A Tree of Palme is from the same director as Fantastic Children, so yes, I was eager to watch this movie. Don’t be fooled by the childish character-designs, because just like Fantastic Children, A Tree of Palme is a dark and twisted story. Unfortunately, I’m missing the same brilliance.

Don’t get me wrong, A Tree of Palme is a good movie. The first half is absolutely stunning and imaginative. Seeing the nervous wrecks of the two main characters was a delight, and both of them are fleshed out really well. Palme’s desires become gut-wrenching at one point. But yeah, I wish I could say the same about the second half…

In the end, this just turned into one of these movies which are just too short for their own stories, and this becomes all too apparent in the second half. The biggest problem is that the character-development feels really awkward. Okay, I know that Palme is a puppet and there were actually some reasons given for his strange behaviour, but even that was really pushing my suspense of disbelief, and I haven’t started talking about the other characters yet. One time, a character scared to death, and a moment later she’s happy and acts like nothing ever happened. The plot also has its issues, and huge holes start to appear as the movie goes on that are never cleared up. It feels like entire scenes have been lost on the cutting-room floor.

It’s a shame, A Tree of Palme definitely had the potential, as shown by the first half. But the creators really needed to put some of the subtlety of Arete Hime in this movie. It’s like I said in my Mahou Tsukai Tai-review: a movie has a very limited amount of time to tell its story, but if it knows how to build up properly, it’ll turn into something memorable. A Tree of Palme just didn’t have what it takes to really stand out from all the other movies. It’s a good watch, but not a great one.

Oh my god, what a wonderful episode, considering that we’re only three episodes in, and we barely even scratched the surface of the real potential for this series. Seeing Porfy and his sister finally reunite with their father was such a heart-warming scene. The creators really know what they’re doing.

The key to this episode was really to make the viewer wait along with Porfy and Mina, for the bus that was supposed to be carrying him. Here the two of them were in a town they hardly knew, waiting for a bus that had quite a bit of delays. Of course you’d start to feel anxious whether or not the guy would come. I also loved how Mina suddenly disappeared when Porfy got distracted by yet another car, and it’s clear now that she really likes it when her brother pays attention to her. That moment showed how this can get out of hand, because Porfy himself really wants to protect his sister, despite how he can get distracted really easily.

I also like how the creators used the story of Orpheus in this episode. For those who don’t know: Orpheus’s wife died, and he couldn’t forget about her. Hades then promised that he could take her from the underworld, on the condition that he wouldn’t look behind. When he nearly reached the exit of the underworld, his curiosity and doubts about Hades’s intentions took the best of him, he looked behind and saw how his wife got sucked back into the underworld. Porfy just can’t understand that Orpheus didn’t get any reward at all for the long path that he already crossed without looking at his wife.

What I also noticed in this episode is how the World Masterpiece Theatre-series often uses dolls to symbolize the relationship between the rich and the poor. Little Princess Sara had Emily, in Les Miserables, Cosette also receives a doll that she’s been longing for from Jean and now in this episode, we get introduced to a new character who also just received a doll from her rich family in France. Just like with Les Miserables, this girl (whose name I didn’t pick up, unfortunately) uses the doll to create jealousy. It seems that she loves Zaimis, though she can’t stand how he keeps spending time with Porfy and his sister.

Oh, how I love this series. Thankfully, it’s got no intention at all to stop with just one season, and this seems to be heading into a fully fledged 24-episode series. Obviously, I couldn’t be happier, because the first half of the series already was amazing, and the second half promises to be even better.

Like expected, you’ll never know how long a match in this series can take. The episode has only been going forward for one minute and it was already clear that all three of Saori, Ayumi and Shion lost their respective matches. And yet again Shion surprises me with her amazingly strong character. Satoru gets to win in the end, but instead of getting the satisfaction of seeing her sad and crying, she just smiles to the guy. To make matters worse, this turns out to be something that Satoru didn’t take into account, and we see the first hints of background for the guy! It seems that a girl he met during his times in high-school, called Kazumi, is a major reason for how he turned out like this.

I also liked how the guy messed up Shion’s shoelaces when he left. We never see him actually do it, but signs point everywhere that he was the one behind that little immature act. And you just have to love how Ayumi offered Shion to use his shoes, which turned out to be incredibly huge for a girl. ^^;

Anyway, it turns out that there still is a chance for Shion, Ayumi and Saori to make it to the finals, though they have to keep winning. Shion and Ayumi succeed, but Saori ends up against another old shougi-master, and she loses. Her role in this anime is far from over, though, when Satoru uses Hani-meijin’s cell-phone to make Saori find out about Ayumi. I’m not sure what he was hoping for, but this definitely is an interesting way to toy with his opponents.