Okay, that’s it. I’m dropping this series. I’ve had enough, the climax of this episode was just painful to watch. I’ll still continue watching this series for the Lillia-storyline, but I don’t want to blog this series anymore.

Owen Nicht is cornered. He’s about to get arrested, so he takes Fiona hostage. Okay, fair enough, I can live with that. HOWEVER, one of the main guards tries to stop Owen by charging directly into the guy. Owen stops him, not by pointing a knife at Fiona, but freaking stabbing the guy’s knee from such an awkward position!

And then it only gets better. Owen manages to escape (note how he didn’t retrieve his knife). The guy is screwed, so he needs to escape. So, where does he run to? The roof. The freaking ROOF. The highest point possible. Obviously, Benedict is the first to get there too, and Owen abandons Fiona to stab the guy, with another dagger that looks exactly the same as the one he just left into that officer’s leg. But here’s the best part: Benedict blocks it with his freaking watch. He didn’t evade the dagger, he didn’t try to disarm Owen. No, he moved his arm in such a risky position so that his watch would stop the dagger, with the danger that if it was only off by a few angles, it would bounce off and still hit him.

After this, I completely lost interest. I knew that this series wasn’t good, but I never imagined that the creators would resort to ZAIZEN JOTARO-plot-twists.

Madhouse, you’re a strange one: you’ve managed to concentrate all of best staff-members on Himitsu, Chi’s Sweet Home and Kaiba this season, and the worst on Kamen no Maid Guy and Allison to Lillia. It’s interesting: usually madhouse series are a strange combination between awesomeness and a bit of laziness. In this season Himitsu, Kaiba and perhaps to a lesser extend Chi’s Sweet Home are pure awesomeness without any apparent weaknesses, and Maid Guy and Allison to Lillia are among the laziest Madhouse Production that I’ve seen so far.

Ah well, now I can blog one extra series this summer, and it’s looking out to be quite a good season. Farewell Allison to Lillia. In a way, I do hope I’m wrong when I fear that the second half won’t be much better, but I don’t feel like finding out.

Ah, the standard episode in which a character is angsting and his or her friends spend the episode trying to talk him or her out of it. I now realize how often such an episode can go wrong: it’s obviously predictable, and often it comes across rather lazy. I now realize that series as Suteki Tantei Labyrinth and Code Geass did a rather pathetic job on it: Mayuki and Lelouch did nothing but angst over what happened, then his friends come and say a few words, and they act like nothing ever happened.

Episodes like this one need lots of inspired dialogue. They need introspection, both from the character him/herself and from the ones around him. They mustn’t try to be standalone episodes, assuming that the next episode will continue on like nothing ever happened. And I must say that Crystal Blaze did a pretty good job at it. Manami was definitely depressed, but I like how the creators used a bit of comedy in order to lighten up the mood from all her angst. In this series, the characters actually try to understand both each other and themselves, and that’s what makes this so appealing.

Seriously, Crystal Blaze is one of these series where every major character has become likable, and especially the good guys are a joy to watch. I already sung praises to Shu and Manami, but Ayaka’s caring nature and Akira’s down-to-earth nature are also wonderful. And of course Poririn rocks as well. Th relatively large emphasis so far on the bad guys also really helps. These guys are definitely not your typical misunderstood villains, and they they’re turning out really nicely.

I’m really not sure what exactly it was that the creators did, but this is everything a 12-episode series should be. The reason why I prefer 26 or 39-episode series above series of such a short length is that they can easily go wrong if they’re not focused, and it takes something special to get some quality development out of the characters, something which is much easier for series with 26 episodes, because it usually takes me around 10 episodes to really connect with the cast of characters.