ryuuren gets to be the one to save Eigetsu. We also learn that he didn’t do that, just because Eigetsu was his bosom buddy, but because he actually felt responsible. After all, on numerous occasions he forced Eigetsu to bring out Yougetsu, without a second thought whatsoever. This is actually a very interesting development for someone like him, who acts as random as possible. Shuurei and Eigetsu have quite succeeded into “taming his personality.

Also, the leader of the cult finally reveals his plans, though unfortunately I didn’t understand any of it. All I picked up was that his mother was involved, and he wants to do something with a strange body. And where the heck did small Riou run off to??