Really, is there no end to this series awesomeness? This was quite possibly the best episode of Kaiba yet, for very obvious reasons. For the sake of spoilers showing up in the blog-aggregators like animeblogger antenna, this sentence is meant to fill up space. This one is meant to fill up space as well. So, this should be enough.

Kaiba finally meets Neiro! Although under very strange circumstances. She spends this episode in the form of a huge male cyborg without any hands. The thing that made this so awesome was that both of them were struggling with the feelings of being in the body of another gender. Kaiba has his first period as well, while Neiro has trouble with the male hormone-impulses.

As it turns out, Warp was the worst kind of king. He killed Neiro’s family, imprisoned thousands, and he was also probably responsible for the huge gap between rich and old, and several of the memory-clouds we see in space. That makes me even wonder why Neiro fell in love with him in the first place, because right now she seems to consider him as an enemy.

What’s more: in this episode a strange plant appears, which sucks out the memories of nearby persons. Neiro calls it a KAIBA!!! Could it really be that Warp fell victim to one of these Kaiba, and that’s how Kaiba originated? Oh boy.

The case in this episode looked a lot like the episode with the old couple in Kemonozume. Both couples have been travelling for decades now, and both suffer a huge loss as the episode went on. I must say that I prefer the Kaiba-version. This might be a small spoiler, but the problem with Kemonozume was that the ending had no point whatsoever. The two of them just turned into monsters and killed each other due to the big bad guy. This episode in Kaiba has been very deep, though. This time, just the old lady gets her memory sucked out, and as it turns out, she has been cheating on her husband. And yet the husband doesn’t matter, and he’ll just continue to travel with her memory-less body.

With this episode, I know for sure that Kaiba is my favourite series this season. The 26-episode series really need try their best in their second halves if they want to trump this series.

Now that we’ve entered the second half of this series, the main storyline pops up again. It’s pretty early this time, in comparison to most other series in the same situation. Five episodes will be plenty of time to get a good climax out of this series, and I wonder what kind of tricks the creators still have up on their sleeve.

The episode starts as Tamaki takes Murasaki to the college she attends. As it turns out, she herself claims to be an expert in terms of love, and yet she gets dumped by her boyfriend because she’s been too rough on him. That female friend of Tamaki really reminded me of the early Rachel in Red Garden. I must say that the director here has been really good realistically portraying the dating scene, as opposed to 90% of the other anime, who strangely enough never heard of the word “party”. Are these that rare in Japan? I can imagine how series with a serious story don’t have time for these, but I’m really surprised that of all these slice-of-life series, nobody seems to celebrate their birthday with a big party…

The second half finally shows some depth to the bad guy, which is about time. The guy turns out to have been in love with Murasaki’s mother. Murasaki was also raised, not knowing who her real mother is, and only just before she died (or just after it) she found out the truth. What the cretors now need to do is continue this development. It’s definitely a step in the right direction, but he needs more attention if he wants to end up as a successful antagonist. I may be comparing him a bit too much with Hervé, though. (From Red Garden, who in my opinion was a great example of an antagonist that works).

Finally! A catgirl who doesn’t end her sentences with “-nya”. She also doesn’t have any of the nervous tics to make her seem excessively cute either. I like that.

In any case: I really must praise the second season by fixing about the only thing that was wrong with the first season: the fact that the stories had no connection to them. The second season so far has been really good at foreshadowing its future stories. It’s a small touch, but it makes this season feel more as a unity than just a collection of random short stories, while avoiding to become a series with a continuous storyline.

The current story was about said catgirl, and it was delightfully close to the horror-stories that we saw in the first season of xxxHolic. The interesting thing is that it never tried to be anything big. The story was just very simple with hardly any unnecessary twists. A really good example of the simple, yet effective episode, and at the same time it foreshadowed Himawari’s arc some more. I suspect that the creators will save her arc for the end of the season.

I’m a bit iffy on the explanation the creators gave, on how the body of the dead girl has sat in her chair for years now, due to the fact that her body won’t decompose due to the chemicals that are in the food we eat. Even preserved meat goes bad if you don’t seal it to prevent outside air from reaching it, so why should a human suddenly become entirely immune to the process? Still, I admit it’s a freaky thought: perhaps the technology to completely preserve our bodies in the future.

Apparently, the creators also seemed to have cut out Tsubasa Chronicle references in this episode yet again. In a way, I’m glad that they did so. xxxHolic is basically a series about modern folklore, not some kind of back-up series for Tsubasa Chronicle. I’ve also heard from various sources that the Tsubasa Chronicle Manga is starting to get more ludicrous with every single volume, so it’s good that the creators have decided to keep things simple. I can imagine how there was a bit of collaboration between the teams that worked on the xxxHolic and Tsubasa Chronicle movie, but I can imagine how with so many references, trying to manage these crossovers will be near-impossible.

Ah, finally some action. This episode gave me some more faith in the second half of this series. The two previous episodes may have been rather dull, but this episode made up for it pretty nicely. Although I do hope that this series won’t try to beat Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann in terms of huge mechas…

This episode also finally shows us the main antagonist, though the guy didn’t do much. Still, it’s a nice enough introduction, as long as the creators remember to develop the guy. I also liked the Varja-battleship that suddenly appeared. The only dull part in this episode was when Sheryll got sentimental about Alto in front of her audience, but at least that part was meant to develop both her and Ranka some more.

I like the new ED a lot more than the old one. I’m not a J-pop fan at all, so these songs have always been a hit or miss. This one turned out to be pretty nice, thankfully.

Oh, just great. I’m losing interest in this series, as much as I hate to admit it. It’s not the only series that started out rather unbelievable this season. Heck, Nijuu Mensou no Musume had a far worse start, but at least that one has been showing potential. At this point, the sense of adventure just isn’t enough anymore, and the way Allison just stole yet another plane didn’t sit right with me at all. Thankfully, at least the last parts of this episode seemed interesting again.

But then again… a peek at the preview showed how Owen Nicht shamelessly kidnaps Fiona IN PERSON. I have no idea how the creators are supposed to get a satisfying conclusion out of that. The guy has been horribly underdeveloped, and it doesn’t seem that he’s about to receive a huge amount of depth. I REALLY hope that this series won’t continue this pacing, where Allison and later Lillia will keep saving the world n forced manners.

It’s a shame. I expected much more from the director, but it turns out that he still needs to learn a lot. His style was perfect for Mokke, where every episode was quick and yet powerful. It seems however that he just isn’t as good with continuous story-lines.

Still, I’ll continue with this series for now. The thing I’m interested in is its future potential. What will happen once Lillia takes over? Will this series change entirely? Let’s hope that this series can keep me interested until that point…

Travelling-anime with random stories usually come in two categories: the saviour and the observer. The first one is by far the most common one: the protagonist arrives at a place where there’s some kind of problem, and at the end of the episode he or she has solved it. Examples of this are El Cazador, Mushishi, Mermaid’s Forest, Otogi Juushi Akazukin, et cetera. The second category is much rarer, and in there, the protagonist basically arrives, but his or her actions have no major influence on the places he/she visits. The only examples I can think of right now are Kaiba, Kino no Tabi and Perrine Monogatari.

And here Porfy comes and creates a totally different category: in this show, Porfy doesn’t save the people he meets: the people he meets save him. Such a young boy all alone on a journey obviously has a lot to learn, and thank goodness that Porfy manages to run into kind people who wish to help him further.

Porfy exits the ship on one of the trucks, and he gets dropped off at a local square as the truck driver mentions how hot the females are, although Porfy’s probably too young for that. He looks around a but, sees a bunch of punks and suddenly realizes that he hasn’t eaten anything since that morning. He runs towards a local fried-potato stand, after which a guy named Leon arrives as well. The stand owner comments on how he’s slacking off again, but as it turns out, Leon’s boss ordered him to get a bag of fried potatoes.

The woman at the stand then hands Porfy his potatoes, though she asks to be paid in Lire (Italy’s money before the Euro). Porfy gets all worked up when all he has is Greek money. A middle-aged man who happened to be passing by offers him to exchange Porfy’s money at the local bank, and Porfy does so, gullibly. While the man is away, exchanging the money and putting half of it in his own pocket, Porfy asks around for Mina.

The man returns and hands Porfy half of his money, though Leon quickly notices that the money he received is far too little and gets the remaining money out of the guy. The stand woman then tries to beat up the man, saying how he should be ashamed of himself to deceive such a young boy, as Leon walks away. Porfy quickly notices and runs after him, asking to return his money.

As it turns out, the punks were still there, and they had their eyes on Porfy’s large amount of money. Leon helps Porfy escape and the two exchange money and potatoes (which Porfy was holding when Leon confronted the old man). Leon warns Porfy, and asks if he has any plans of where to go next Porfy obviously hasn’t any, so he takes him along to his shop for now.

The shop turns out to be a car repair shop. The owner is a bit pissed off since he can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong with the car of one of his clients (and his potatoes that Leon was supposed to get were delayed), though this changes when he hears Porfy’s story. Unfortunately, neither he nor his wife has seen Mina. Porfy then prepares to leave, saying how he needs to find Mina. Leon however, says that he’ll get into big trouble if he just continues to search for Mina, his money will run out very quickly. Porfy says that he’ll manage somehow.

The store owner then offers him to work for money for a bit, since Porfy told how his father was teaching him to be a car mechanic. Leon mentions all of the dangers involved in travelling alone (he says this very bluntly, otherwise it just wouldn’t get through Porfy’s head). When Porfy has eaten a bit, the store manager gets a bit angry at how Porfy’s confidence in car mechanics. That’s why he brings Porfy to the car he himself was having trouble with.

Obviously, Porfy has a lot of trouble figuring out what’s wrong, with Leon watching from the side-lines. After a long while, Leon decides to subtly help him by suggesting that something might be up with the transmission. This is where Porfy breaks down, however, saying how his father didn’t teach him yet about that. What follows is a very touching scene, where Porfy gives up the strong impression eh tried to set up and starts crying, saying how he needs to find Mina. Leon assures him then that Mina is alive. The town they’re in is a small one, and a girl without anyone to take care of her will quickly be noticed.

Now that Porfy is cheered up a bit, Leon decides to help him some more by directing the problem to the battery, which turns out to be the culprit. When the owner of the car then comes to pick it up, he’s really glad for the work Porfy did, and gives him a little tip. Porfy then cleans up, and that night Leon takes a look at Porfy’s toolkit and gives him some pointers: it misses a few essential tools, while others will hardly be used at all.

Porfy then mentions the past World War. If I remember correctly, Greece never played a big role in it, though Italy was a major party there. As it turns out: Leon lost his family in that war. He hopes for Porfy to quickly find Mina. If she isn’t in this city, then he suggests Porfy where she might have gone to. He then gives Porfy a compass, in case he gets lost, and says that he ever gets lost, that he should use his brains, and the episode ends.

This was a really interesting episode, because for the first time Porfy came into contact with guys who were out to harm him. Porfy has never really been deceived by any stranger, so he had no reason to doubt the old man’s actions. This was really an episode, meant to make Porfy see the reality of his decision to start travelling. Sure, it sounds nice, but you have to take many things into account.

This is also why the store manager and Leon were so harsh to him at times. Porfy said full of confidence that he could fix any car, and so the store manager puts him on a problem which he knows he can’t fix, in order to teach Porfy to just say what he can do and what he can’t do. Porfy has been trying so much to be strong for his own and Mina’s sake that he started to ask the impossible from himself.

I must say that, when comparing the first nineteen episodes of Porfy to the first nineteen episodes of Les Miserables, then Porfy no Nagai Tabi so far has been better. But that’s only logical: Les Miserables only really started shining once it hit its second half, while Porfy’s height seems to have been the arc around episodes 13 to 17. Still, I’m interested in what the creators have in store for the rest of this series. Will it stay away from tragedy and instead focus on Porfy as he tries to find Mina, or do they still have some trumps left on their sleeve? Either way, it’s going to be awesome.

Another very solid episode from Himitsu. Though it wasn’t among the best episodes of this series, it still had me glued at the screen during the tense moments. This episode kept a lot of things unmentioned. It never went into detail as to what Kinoko’s father, three friends and family did to her. All that we saw confirmed is that she was once abused by her father. Her father turned out to be obsessed and in love with her, and Kinoko knew this, so she used him as a scapegoat to take all the blame, which is why Kinoko didn’t kill him. He’d be sentenced to death anyway.

Still, I like series that assume that their viewer has a brain. There’s of course a fine line between left-out information and plain laziness, but I suspect that the creators knew full well what they were doing in this episode.

I think the reason why this episode wasn’t as good as the previous ones was that there were times in which we didn’t follow Aoki’s thought-pattern, but just jumped right to his conclusions, while the thing that made me fall in love with this series was the seemingly endless search for that one clue that helped to push the case closer to getting solved.

Hah, I don’t care about the general opinion: this show rocks! It may be the most neglected series of the season, but for me it definitely belongs in the top-10 of the series that aired this season.

In this age of big budgets, it’s good to see that a relatively unknown company as Studio Fantasia is also trying its best to put down a classic. One of the things I don’t like about this season is that nearly every good series is done by the big animation studios, as Madhouse, Gonzo, Deen, etc. The studios that are relatively unpopular don’t seem to be even trying (for example A.C.G.T with its questionable Monochrome Factor).

I’m really glad to see that Studio Fantasia is trying to improve itself. Just take a look at their previous work. Before 2006, they only worked on silly shows which only seemed to focus on fanservice, though they pretty much surprised me with their solid work on Souko no Strain, and now they again managed to create a very enjoyable series that goes right where many other series have gone wrong. So yeah, there are a few low-budget parts in this series, mostly the art, but the rest really shines. This should send out a good message to the other lesser-known studios: you can create a good anime, even on a small budget.

Really, this is what a 12-episode series should be: no scene is wasted, quick development and good characterization. A 26-episode can afford to slowly build up for 10 episodes, but series like this one need to deliver quickly. Seeing a series that builds up for eleven episodes, with a climax of only two episodes is nice and all, but it remains mostly boring.

What’s more: the villains actually have some background to them. This episode actually gave the two of them some depth, beyond their stereotypes. It seems that the guy is obsessed with his own work, and is fascinated when he sees how HW-09 has managed to not turn into glass. The woman meanwhile reveals that she knew HW-09 before she became a glass maiden, and as it turns out: she loathed her.

Also, is it me or do the more low-budget series have a bigger tendency to feature good fights than high-budget series? Seriously, I can confidently say that the fight in this episode was better than what I’ve seen from Soul Eater and Macross Frontier so far, even though these series overflow with budget. It’s the same with Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino: the animation was bad, and yet the fights were amazingly directed. Somehow, it feels to me that the creators try to make up for the lack of budget by detailed direction, and it really works!

To call Real Drive unconventional would be a bit understatement. When I went into this series, I expected a huge focus on technology and heavy terms, but the focus on Minamo ended up much bigger than I thought. This yet again was another episode without diving.

In this episode, a book that Minamo’s reading turns out to have parts cut off. She initially believes that this is some kind of message or love-letter. Holon, however, corrects her, and says that it’s probably a protest made when all the books got digitalized. Obviously disappointed by this, Minamo tells her grandmother about it (wasn’t she on Haru and Eiichiro’s team before Haru got his accident?) and her grandmother suggests her checking out a certain book called “love letter”.

Minamo starts reading the book, and although it’s a bit too “mature” for her, she’s quickly drawn in. Then, when she just reached the end, t turns out that the final page is missing. Haru then explains that that missing page has been blank all along, and the original purpose of the ending was for the reader to make his or her own conclusion. Apparently, this page was ripped out to write a letter. I’m not sure about the details (Holon is just too much of a walking thesaurus when she starts talking!), but I think that it was meant to preserve a message and to prevent it from getting lost in the digitalization of the books. I that that book kept its final pages blank on purpose, so that who read it could use these pages to write a letter to his or her loved one…

In the end, Minamo finds a name on that book. She’s died now, but as it turns out, she was a former colleague of Haru and Eiichiro as well, before the accident. In the end, I think that Minamo’s grandmother told her about the book, and she rented it herself. She then got inspired to write a small letter to Haru, though she never delivered it. The book then remained in the library for forty years until Minamo picked it up again.

I must say that this was a very interesting way to show something about the people that Haru left behind when he went in coma (at least, I assume that she wrote that letter after Haru’s accident, but I’m not sure. I can’t seem to find the exact date of it). As it turns out, that woman died two years before Haru woke up again. This yet again proofs how the director is a master of characterizations: he knows exactly how to develop them and make the audience care about them, as he showed in Tsuiokuhen, Chevalier and the recent Amatsuki.

I really must say that this is the series I look forward to the most each week. This really is different from your usual mystery-series, as we still hardly know anything about the concept beyond the basics. The thing with this series is that it likes to reveal its mysteries as little as possible. And personally, I love the way the creators decided to handle this.

Here’s a strange phenomenon I have no explanation of: due to the recent arrests, a large amount of the Share-users have stopped uploading their files by now, though the few that remain find it for some strange and inexplicable reason a good idea to release in a high quality video-file as possible. Suddenly, 75% of all new files are in some kind HD .mp4 or .mkv-format. So… yeah. If you’ve been wondering why I’ve been so slow for the past few days: my pc doesn’t support HD video-files.

In any case, I’m glad that this series is really taking its time exploring its concepts. This time, we see that not just any weapon meister can team up with a random weapon, even if the two of them are best friends. Their souls need to be in resonance in order for this to happen. The key is much more to understanding each other.

The thing I’m waiting for right now is to see Soul or Black Star, teaming up with Kid in a team-mission. Death the Kid really seems like a person who prefers fighting alone (or alone with his weapons). I can imagine how he’ll have huge amounts of trouble, trying to work together with the asymmetric idiots that are Soul and especially Black Star.