Really, Shion no Ou is one of these few series that’s just as awesome during its climaxes as during the building-up scenes. I don’t care anymore whether we get some exciting Shougi-matches or just their set-up: they’ll be awesome either way! Even though this episode just built up for the eight-finals of the shougi-tournament, it easy was able to remind me why this is my favourite series at the moment.

Like expected, Saori doesn’t get angry at Ayumi after finding out his secret. Instead, she and Ayumi get much closer now. Like Shion, she offers to pay for the operation on Ayumi’s mother, but yet again he refuses. What’s also interesting is how Saori too noticed that Ayumi started to get other reasons to play shougi, other than paying for his mother’s hospital bills. It also turns out that Ayumi has been keeping his shougi-adventures away from his mother as well. This was to be expected, of course. Ayumi really is a person who doesn’t want others to worry about himself, and likes to keep information about himself from others.

I’m still not sure what Satoru’s up to. First, he brought Saori and Ayumi closer together, and now he arranged behind the scenes with the help of the reporter that Shion’s first match in the eighth-finals would be against her foster-father. Instead, he keeps dropping hints how he was the one who killed Shion’s parents. What did seem interesting was the way he talked to Shion was much more different than usual, and it almost felt like he was emotionally involved with the things he said to Shion, how he too lost his parents at an early age. And really, Ayumi was too cute when he tried to protect Shion.

Interestingly enough, Hisatani also made it through the preliminaries. I loved how nervous he was at all the professional-looking shougi-players that he was amongst. It’ll be interesting to see what the underdog has up his sleeve. And I had to laugh at the way that Yasuoka picked up his phone that told him his place in the eight-finals. From his overdramatic movements, to him not knowing how to use a cell-phone.

The media also got developed a bit through this episode. Now that the tournament is progressing, the coverage of the media is also going to increase. Especially on the only two high-school “girls” who made it through the preliminaries. It really felt like they looked at Shion and Ayumi as they were a bunch of cheap idols, and it’s quite a change from the usual reporter, who always was really involved with the matches.

Okay, it’s a bit hard to believe that a fire would start, just from the suns rays that shine through a bottle of water, but thankfully this time, it didn’t ruin the story for this episode at all. All the doubts I had of this series after episode 2 are gone now, and this has been shaping up to be an awesome series that successfully combines the ordinary with the spectacular.

This episode tells the story of two girls. One of them is the best player at a local high-school tennis-club, and the other is the coach of said club. A lot of signs point to the fact that both are lesbians, or at least very close friends. One of them has been left by her mother, when she ran off with another guy. Right now, this mother died, and sends Fumiko out to deliver her Shigofumi.

Most of the episode is about the girl, running away from this Shigofumi, and afraid to confront it. After all, her mother ran off without coming back at all. This has to feel like some betrayal, and the girl must have thought that her mother hated her. Turns out that her mother watched her tennis-matches from the side-lines, and encouraged her all the way. The past two stories have been simple, but due to their building-up, they’ve worked out really well. What I especially like is how we also get a small look into the lives of the ones to receive the Shigofumi. I guess that this is the same reason why I fell in love with Jigoku Shoujo. ^^;

I like how this show is progressing so far. There’s been quite a bit of drama, but it knows exactly when to lighten the mood a bit with a few good jokes, in order to prevent the atmosphere from becoming like Kannadzuki no Miko or Kyoushiro to Towa to Sora. There’s also hardly any random fluff that feels like filler, like you see in nearly every romantic comedy, and so far, the creators have really shown that they make use of every scene to build up.

The weak link for this series so far is Aiko. She really needs some background information. I want to know why she fell in love with Miyokichi in the first place, and why the heck she became so sick of him that she started going after Shinichiro. Her relationship wit the guy feels nowhere near as interesting as with Noe and Hiromi.

I really like how this series portrays the two of Noe and Hiromi against each other. This episode develops Shinichiro’s relationship with Noe into a more friendship-like one: the two of them just hang out and talk like friends. On the other side we see Shinichiro and Hiromi having both trouble to express their feelings for each other, and they both react differently for lacking the ability to do so. Now it’s going to get interesting when no-one else than Noe’s brother asks Shinichiro to start dating Noe, at the end of the episode. The guy definitely has an interesting sister-complex, which was probably caused by the death of his grandmother.

One thing that also puzzles me is how Shinichiro’s mother treats Hiromi. The two of them aren’t exactly the friendliest towards each other. If that’s the case, then how the heck did the two of them end up in the same house, I wonder…

Okay, so this may not be the best series to watch with a headache. The dialogue is hard enough as it is, and that headache didn’t make things better. Still, at least I’m glad that Saiunkoku Monogatari seems to be back again. I’m really starting to get impatient with this series. I want to see Ryuuki develop already! I know it’s close, but it had already been close two freaking months ago. With all the hiatuses from this series, I’d really wish that this series would hurry up and get on with it.

This episode basically introduces the next mini-arc. Something seems to be going on in the Ran-province, and Shuurei manages to get permission from Ki Kouki to travel there and check it out. It seems to involve a guy named Son Chouchou, whose role I unfortunately couldn’t pick up. We also see more of the villain for this arc, who seems to have teamed up with the suspicious-looking noble whose name I can’t remember at the time.

Interestingly enough, Ryuuki too will be heading to te Ran-province, along with Shouka. I’m really glad that this guy finally gets some attention again. He was one of my favourite characters whenever he played a major role, so I’ve been a bit disappointed that he’s had so little attention for the past half year.

Now that I think about it, does anyone know how long the second season will last? AniDB says that it’ll end with episode 39, but I just don’t trust that website as an official source. And there is no way that this series will be resolved in six episodes. Of course, that could mean that there’s a third season, waiting to air in the upcoming spring-season. That would be awesome, though I really hope that the building-up of the past months will be worth it.