Just like expected. For second episode of this season, I’ve found something to nitpick about, but not Porfy. This series has been building-up perfectly for the past two episodes. I like series that don’t play all of their cards on the table, right from the start, which is probably also why I like Ghost Hound and other mystery-series.

In this episode, we learn more about Porfy’s mother. It seems that she grew up in a rich household in some kind of city, her mother died when she was young and she doesn’t know what happened to her father, though when she married Porfy’s father, the two just didn’t have enough money so she moved back to the countryside. The only thing that she took with her was a fancy-looking watch. A letter from Porfy’s father also arrives in this episode, and he get back in about a week. Probably for Mina’s birthday, which is about to happen. He also sends two books along: one about cars for Porfy and one about the Greek gods for Mina. He probably guessed what they wanted from what they wrote in their letters to him. ^^;

Zaimis also gets fleshed out a bit more in this episode, as it seems that he often hangs out with the two siblings. It’s quite funny when the two of them have completely different interests, and he has to pay attention to both of them at the same time. It’s obvious right from the start that he likes Mina’s interests more than Porfy’s. The second half of the episode is about an owl that settles into Porfy and Mina’s bedroom. They name him Apollo, after one of the Greek gods from Mina’s book.

The thing I like most about this series is how genuine the relationship between Porfy and Mina feels so far. You can really see that they’re brother and sister, and not moeblob and geek, like you see in way too many series. Mina likes to follow Porfy around as well, even though she’s often angry with him, and Porfy in his turn is often distracted, but he does show signs that he watches out over his sister.

So far, there has been no earthquake. Judging by other world-masterpiece-series, I’d guess that it’ll happen around episode 12 or 13, though the end of the episode was a classic foreshadowing-scene, with a clear sky making way for a bunch of thick thunderclouds. Seriously, this needs to be watched. I’m still not sure why people find the length of 52 episodes too much of a commitment, and yet you never hear the same complaint about series like Gundam 00, Code Geass and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.

The second episode was slightly less impressive than the first one, but still this remains a good series to blog. My main problem is that the influences of Code Geass’ writer were noticeable, and this episode just lacked the subtlety of Jigoku Shoujo. Still, the only real flaw of this episode was the ending, how the random policeman shot without any reason whatsoever. The guy was clearly underdeveloped, and the script was a bit too hasty at that point to get to the juicy stuff.

Still, the episode did a pretty good job of portraying the psychopath-side of Ayase, and how she basically kills everyone who stands in her way. Of course this can only go on for so long until the police catches up, especially when there isn’t really a solid plan of action. My favourite character of the series is Fumika, though. She turned into an interesting combination of Enma ai and Momo (Shinigami no Ballad), though she can’t help it but involve herself a bit more than the former two did. Still, what was up with her fancy moves when she put her gun back in her bag? Seems to suggest that even though she’s quiet, she likes to show off.

In any case, I’m glad that there finally is another arc-based series that deals with random stories for each arc. I’m a big fan of the well-done series of this concept, and all that Shinigami no Ballad has to do now is to provide enough interesting concepts and watch out that the plot doesn’t go too fast.

And really, the ALI-project needs to evolve a bit. Their style may be nice, but really, all the OPs and EDs they’ve done really begin to look more and more like each other. It’s a shame, their work on .Hack//Roots was awesome, but you can’t see any of this brilliance in their latest works.

This is very rare for a sports-anime: three huge matches, happening all at the same time, and all of them turned out to be awesome. I’m so glad that this series is back again.

Basically, this episode was all about the rookies versus the veterans: Shion versus Satoru, Saori versus Hani-meijin and Ayumi versus Shion’s foster-father. The episode ended with all the rookies getting pwned. The episode ended in a cliff-hanger, but with this series you never know how much longer a fight will take. Series like Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji should really take an example from Shion no Ou, because the pacing for this series is truly addictive.

I think that Ayumi has lost for real in this episode. I’m not sure whether the match was over at the end of the episode, but there wasn’t much hope left for him anyway. His mind seemed off for some reason. Ah well, at least Shion’s foster-father offered to take him up as a student, so he can learn more. That’s quite cute. :)

Oh, and how I love Shion. It was obvious that Satoru would start teasing her, right from the beginning, and Shion here had no intention to let his mind-games get to her. When Satoru leaves the shougi-room for a minute to suppose to give Shion some extra thinking-time, she does the same against him right when he comes back. Still, it’s clear now that the guy didn’t just stop playing shougi after his mother died, but instead continued to play, unbeknownst to his brother, suggesting that the two of them grew apart after that incident (one flashback this episode showed that they were quite close when their mother was still alive). And indeed, he easily surprises Shion by playing innocent, and then striking with a winning move. Still, I feel that the cliff-hanger was used for a reason…

Saori, meanwhile, has her long-desired match against Hani-Meijin. A match she’s doomed to lose, though I suspect that the way it ends will give her great insights for the future. In any case, the next episode promises to be an excellent one.