Oh god… the episode was quite good, but unfortunately one of my fears has been confirmed with this episode: the Gundam-suits become more powerful as their pilots become more emo. That’s why Veda chose teenagers to be the pilots, as their chance of losing it is much higher than with an adult. While I can settle with such an explanation, my fears that this series will gradually turn into a scream-fest as it goes on have been greatly increased.

Well then, in this episode Setsuna gets to be the next one to disobey the orders by stepping out of his suit when he realizes that the guy he’s fighting against is the one who used him as a child-soldier in a Kurdish war. It also seems that the name Setsuna is just a code-name, and he originally is called Soran, with a Kurdish nationality. You wouldn’t say that, based on their character-designs. Anyway, after that, both parties retreat and the Celestial Beings continue to slaughter the Morallian Army. That part was really meant to show how powerful the Gundams are. It may have sounded a bit one-sided, but it can turn out pretty interesting if the creators use it well, because this will prompt the different countries to actually think of more difficult strategies until one manages to defeat them. Sort-of like Simoun, actually. The enemies start out pretty stupid, though their tactics drastically improve with every attack.

Setsuna himself, by the way, continues to have as much personality as a potato. He won’t even say anything in defence for what he has done, and only keeps whining about how his existence is somehow linked with Exia. Okay, I know he’s a child-soldier and all, but didn’t the other Celestial Beings find his personality strange and worrisome when he was first recruited?

One thing I also appreciate is how this anime shows that there are a lot of civilian casualties, but the protagonists don’t keep preaching over and over how it’s bad to kill a person like in most other anime, and instead different sides and opinions are shown. Incidentally, Tiera is turning into my favourite character. He’s realistic, and actually knows what being a Celesital Being means. The terrorists also were a nice addition, and I’m interested to find out what they’d gain if the Celestial Beings stopped their actions.

Ah, finally! A year after the series ended, Tsubasa Chronicle gets continued. Let’s hope that the DVD-sales are high enough to give the creators enough motivation to animate the rest of the chapters of the manga.

Let me start with the bad points, though. First of all: the music. Let’s face it, it’s nothing when compared to the series. Yuki Kajiura made way for decent pop-tunes or recycled versions of the lesser tunes of the original series. The art style has also changed severely, and turned into a strange combination of the original one with xxxHolic, and its long limb. Mokona also has shrunk and Fye’s hair grew.

Another thing I didn’t like is how the creators just decided to ignore the fillers of the series, and just continued after the library-arc. It’s a shame, because while the fillers didn’t really progress the story, they did flesh out and develop the different characters a bit. The result is the most noticeable with Sakura: she turned from a growing heroine back into her useless old self who keeps sleeping.

One thing that’s more personal is how it took me a long time to get used to the fact that this series isn’t done by Bee-Train anymore. There’s no overabundance of still shots to build up atmosphere, the dialogue is kept short and to the point, there are no insert-songs and there’s a much larger attention to the different action-scenes.

And really… Shaoran must be some kind of machine or something. He basically stands for minutes at the same spot with an arrow in his leg without even flinching. I mean, doesn’t such a thing usually hurt? In this episode, the Shaoran-lookalike also awakes, though unfortunately I’ve already been spoiled about his true identity, which took away a bit of the surprise.

Okay, those were the flaws. Apart from that, I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. The world of Tokyo (wasn’t that were Kurogane grew up as well?) is totally opposite of what I expected it to be, and I like the idea of acidic rain, spoiling all of the water. I’m interested in how the people who live outside of the two towers get their water, if both sides refuse to give them any. Especially if the rain has been pouring down for fifteen years now. The character-animation may also be a bit buggy at times, but especially the background art is terrific, and they blend really well together.

The best part of the episode was the conversation between Kurogane and Fye, though, because finally Fye gets a bit of depth to his character. It really seems that he can’t just stop putting up his facade, even if he wanted to.

Of course, this was just the introductions, and something tells me that the best parts of this arc haven’t even started yet. I predict that my complaints for the next episode will only be 25% of the ones I had for this episode, because it’ll be easier to get used to the new art-style. In any case, I do like how the creators kept the long limbs into the character-designs, because that’s what I originally liked about them. Next episode will be up in January, and I’m looking forward to it!