I’m going to be a bit more extensive for this review, because it seems that the subs have stopped due to the licensing of this show, and Toward the Terra is just too awesome not to get subbed. It’s such an incredible shame that so few people are talking about this series, because this one definitely is one of the best series that’s currently airing. This episode again was just awesome. It marks the end of the Nazca-arc, and with such an end comes an amazing climax. Let’s just say that things turn into a bloodbath.

We start the episode with where we left off at the previous episode: Soldier Blue, trying to stop the huge planet-destroying beam that gets fired at them. In the previous episode, Keith made clever use to hide behind a gas-planet to avoid detection, which is why he blew right through it. I originally thought that that would be the thing to kill Blue, but things didn’t go that easy. He gets help from Jomie, who rushes to his side, and quite surprisingly, Toni and the other naturally born children! Not only that, but they also grew up a bit!

The attack is deflected, but Keith is still there with his cannon that can be ready to fire again within minutes. Nazca is also done for it, and large cracks appear on the surface. Blue orders Jomie to bring the children, who most of all have fainted due to the strain, into safety, and get everyone else off of Nazca, while he himself goes off to stop Keith and his weapon (which is called “Moby Dick”, by the way. Jomie objects, but Blue reminds him that he is the leader of the Myu, and bringing them to safety takes priority.

Keith, meanwhile, waits for Soldier Blue to come to him. He doesn’t even take Jomie into account, it seems. For him, Blue seems to be the biggest threat. Meanwhile, on Nazca, people are trying to evacuate, but earthquakes really limit the process. There is one problem, though. Rio realizes that a few of the Myu have retreated into a shelter, where they are planning to sit everything out. They were the ones who wished to remain on Nazca, and had no intention to return to Terra. They don’t realize the danger that’s upon them, so they refuse to let Rio in. Among them is Kim, the one who Jomie punched in one of the first episodes.

On a side-note: Whoa, there sure are a lot of Myu there! Up till now, we’ve only seen a relatively small amount of people on the ship, but there really are more than hundred my that were on Nazca and had to be evacuated. With this, things do make a bit more sense. I originally thought that after Toni’s birth, every young Myu sought out to have a baby, but only seven couples actually formed. That’s relatively few, instead of the relatively large amount I originally thought them to be.

While Blue is heading for Keith, Physis holds his headgear, hoping that he’ll return safely like he promised. Jomie, meanwhile, arrives and saves a few ships that can be used to transport the Myu that are till on Nazca to Shangri-la. Rio then tells him about the people in the shelter. Jomie then tells Rio to save himself, while he himself will try to do something about the shelter. Keith, meanwhile, is ready to fire when Blue arrives. He manages to take out some of the surrounding ships of the fleet by making them shoot at themselves. He then penetrates Moby Dick, with the intention to blow up the firing mechanism.

Keith has been waiting for this, and he personally goes out to meet Blue. He leaves the command to one of his subordinates, and moves to the centre of Moby Dick himself. Jomie, meanwhile, failed. He sees a few Myu who were unfortunate, and crushed by the rubble, caused by the massive earthquakes, and when he reaches the shelter, everyone is already dead, and Kim only has the ability to utter a few words to Jomie himself.

While that scene already was amazing, things only get better. We switch to Soldier Blue, who is struggling towards the core of the Moby Dick. He’s exhausted from beating up so many soldiers, when he runs into Keith, who deals him a few deadly blows. Before he dies, though, he manages to accomplish his mission and blow up the firing system, preventing it from firing. With this, though, he gets caught in the explosion. Matsuka manages to save Keith. The rest of the crew decides to detach from the Moby Dick, before it explodes. Jomie meanwhile reaches the Shangri-la, which quickly warps away from the area.

We then turn to the commander of the fleet (the one who we saw in episode six as well), as he comments on the destruction that Keith caused. He may be a soldier, but he doesn’t consider this a battle, but a slaughter (or something similar). When looking at the two nearly destroyed planets, he sees Keith as some kind of monster. It’s interesting, because on first sight, he really looks like some kind of villain.

Strangely enough, despite the awesomeness of these scenes, my favourite moment of the episode was the aftermath. Seeing the old guy eat a tomato, to be strangely enough exact. With this, he finally acknowledges the Myu who died on Nazca. Everyone on the ship is mourning about them and Blue.

The episode ends with Jomie, announcing his new plans. People start to confuse him with Soldier Blue, as he claims that this showed the true colours of Artemesia (which I assume is the general government from the humans). He can’t forgive their system. From now on, not only will they continue to search for Terra, he also plans to go to Artemesia, in order to fix their system, and forcibly obtain Terra’s location.

This episode truly was epic. The most important thing was obviously the loss of so many characters, both important and unimportant. Another interesting issue was raised, which is the huge power of Toni and the other children. At such a young age, their power is already equal to Jomie’s and Blue’s. Now I understand why they’re going to play such a big role in the future.

Yay! Yay! Yay! Finally we get to see Ilse’s background! And boy, does it deliver. This episode was a beautiful tear-jerker, and it more than made up for the lacklustre sixteenth episode. Now all that’s left is Teddy, but I wonder, will there be more? I definitely hope so!

Ilse was another one of these persons, just like Perry, who didn’t like to talk about her own problems. That’s why it took so long for this to be addressed, but now that the anniversary of the day where her mother and father met each other had arrived, it had to be more on her mind than usual. Ilse’s mother died because of an accident, and her father was so shocked by this, that he decided to pretend that she never existed, in order to protect Ilse.

Ilse, however, interpreted this in a totally different way. Because her father never spoke about her, and would react startled and scary when she was mentioned, she began to think that he hated her. Obviously, as a curious child, you’d want to know the truth about your mother. The result was amazing, and I loved the way in which their misunderstandings were solved, after Ilse gets incredibly angry at him for not telling, and runs away, in the middle of a storm. This episode illustrated perfectly what Kaze no Shoujo is about: the friendship between children and their relationship with adults.

In this episode, Emily provides a huge amount of support for Ilse, and we’ve seen Ilse provide the same amount of support for Emily and the others as well. Furthermore, there will always be a gap between adults and children. The adults have experienced things that they don’t want to talk about, while the children can’t understand these things yet. Especially in these days, the adults were afraid of change and rather stubborn, and this can sometimes create conflicts with the playful children. Children, on their turn, often draw the wrong conclusions with their hastened deductions, while adults are way less naive. And that’s what this series is really about, and it does this perfectly.

This episode was wrong on so many levels, but I think everyone can see that by looking at the screenshots. It’s not what it looks like, honestly. ^^; Basically, those hairs are tiny illegals who have settled on the faces of people. It looks quite hilarious and wrong if you don’t know what’s going on.

Oh, and Kyoko kissed Daichi and later Denpa. Don’t ask. I do love, though, how she keeps hanging out with Daichi. They do fit each other perfectly, they’re both obnoxious brats who got sent away by the people they look up to. And somehow, I like both of them, Even though the past two episodes have done rather nothing to develop Isako, they did a great job in fleshing out the characters, and introducing new kinds of illegals that just sparkle with imagination. To be honest, Dennou Coil is turning into one of my favourite series at the moment, as it’s currently doing just about everything right, there are no obvious flaws, and it perfectly combines comedy and drama. Especially this episode was hilarious. (Notice the blush on Mega-Baa’s face when she sees Daichi’s new look? She also looks hilarious with her beard on; ^^;)

The interesting thing also is: these illegals were perfectly sentient, and they all had a mind of their own. Yasako had some great conversations with them, and we see them actually develop, change and learn in this episode. Especially the final part of the episode was really thought-provoking, when they started to have war with each other. I also love the solution for the problem: transfer all of illegals to the old guy’s head, and the background music that was chosen for it only made it better.

So basically, I’m ashamed to say it, but I absolutely loved this episode. ^^;

I’m not happy with the twist that came in this episode. Not happy at all. The rest of the episode was nice enough for an aftermath, but I found myself not caring because of that particular development. I really felt cheated, and this is the second time that Saiunkoku Monogatari pulls this off. I’m really getting worried about this, because Saiunkoku is developing a nasty habit that also plagues shows like Naturo and Bleach: the utter refusal to kill off its characters.

Both the deaths for Sakujun and Eigetsu were beautiful. Both deaths were so awesome because they were backed up by a huge amount of building up. The fact that both of them live again due to an anticlimactic Deus ex Machina that popped up after they were supposed to have died really ruins the magic of these moments. I was able to ignore it once for Sakujun, but it’s going to get difficult when this anime tries to get away with the same stunt again.

Anyway, about the rest of the episode, now that Seiran is busy again, we find Ryuuki wondering what his purposes might be. The next arc is also introduced, but I can’t say anything about that yet, because I couldn’t understand what was said. Oh, and we get to know the identity of another one of the eight sages: Yo-sensei. So that makes the known sages now:
- Sho Taishi.
- Riou.
- Yougetsu, who now is sleeping soundly inside of Eigetsu.
- Yo-sensei.
- The one who was resting inside Shuurei’s mother (Bara-Hime), and now seems to sleep inside Shuurei. (thanks to a few commenters for that info)
- And I wouldn’t be surprised if one was sleeping in either Shunki or Eiki, to explain the powers they have.

It’s episodes like this one where you can see the fruits of the huge amount of time that the previous episodes have spent on building up. For those who were hoping for the plot to get moving: this one’s it, and this is not an episode you’d want to miss. The central event in this episode had to be Shuga, who ran into Chaggumu, making him and Barsa aware that people are after them. The result was an excellent episode.

In the end, Barsa will not allow people to take Chaggumu away from her. When she made the vow, she didn’t only promise to protect Chaggumu, she’d also take care of him like a mother. Not only that, but this episode also placed a barrier between Barsa and Chaggumu, especially after he learned that Saggumu had died.

But the real star of this episode had to be Tooya, when he tried to outsmart the warriors without knowing anything, by setting Barsa’s house on fire. With this, he hoped to warn Barsa that something happened, and he succeeded in this. But I loved how he just surrendered after it, since there would be no way to escape from these guys. I don’t know why, but somehow I love this reasoning. It must’ve been extremely hard for him to be lectured by the guy who he thought to be his friend, but turned out to be a member of these warriors.

Thing is, I have absolutely no idea what will be happening after this. Barsa, Tanda and Chaggumu will probably go to Torogai-shi, but what happens after that? What will be the next step of the warriors? Will Yin find Chaggumu? How will the king react? What about Rarunga? I have absolutely no idea.