+ October Rankings +
The start of the Autumn 2007-season did show one thing: the amount of great series just isn’t as large as you’d expect. Still, I’m glad that at least a few series managed to stand out for me, and now all that’s left is to hope that they’ll unexpectedly turn out awesome in their second halfs. Another advantage of a small season is that series that originally have been ignored can suddenly hope for a bit more attention than usual.

Oh, and in case this is the first time you see this, the series are ranked from worst to best, the number between the ( and ) indicates the place where that series was on last month, the rating is out of 10, with average being a 6,0 (and yes, I’m using the decimal comma).

#44 (new) - Goshushou-sama Ninomiya-kun - (3,9/10) - Ehm… No. Fanservice does not equal a good anime.
#43 (new) - Koharu Biyori - (4/10) - Only for people with a maid-fetish. How come crap like this gets animated, while truly captivating premises are ignored?
#42 (new) - Prism Ark - (4,9/10) - Way too much aimed at teenagers for its own good.
#41 (new) - Myself; Yourself - (5,6/10) - I really don’t remember anything about this series. All I know is that it was rather boring, so I never checked out episode 2.
#40 (35) - Romeo x Juliet - (5,6/10) - Well, I admit that it’s interesting that [spoiler] the bad guy’s dead, two episodes before the end, but things are still looking grim with an utterly predictable finale in store.
#39 (new) - Da Capo II - (5,9/10) - Just has too many stereotypes.
#38 (new) - Kimikiss Pure Rouge - (5,9/10) - I couldn’t really get myself to continue this. In the end, it’s just too generic. Dropped.
#37 (new) - Rental Magica - (6/10) - This series just feels too generic for me to continue. Dropped.
#36 (new) - Shakugan no Shana II - (6,1/10) - Halfway through the second episode, I found myself thinking: “why the heck am I still watching this bore-fest?”, so I dropped this series. Something I should have done ages ago.
#35 (new) - Dragonaut the Resonance - (6,5/10) - I’m still not sure what to think of this series. The storytelling is obnoxious, especially the best friend is getting predictable and the outfits are just outrageous, but the potential’s there.
#34 (new) - Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro - (6,7/10) - Okay, I know that this one could become good later on, but my inner-mystery-fanboy is screaming because of the shallowness of the first few episodes. Dropped.
#33 (new) - Hero Tales - (6,7/10) - A lot of people seem to think that the mangaka of Full Metal Alchemist wrote this series. Well, she didn’t. She just worked on the art. It’s perhaps because of this that I stopped caring about the plot halfway through the third episode and dropped it.
#32 (new) - Sketchbook ~ Full Color’s - (6,8/10) - While episode 1 was nice enough, episode 2 was rather boring and much of the same, so I dropped it.
#31 (new) - Minami-ke - (7,1/10) - On second thoughts, I dropped this. The comedy isn’t that funny, and it gets old soon. It’s a shame, I would like to have continued this, but my time isn’t endless.
#30 (new) - Maple Story - (7,2/10) - Say what you want, but I like this series. It may be rather childish, stupid and without much depth, it also is a fun series to watch.
#29 (new) - Clannad - (7,3/10) - This surprises me. In two episodes, the main character feels more as a part of the series than the main character for Kanon did in all ten episodes that I lasted for that one. It’s a shame that star-girl, book-girl and fighting-girl feel too much like unrealistic stereotypes, because this could be the very first Kyoani-series that I actually like.
#28 (36) - Kodomo no Jikan - (7,4/10) - Well what do you know? This series actually turned out good enough to continue. It’s just like Umisho: the fanservice is horrible, but beyond that, we have in this case a touching story about children with problems at school, and inexperienced teachers, having to deal with it. Based on the rumours, I really expected this series to turn into some kind of spawn of Satan, and I’m pleasantly surprised that it didn’t.
#27 (new) - Night Wizard - (7,4/10) - The thing with RPG-adaptations is that they’re bound to have a few clichés here and there. The thing that they need to worry about is developing their characters well, and making their setting so that the viewer will get interested. A great example is the game Golden Sun. It couldn’t get more clichéd, with the lighthouses and the jewels and all, but the world and villains still kept me interested until the final boss-fight. Still, I’m missing this a bit with Night Wizard.
#26 (31) - Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha - (7,5/10) - I’m honestly disappointed in Nanoha, though I’ll go into more detail for that once the series finishes. I haven’t seen episode 26 yet, but I should get the chance in the next couple of days. Episode 25 made up for a few things, and it did manage to turn out a bit touching in the end, but at this time, I consider StrikerS to be the weakest of the Nanoha-franchise.
#25 (new) - ef - a Tale of Memories - (7,6/10) - The story of the girl with the eye-patch has turned out great. I wish I could say the same about the manga-writer, though. His story is way too standard, and it doesn’t seem to get anywhere.
#24 (new) - Little Princess Sara - (7,7/10) - From now on, I’m also going to include this series in the rankings, as it looks like it’s going to take a while before it finishes. The first episode showed some great potential for the future.
#23 (new) - Gundam 00 - (7,7/10) - Right now, Gundam 00 has been building up for a good base to work with. It’s nothing special yet, but neither are there signs for total failure.
#22 (new) - Mokke - (7,7/10) - So it’s predictable, and the animation… well… sucks. The storytelling makes up for it, and creates a nice and relaxing atmosphere.
#21 (32) - Sky Girls - (7,7/10) - Hah! It’s just as I hoped. While the series is still annoying at times, the characters are starting to get developed, and the overall quality has risen considerably, compared to the first half of the series.
#20 (new) - Suteki Tantei Labyrinth - (7,8/10) - Okay, it’s not perfect, but it’s good and intriguing enough for now. But it’s too early to tell whether this will become a success or not.
#19 (18) - Perrine Monogatari - (7,9/10) - I was surprised to see a new member of the cast appear, in the form of a circus-boy. The messages about how wrong stealing is may have been a bit too emphasized, but overall it was a solid episode.
#18 (20) - Mushiuta - (7,9/10) - The ending created quite a bit of potential for the second season, with all the deaths and all. I must say, that while the series itself had its bumps here and there, I am looking forward to what the second half of this series has in store for us.
#17 (new) - Shugo Chara - (8/10) - While not the best beginning for a mahou shoujo out there, the potential is definitely there, and the past few episodes have been quite some fun to watch.
#16 (8) - Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - (8/10) - This month, Higurashi has been building up for the final arc. It’s definitely necessary, but not as exciting as the show used to be.
#15 (new) - Blue Drop - (8/10) - Blue Drop has been developing into a very nice series. The yuri is always welcome, and something tells me that the best of the series is still to come.
#14 (new) - Moyashimon - (8,2/10) - A well-scripted comedy with a unique premise. The different high-school anime really should take an example from this series.
#13 (new) - Bamboo Blade - (8,2/10) - Now this turned into a real surprise. Episode four was hilarious, and Tama is also shaping up to become a great character. The chemistry between the characters is just excellent.
#12 (new) - Ghost Hound - (8,2/10) - The Lain-influences are so noticeable, though the first two episodes have mostly been just building up. The potential’s there, though.
#11 (???) - Mononoke - (8,2/10) - Mononoke ended this month, and while the final arc wasn’t as good as the other arcs of the series, it was a worthy ending of such an interesting Noitamina-series.

#10 (29) - Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula - (8,4/10)

I’m glad I decided to stick with this series. I know I’ve been ranting against it, but the characters are starting to connect. Sure the plot is still hugely predictable, but the different characters are starting to make up for this.

#9 (16) - Shigurui - (8,5/10)

It’s been a while since an episode evoked more mixed feelings with episode twelve. The episode itself was absolutely stunning, then it became disgusting and then it had me wondering what the heck happened to the enormous plot-hole that was left open.

#8 (new) - Shion no Ou - (8,5/10)

Shion no Ou has turned out surprisingly good after episode three, and into the second-best of the new series that aired this season. Shion and her strong character are a delight to watch.

#7 (14) - Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei - (8,5/10)

Only one episode was released this month, but it was a hilarious one, about the class-president who doesn’t get noticed by anyone.

#6 (22) - Saiunkoku Monogatari - (8,6/10)

Now this is more like the Saiunkoku Monogatari I remembered. Most of the time is till spent on building up, but the upcoming arc sounds like it’s going to be an awesome one.

#5 (new) - Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji - (8,7/10)

For me, this is the best series of the Autumn-Season so far. It’s already after four episodes a fascinating look into human nature, and it’s one of the very few series which can be excellent, right from the beginning. Now let’s hope that it will keep up this level.

#4 (15) - Gintama - (8,9/10)

It was only a matter of time before Gintama went on to take the mick out of the censors, with hilarious results. I also remember complaining about how the endings of Ginrama-episodes are rather disappointing, but let me rephrase that: whenever an episode or half-episode of Gintama is entirely devoted to comedy, the ending turns out disappointing. With drama added, the endings are excellent, which is what the episodes that were released in this month proved.

#3 (11) - Dennou Coil - (9,1/10)

This month has been an astonishing month for Dennou Coil, showcasing some of the best episodes of the entire series. It’s been one hit after the other.

#2 (6) - Baccano! - (9,3/10)

Baccano! has turned out awesome. Now that everything is coming together, you can see the incredible quality of the scriptwriting even more.

#1 (9) - Les Miserables - Shoujo Cosette - (9,6/10)

With this month, I know for sure: Les Miserables is one of the best series of the entire year. The episodes that were aired this month were absolutely incredible.

+ Top 5 Episodes +
#5: Baccano! - 12
Now that’s what I call an action-scene! Fun, exciting and extremely well-written.

#4: Dennou Coil - 20
This was an excellent climax to the Haraken-storyline. Dennou Coil has really turned out into an excellent series.

#3: Ayatsuri Sakon - 26
I LOVE it when the final episode of a series turns out to be the best of the entire series. It couldn’t have been a better conclusion for the series.

#2: Les Miserables - 43
Now this is what you can do with some good build-up. There should be no doubt whether Les Miserables is worth of the title World Masterpiece Theatre

#1: Les Miserables - 41
This episode wins. Period.

Wow… just wow…

I was already under the impression that the previous episode showed a worst-case scenario. And then this episode comes along…. seriously, Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei has some serious competition! Basically, Kaiji gets the idea to buy up all of the Rocks, because the papers were lowest of all. It then seems that others were attempting the same thing, though they realized first that they weren’t the only ones with that plan. Now they have bought up all of the papters, and Kaiji is in despair.

Still, I wonder… that isn’t necessarily a as bad thing as this episode made it out to be. I mean, the other group has only paper… how the heck are they going to lose it, when nearly everyone else possesses scissors? Basically, Kaiji holds most of the rocks now, and they basically need his rocks to get rid of their paper and keep winning. Also, if Kaiji wasn’t so caught in despair, he would have noticed that the situation he ran in was actually quite favourable. All he needed to do was find people himself, instead of being picked out. In that case, his chances of winning increased dramatically.

That again brings me to the question of why these people bought up all of the papers. It just doesn’t make any sense. But then again, I think that that’s the true meaning behind the thing that the organizer of the tournament said: it’s all just one big illusion. Kaiji and his group and the other group of people will basically ruin themselves by trying to beat the system. One explanation of their action I have is that they also felt despair when they found out that they weren’t the only one who planned to buy up all the rocks, and went with something that they didn’t think that much through. Otherwise, why else would he show himself to Kaiji if it wasn’t out of jealousy?

By the way, could it be that the same animation-team as Death Note is behind this series? This episode clearly gave me Death-Note vibes.

This series has some very strange insert songs… first the ED, which gave me a near-headache the first time I heard it, and now at the end of the episode, there’s yet another very strange song for such a series.

Apart from this, I liked this episode, though. It exactly avoids the mistake that Code Geass made by relying too much on sensation, and goes for a more thought-provoking direction. I like how all kinds of different parties all end up waiting and exploring the true intentions of the Celestial Beings. One country in former South-America tries to be smart by declaring war against the union, in the hope to get support from the Celestial Beings. This plan backfires when the Gundams attack their own forces, even though no shot has actually been fired yet.

The blond guy from the union gets to be the next person to try and defeat Setsuna, though the latter escaped in the ocean. This does provide possibilities: all the guy has to do is attack a Gundam on land, and Setsuna might actually get in trouble against the modified mobile suit. I guess these suits aren’t in mass production because they’re expensive as hell, though I think that the long brown-haired companion and his teacher (I need to learn their names) will figure out how to produce them cheaply at one point.

Meanwhile, in a country in the Middle East (Azadeistan), the princess of the country (Marina Ishmael) and her assistant are observing what is happening as well, after confirming that indeed the fossil fuels have run out, hence another reason why the propulsions of the Gundams are so potentially interesting. The human-reform league meanwhile declared war to the Celestial Beings, and assigned the guy from the previous episode with the scar to capture one of them.

I do have some major issues with this episode, though. Japan remains a xenophobic country, and it shows. Taribia lies around the place that’s currently called Suriname. I know quite a few people from that country, and they aren’t exactly white-skinned. I know anime in general refuses to show people with black skins, but with a setting like this one, it’s way more obvious and painful than with, say, Shugo Chara.

Another thing that surprises me is how desperate people are over the solar power. Four hundred years have passed, and it’s not like solar power is the only power-source left after the fossil fuels run out. I can imagine how the larger countries will be dependant on the towers, but can’t the smaller countries build water-centrals, windmills and nuclear plants? Especially the latter one would have been a great option if the countries are desperate enough.

Also, Setsuna needs some serious development as soon as possible. He’s probably one of the worst members of the cast, simply because he doesn’t seem to have a mind of his own. I also hate the way he talks. I know he’s in for some development, otherwise the student couple wouldn’t need to exist, but I hope the creators hurry with it. I also dislike the pink-haired girl that showed up in this episode, but that’s more because of her character-design.

Oh my god… I knew what was going to happen. The writers kept dropping hints for it. And yet, this episode turned out absolutely incredible. Now this is what I call a death with a perfect build-up, something which many writers can learn a lot from. I again ended up crying at what happened, Les Miserables is a true masterpiece.

The first half of the episode was mostly building-up. Anjoras tries to shoot a police-officer as he’s preparing for the next fight, though Jean beats him by shooting his helmet off. The thing also is that the officer was dangerously close to his own age, and could have been one of his comrades if he didn’t choose to enlist to the military. He then gets replaced by an officer who’s much older, and the attack is launched. Jean again manages to save Les Amis by using his strength to close off the barricade, which currently has a hole in it, buying them some time to regroup.

Gavroche is still as motivated as others, and for the first time he seems to mention Cosette again, in an attempt to convince Marius to take him seriously. Javert meanwhile gets pissed because Jean is right in front of his nose and can’t do anything about it. Cosette meanwhile makes things even better when she goes out to find Jean and Marius on her own!

She first moves to the church, where basically every family member of the ones who are fighting is praying for their safety (I loved this detail, by the way. It just shows even more how the people who are fighting are just ordinary humans. Something that only very few other anime do as well). Jean obviously isn’t there, but Cosette does get information about the only two barricades left.

Back at the barricade, the police started their attack again, and Gavroche still can’t get himself a gun. Les Amis are on the frontlines, while everyone else provides them with fresh guns and bullets and Jean takes care of the injured. There is a problem, however: the bullets are running out. This gives Gavroche an idea to finally be helpful: in all the gun-smoke, nobody will be able to see him, so he goes to the bodies of the fallen policemen to collect the bullets they had left. It’s brave, but the guy just has way too much self-confidence.

Marius tries to call him back, but Gavroche is way too happy that he’s finally found himself something to do that can protect others. He again remembers Cosette, and starts singing the song Cosette taught him. The policemen then notice him, and start firing, though Gavroche manages to avoid the gunshots until he can throw the bag of bullets he collected to Marius. Then he lets his guard down, and gets shot in the heart! Shushu notices this, leaves the two brothers and tries to get Gavroche away from the battlefield. He succeeds, and then runs into Cosette, who finally sees Gavroche again in the final seconds of his life.

Seriously, that was absolutely amazing. I’m so hoping that the creators will continue with another World Masterpiece Series for next year, because the format works just so incredibly well.

Hey, this episode was really good! I’m beginning to understand what Kiseki gurl meant with Shion’s strong character, as she’s really one of the most likable characters to appear this season, along with Kaiji. The episode started off a little buggy, though. So much publicity for just Shougi seems a bit unrealistic. It could be that Shougi is the most popular “sports” of the city, and the city is relatively small, though, but the horde of reporters still may have been a bit too much.

Shion then ends up fainting, the day before her rematch with Ayumi, after thinking back to the murder-event again. While it was nice enough to watch, it wasn’t anything special yet, but I was actually surprised how afterwards, the police managed to track down the creepy stalker, and Shion kept pushing herself to make it to the match once she woke up. Basically, Shion’s a heavily traumatized girl with a huge mental will to keep going. If the scriptwriters continue to develop this through the next nine episodes, we might have ourselves a very special anime here.

The episode also ends with the match between Shion and Ayumi, and Shion was basically crying as she started playing. Still, something tells me that she’s not going to give up at all in the next episode. Also regarding the creepy stalker, in the end he just was a creepy stalker and doesn’t seem to be the guy who killed Shion’s parents. The question remains, though: why did the guy decide to stalk Shion, and if he didn’t kill her parents, who did?

I’m also wondering whether I should change the title to “Sion no Ou”. If you look carefully at the sign on S(h)ion’s bedroom, it reads “Sion”, instead of “Shion”. Still, for now I’m going to blame it on bad katakana and romanji, since there’s no difference between “si” and “shi” in Japanese, and there never has been a universal form of romanji anyway.

(On a side-note: there’ve been quite a few anime this season where children have been traumatized because of the murder of their loved ones, haven’t there? Shion with her parents, Mari from Blue Drop with all 800 inhabitants of the island and Tarou from Ghost Hound with his sister, and I probably missed a few. It’s interesting how all these series give their own meaning to the incidents, and the characters who suffer from the traumas).

That first half of the episode was just amazing. The dialogue between Yasako and Isako was just right, and I actually cried when Isako started to break down. Yasako really tried to comfort Isako in the way she would speak to Kyoko, whenever she’s scared. When Kyoko arrived, and asked Isako to save Densuke, she only made things even better.

The rest of the episode built up for the final few episodes of this series. We get a few confirmations of things that the observant ones among us probably already figured out: Nekome and Takeru are brothers, Takeru is the owner of the pink cat with ears, and he basically betrayed Isako out of jealousy towards his brother. I’ve also been reading a few posts from animesuki, and it seems that the reason why Nekome has access to the stronger versions of the Sacchis is because he works for the government, and can basically use them as he pleases.

Also, Densuke indeed is no ordinary dog. I couldn’t catch the details due to my lack of Japanese, but there actually is a chance for both Yasako’s grandfather as 4423’s brother to be alive. Yasako’s grandfather also seemed to know about 4423 before both of them disappeared. The final parts of the episode basically consist out of a chase for Densuke, after Nekome found out that he’s important somehow I must say that it was awesome to see Daiichi in action again. From what I understood is that Densuke is the key to access Coil’s domain, which is what I suspect to be the place where the humanoid illegals live. Hence why both Yasako and Kyoko encountered them.

What’s also interesting is how Nekome refers to Yasako as “sensei”, and how a password to some of the guy’s secret stuff is located inside Nekome’s database. Does this mean that Yasako’s grandfather used to work for the same company that Nekome is working for?

This episode was mostly build-up. The animation-quality was lower than usual, and it mostly consisted of Shuurei, trying to bring some structure into the other low-ranked officials, after she gets annoyed that they don’t even try to save their own job. Oh, and Seiran finds out what Suou said about porn-magazines, which was quite hilarious, if you ask me. The silver-haired guy seems to be called Seiga, and it seems that he’s one of the few people who actually do something, and he ends up helping Shuurei. I wonder how he ended up in such a low spot in the government, though.

The Sakujun-lookalike called Ryo Anjyu also introduces himself to Shuurei in quite an eccentric way. He basically lets her peal a peach, and eats it in front of her, leaving afterwards. We also learn that Suou’s father still has some kind of role to play, and Suou has been giving him some onigiri he learned to make through Shuurei every single day. I originally thought that he couldn’t care less about his father, but this episode showed that there definitely is a bond between the two. It just seems that his father didn’t learn his lesson just yet, as he’s been inviting strange people to visit him as well.

What surprises me, though is that there hasn’t been any focus on Shouka as of late. As a matter of fact, I actually don’t recall having seen the guy AT ALL since the start of this arc, apart from just one small scene in this episode. Has he been away or something? This episode, there’s also a shot of the library, where we see none other than small Riou again, but then again, he’d probably pick a time to pick up some books when Shouka’s gone from the library.

There’s also surprisingly nothing about Shuuei in this episode, but I guess that he spent most of his time travelling to his three brothers.

Hmm, this episode wasn’t as fun as the previous ones. It also alerted me of one major flaw in this series: why the heck is Amu the only one who can transform?! In this episode, we saw another kid’s evil egg hatching, though Amu is the only one who tries to stop it, despite the fact that the student council has many chances to do so before she gets there. Why didn’t they transform to their powerful form, just like Amu does?

This episode also introduces the main villain for this series, who cleverly disguises himself as a clumsy teacher, in order to get as much access to down-hearted children as possible. Makes sense. The girl for this episode was someone who was about to be transferred to America, and got scared because of this. Because of this, her evil egg hatched and a strange black Shugo Chara started attacking everyone with very, very, very bad Engrish.

It’s not really the best of all stories, and it felt rather mundane to me, though I guess it serves as a nice build-up. One thing I did like was the scene between Amu and Neko-guy, when he tried to pay her back for the cake he smashed in the previous episode. There’s some funny chemistry between the two of them.

After Ayatsuri Sakon finished, nearly two years after I originally started blogging it, I’ve been searching for another anime to blog once every month or so. In the end, I decided to support Live-eviL, C1-Anime and Minor ja Nai in their attempt to revive interest for the World Masterpiece Theatre-production Little Princess Sara. Les Miserables has been turning into a true masterpiece by now, and the few episodes I’ve seen of Perrine Monogatari have been really good as well.

Little Princess Sara is also special, in the way that it’s based on the same story that Soukou no Strain was based on, though obviously the writers of the latter took a lot of artistic liberties by placing a story that originally happened in England, about a century and a half ago into a science-fiction setting. It’s also notable that Sara’s original last name is now Crewe, instead of the Werec, which later changes into Crewe in Soukou no Strain. Ralph also isn’t her brother, but her father, surprisingly. I also don’t think that Ralph is going to kill Sara’s precious friends in this one. ^^;

The thing that did remain the same, though is Sara’s huge respect for Ralph, but that’s naturally obvious, since her mother died when she was four, and he’s been taking care of her ever since. He’s also incredibly rich, and he’s been giving her whatever she wanted, hence the title of this series: Little Princess. Because of that, the Sara of Little Princess is rather spoiled, but I wouldn’t call her arrogant. She doesn’t fit in the stereotype that has been set by anime that the rich kids have to be the cocky bastards who look down on everyone at all. Instead, she’s incredibly innocent. Her father probably has been protecting her from everything harmful, but yet she tries to please everyone, and she looks incredibly naive as well. I’m not sure whether we’re supposed to hate her or like her at this point, but that probably will become clearer in the next episode.

This first episode was actually quite similar to the first episode of Les Miserables as well, if you ignore the fact that Fantine was incredibly poor and Ralph is incredibly rich. Ralph has been coming from India, and he’s about to get back, leaving his daughter in a local prestigious school in the middle of London. The rest of the episode basically focused on Sara, spending her last few moments with her father. Another interesting detail is that in the next episode, Sara will be purchasing Emily, making another link to both Soukou no Strain and Les Miserables.

Okay, the creators are NEVER going to finish this one in just four episodes. They haven’t even reached the Tower of Salvation yet, for goodness’ sake. Still, this gives me hope for some kind of second OVA, to cover the things that happen in Tethe’alla, so that some quality-time can be devoted to the case of Regal and Presea. The next episode will probably end with the death of Remiel.

That said, the creators did a good job with this episode. There were a few things I didn’t like, though. The hot tea, for example, was done better in the game. But then again, Collette was a real airhead there, so it was easy for Lloyd to fool her. Sheena’s performance in Luin also was disappointing, especially how Lloyd and the others turned up at the last possible moment to save the day. Furthermore, why didn’t Sheena use her final summon at that time? It would have been the perfect opportunity. The game did this a lot better when Lloyd basically arrived when she was mourning over the village. What also bugs me is how the creators didn’t even mention why the Desians attacked the village in the first place. The little girl was a nice touch, though.

Still, the creators thankfully did well on the parts that really mattered: Collette, losing everything and Lloyd, finding out that he’s been fighting with the thing that killed his mother. I would have liked a bit more emphasis on the Expheres and the monsters in the building up for it, but it can’t be helped, with the length of this series and all. I must say, Collette felt really annoying in the game, and Ufotable did a good job of making her relationship with Lloyd quite touching. The two of them are much closer together, and it works perfectly.

I seriously hope for a second series of OVA’s, though. Basically, the only characters that got any depth in the first half of the game were Lloyd and Collette, while the others got this with the second half. I just want to see Raine’s mother, and how the two got abandoned. I want to see Presea, and the horrible things that were done to both her and her sister. So far, the creators have been giving a few hints that the fourth episode won’t be the end of this: they showed glimpses of both Zelos, and the last two Desian Cardinals, neither of them had any big role in the first half.