Those who are watching Ghost Hound for the plot can rejoice, because a lot of stuff happens in this episode. Everything starts with a bunch of teenagers, who are at night exploring the abandoned building-site where Tarou’s kidnapper died. It then seems that the ghost of this guy has come back to haunt them. Basically the same happens as when Makoto ran into it, but this time it also possesses one of the kids.

Rumours like these obviously travel fast, so Makoto, Tarou and Masayuki hear about this quite quickly. They decide to take a look in ghost-form, and there some very interesting things happen: Tarou freaks out (he does come into contact with his kidnapper, after all), and transforms from ghost-monkey to Ghost…. Hound-like being (now I also understand where the title for this series comes from). Masayuki gets to be the one to shoot the black figure down, when he basically turns out to be able to use the moves from his video-games. Quite cool, if you ask me.

In other news, the councillor has started contacting his colleague after what happened last episode, while sounding quite nervously. Masayuki meanwhile finally stands up to the bullies who torment his classmates, only to get beaten himself. Masayuki’s father also suddenly sees ghost-leeches dangerously close near his daughter, who just keeps playing simple video-games. Tarou, meanwhile, gets strange blushes when he’s near Miyako. *hint hint*

Quite a straightforward episode, which is all about Allelujah, trying to take care of his past by destroying the research-faculty where he grew up. Sure, Hallelujah is still there, but I think that now, he’ll be a little less worried about his own kind. I’m suspecting that Setsuna and Lockon will also get episodes like this one in the future. And regarding Tieria, we still hardly know anything about him. This episode does show that he considers himself to be something different from a human being. His yellow eyes are also just like the Third Eye of The Third in The Third: they can log on to any computer.

It also seems that Allelujah and Hallelujah were two different persons at one time, though Hallelujah went on a killing rampage one time. When Allelujah (who apparently was close friends with Hallelujah) was forced to shoot him, Hallelujah’s consciousness was probably transferred through quantum-brainwaves to Allelujah, creating this strange schizophrenic being.

One thing I liked about the past few episodes is how Setsuna took a step back to allow Allelujah and Tieria to develop a bit. It’s a shame that I know that he’ll probably take up the role of main character again somewhere in the future, though. I really hope he’ll get better soon. And seriously, why are Louise and Saji even in this series? All I can think of is that they’re going to be important somewhere in the future, but I think that giving them a scene for every episode is a bit too much at this point.

I must say, I’m impressed. This episode concludes the attack by the Human Reform League, and the battle between the regular mobile suits and the Gundams was really well orchestrated. I like how everything makes sense, and especially Tieria was excellent, when he too goes against Veda’s plan in a desperate attempt to avoid getting captured by the enemy.

Unfortunately, Alleluja ends up going berserk, but there actually seems to be a good explanation behind it as well. I now understand why episode five was so necessary, when the lieutenant suddenly went crazy. Both she and Allelujah are genetically modified humans, and especially Allelujah seems to be one of the prototypes for this technology. Of course there have been people who messed around with his mind, which apparently created his alter-ego Hallelujah, who is some kind of murderous psychopath.

Now the big question remains: what’s going to happen in the second half of this series? Gundam 00 has done really well to not fall into the footsteps of Code Geass, and I really appreciate this, but it isn’t there yet. For now, it has been building up really well, and it’s done all the necessary things for an introduction: the Gundams are introduced, they’re given a bit of time to carry out their mission according to plan, and they’ve now faced their first major setback. I could say that the challenges for the Celestial Beings will continue to become harder and harder, but there’s no way that the creators will be able to keep up with that, since this series is going to consist out of 50 episodes and all. My prediction is that around the middle of the series, the Celestial Beings will break up.

Yup, just like expected: a winter-resort-episode. I’ll eat my hat if next episode doesn’t turn out to be the Christmas-episode.

Still, this was definitely the best episode of Shugo Chara yet. It was hilarious, had lots of Chara-Changes, the characters had a lot of fun with each other and yet it provided a lot of development on the relationship between Hotori and Amu. There were no Batsu-Charas and neither of Ikuto, Utau or any of the other bad-guys showed up. This really was an episode for the characters, and it worked perfectly.

I’m glad that I can finally be completely positive again about this series. The previous episodes were nice, but they had enough dull moments; they all could have been more. Finally, this episode delivers, and as an extra bonus it seems that the animation-quality has gone way up.

And the irony: Hotori is in love not with Amu, but with Amu’s Ran-transformation. That scene seriously rocked. :)

So, this was basically a Su-episode: she gets lost thanks to Ikuto’s Shugo Chara causing trouble, and she spends the episode, trying to find her way back, along with the dog of Amu’s admirer, who seemed to have been lost as well. Overall, it wasn’t such a bad episode, and I like the development that Su has gotten now. The fact that the creators are already mentioning a Christmas-tree in episode ten seems to suggest that we’re in for one heck of a Christmas-special for this show.

Also, for the first time I liked Utau and Ikuto: for the first time, Utau actually came in action, instead of looking at Ikuto like she usually does. It now also becomes clear that she’s searching for Embryo for Ikuto. It does make sense. I’ve aways wondered why Ikuto had a Shugo Chara, while he’s much older than all the other characters of the series. It’s probably also got something to do with this.

This episode also finally shows us Amu’s Su-transformation, one which uses honey to change batsu-charas back. I still find everything going a bit too easy for Amu. I mean, all she has to do is transform and unleash her powers to save the day.
Shugo