Interesting. The final part of Toward the Terra is going to be political. Instead of going in an all-out battle, this episode featured negotiations between the humans and the Myu. Because of this, it isn’t as emotional as the previous episode, but I’m quite interested in how the creators were planning to end this series. The episode ends with Grand Mother, finally showing herself, and I wonder what she’ll be adding to the ending.

The best moment of the episode was when Terra finally appeared, though. It’s become one huge desert, how’s that for a disappointment! It seems that it’s still habitable, but only a few humans can live there, and it was a brave decision of Jomie to keep advancing, even after having seen this. He’s really evolved into a great leader.

The negotiations happen in a huge tower, which probably provides one of the few habitable environments. Perhaps this was handled a bit too quickly, either that or it was me, not paying attention. Before the negotiations happen, Physis visits Keith, asking what Blue’s last words were. Overall, I couldn’t follow most of the talking due to my limited Japanese, unfortunately.

There’s only one episode left. All that’s left to hope now is that the creators haven’t shot themselves in the foot with their planning, and don’t end up rushing the final episode. I’m not expecting anything, and I’ll assume that the best episode of this series will be episode 22. Making a good anime is one thing, but ending it well is an entirely different story. I’ve seen magnificent series with just mediocre endings (Escaflowne and Mahou Shoujotai come to mind), and it really takes something extra to make it original, not predictable and still satisfying. If I had to make a quick guess, then I’d say that out of all the shows I’ve seen up till now, only half a dozen ended up with a great ending, and that isn’t much. Most series either turn mediocre or just good, but way below the overall quality of the series.

Another building-up episode. It’s a bit disappointing, since most of the airtime was dedicated to a revelation that everyone probably already figured out: Isako’s brother is 4423. Yasako and Akira find this out as they find her, visiting her brother, conveniently located in room 4423 in the hospital.

I do woner what Isako’s been up to, by the way. She’s obviously waiting for something, but what exactly is it? Right now, it looks like all she’s been doing is visit her brother with regular intervals and nothing else, so it must be something really important. Anyway, the only new pieces of information is that we now know that 4423 is inside the library now, so Isako has been able to recover his cyber-body somehow, and Isako classifies Yasako with “all those other adults” after telling what happened to 4423. This explains a bit more about her reasons and personality.

Apart from that, we finally know the reporter’s name: Nekome. He seems to be an acquaintance of Tamako, and he apparently contacted her to help her. I’m feeling that he’s also after Isako (we see the pink cat again in Room 4423, and I’m getting more and more convinced that it’s owner is Nekome), and it seems that he’s now the superior of Tamako.

The interesting stuff about this episode came from Fumie and especially Haraken, though. They’re both in the library, researching the Illegals and Michiko-san after Fumie finds a few urban legends about her in a local tv-show. It’s also the hardest to understand part, so I hope I got this one right.

It seems that Haraken posted on an on-line forum, asking whether other people have heard of accidents with the navigation-equipment. I like this part; it shows that our main characters aren’t the only ones in the world with affinity to the cyberworld. It seems that there are more cases about people disappearing. One article also speaks of “cyber-clothing”. I’m not sure what this means yet.

Fumie then brings a few books about urban legends, and they show quite a few interesting things. It contains hastily drawn pictures of people and shrines, and a certain keyhole that we both saw in Yasako’s old diary and on the Illegals, as soon as Isako tried to open them. I’m not exactly sure what the book said apart from that, but if I had to guess, then it’s got something to do with people, disappearing into the cyber-world. We see them walk either towards said keyhole, or along a couple of train-tracks. The interesting thing is, of course: what was that keyhole doing in Yasako’s diary? Right now, it looks like she just fled once 4423 got eaten, but I’m beginning to think that more happened afterwards.

Still, I do wonder whether Yasako will be able to carry the second half of this series as a main character. She has been developing nicely for the past few episodes, but she never really turns into the highlight of an episode. It’s always another character that turns out more interesting than she does: Daiichi, Fumie, Haraken, Denpa, Kyoko and Takeru are all more interesting than she is, and I’m beginning to get worried about that. The only time where she really shined was in episode nine, where she was on her own and had to protect her teacher from Daiichi’s attacks. Ah well, only time will tell.

Seriously… despite the fact that this is supposed to be a slice-of-life-series, ever since episode nineteen this has been one non-stop roller-coaster ride of bittersweet awesomeness. I was wondering how the creators would spend the final three episodes of the series, now that she’s back in New Moon, and now that her dreams have failed to be accomplished, but this episode shows that they know exactly what they’re doing. This episode was utterly sensational!

I’m not going to say what happens during the main climax. That’s for you to find out, if it ever gets subbed. Let me say though, that it was so sad. It’s times like these when the fact that the fansubbers dislike shoujo-series really becomes a bad thing, because the English-speaking-only community is missing out on a masterpiece because of this.

About the other events of the episode, I still love the irony that surrounds Emily. Throughout the entire beginning of the series, we see her twelve-year old version be extremely enthusiastic about her dreams to become a poet. She keeps working hard, and her enthusiasm forms a great source of inspiration for her friends. I seriously doubt whether Teddy, Perry and Ilse could have gotten this far without Emily. Ilse probably would never have realized that she likes acting if it wasn’t for that play that Emily set up. If Perry didn’t have the hard-working Emily as an example, he probably would have taken longer to say something to his grandmother, and if I remember correctly, Teddy used to love to make drawings of Emily. And now all three of them are going to make it big, while Emily ended up back home.

Ah, finally. After five weeks of absence and recaps, Saiunkoku Monogatari finally returns with episode 57. Oh, how I’ve waited for this series to return; but first: another recap!

So… yeah.

There’s nothing much to say. While it’s awesome to see Shuurei back, a recap remains a recap. Thank goodness there were a few minutes of new material, which featured hilarious banter between Ryuuki, Shuuei and Kouyuu, but that’s all. I was also too lazy to take new screenshots, so those who paid attention will notice that I recycled a few from previous episodes.

I’m nearly speechless. This episode was quite straightforward, but the incredible attention to detail in both the graphics as the storytelling made it an awesome watch. This episode was really good in portraying everyone’s involvement, even though I didn’t understand some of the dialogues. Still, this series has featured episodes that were a lot more difficult to understand. This either means that my Japanese is getting better, I’m getting more familiarized with the story, or the dialogue as simply been simplified. I think it’s one of the latter, though.

Anyway, the thing that Gakai found out in the previous episode was that the lake isn’t the place where the egg is going to hatch. Chaggumu is heading for the real place, and the majority of the episode is spent on finding him, when they suddenly run into Rarunga, who’s also searching for him. There’s a high emphasis on tracking in this episode as well, and because of that, you could actually see the subtle trails that Chaggumu left behind.

In any case, Tanda finds out a way to defeat Rarunga, who turns out invulnerable to physical attacks: drink the dew of the water lily-like flower that we saw Chaggumu grab. Apparently, that one forms the link between the real and the spirit world. And with this, I realize the significance of the episode where Saya was ill: that one was meant to explain this principle. With this, they manage to kill Raruga, but there seem to be two of them, or perhaps even more.

I know that this description didn’t do this episode justice. The thing I really liked was how almost every person in it felt so real. People are smart, and think like real human beings. At least, more real than in 95% of all other anime. Don’t expect the fight against Rarunga to top episode three, though. While it looks beautiful, it just lacks the adrenaline of that episode. I think it’s safe to assume that the best fight of the series was showed in that particular episode. But after all, fights aren’t everything. ;)