This episode was absolutely incredible. There’s probably no better way to say it. It’s one of those very rare episodes that just blew me away due to its sheer awesomeness. Everything Kaiba has been building up to has come together perfectly. Seriously, Kaiba right now has actually a chance of surpassing Haibane Renmei as my favourite 13-episode series, if it continues on at this pace.

Seriously, in seven mere episodes, Kaiba did what other series usually takes other series 20. When I first learned that Masaaki Yuasa would direct this series, I had my doubts, seeing as Kemonozume, Mind Game and Cat Soup were all good, but seemed to lack something, though Kaiba really shows that he’s evolving as a storyteller, and Kaiba is the work of a genius.

Vanilla, sacrificing himself for Kuroniko indeed had it coming, and I haven’t forgotten the horrible things he did in the first and second episode, and yet his end was so incredibly sweet. The guy knew full well that Kuroniko didn’t like him, and he only got this confirmed with her disgusted look after he kissed her, after which he planned to send her away, back to the planet where it all began in the first episode.

And then Neiro’s past. Her memory is a bloody mess, and it’s especially interesting to see Hyo-hyo being so shocked about it. We now know that it’s got something to do with Neiro, but it wasn’t aware of what exactly was done to her. There are also more Hyo-hyos than just Hyo-hyo, so I guess that it was just assigned to do a simple task: keep an eye on Warp, and I have reason to believe that that ostrich was also part of the complot.

I suspect that, assuming that everything Kaiba saw inside of Neiro’s memory came in chronological order, Warp once got attacked by Kaiba, and got his memory copied of some sort. That’s how Kaiba was born, and Kaiba was the one who got close to Neiro and fell in love with her, at the displeasure of Warp, so he tried to shoot her, like we saw in this episode. I have no idea how Neiro managed to survive, but if I had to guess, then Popo came to their rescue. He then messed with the memory of both of them, in order to manipulate them. I’m not sure what kind of purpose Kaiba has in his plans, though.

Oh, and I HATE TENNIS. Two freaking weeks without Kaiba!? $#!!$#$!@!@!!!

Another very solid episode from xxxHolic. This one too goes back to the first one, and is another one in the collection of “stories about girls and women with mysterious problems” that were featured in many of the episodes of the first season. It’s episodes like these which are especially important for this series, because they take the focus away from Watanuki and instead are all about their characters. This makes the viewer both enjoy the character in question more, and look forward to seeing the next serious story about Watanuki. Besides, I love it when main characters end up taking the roles of mere spectators.

The case this time is about a girl whose house is being haunted. She can hear sounds, as if people were living there. What’s actually happening is that she’s the ghost, and doesn’t realize that she’s dead. In the end, Yuuko gives the girl a number of bells that would amplify her presence in the house. In this way, the real residents would be so freaked out that they’d call an exorcist.

I must say that that was a very interesting way to exorcise the ghost. Yuuko refused to let the girl know that she was a ghost, and she refused to exorcise the ghost herself, and I wonder why she did that. Is this called “thou should never kill thy customers”, or something? Or did she decide to just leave things to the professional exorcists, who know how to properly get rid of a ghost?

Ah, its finally happened. Most parts of this episode was a calm before the storm, but at the end of the episode, Shinkurou and Murasaki are finally forced to leave their home and run away from the Kuhoin family. Something’s telling me that the best part of Kurenai is about to begin!

It’s amazing you can do with solid writing. The entire episode was clearly building up for something: for a random Kurenai-episode, it just missed the intense dialogue, drama or comedy that made the previous episodes great, and instead it went for a very quiet and peaceful approach, in which Shinkurou, Murasaki and the other went to visit a local shrine. They had fun through the afternoon, and went to have dinner at a restaurant together, as a way of saying goodbye to their lifestyles of the past few episodes, because the day after that a bunch of random Kuhoin-goons came up and beat the crap out of Shinkuro, and as an added twist: there’s a chance that Murasaki isn’t a legitimate Kuhoin-child: only her father’s two sons are legitimately registered.

I liked those two goons: they’ve got a personality, and throughout the episode, you can actually see them as they gather information on the situation. As it turns out, they underestimated Yayoi’s fighting ability so they retreated

Okay… so that was a disaster…

Don’t get me wrong, it was without a doubt a fun disaster, but there’s got to be some kind of limit on how many face-palm moments you can include into one single episode. Ranka in a carrot-suit already was strange, but at that point, I had no idea that the rest of the episode would feature both Ranka and Sheryl joining Alto’s class (feels like a bad teenaged soap, doesn’t it?), Sheryl’s panties ending up stolen by a random fluffy animal, every single male in the school would obsessively hunt said panties, and Sheryl chasing said creature in a flying-suit, wearing nothing but a dress. Not exactly my idea of quality entertainment.

Still, thankfully the banter between the different characters has been getting better and better. As much as I’d like to hate this episode, I have to admit that some parts were downright hilarious, especially Sheryl, finding out Alto’s “nickname”. And as an added bonus, the final minute of the episode showed how the “bad guy” met Ranka when she was alone with the above-mentioned pet. That serious scene worked surprisingly well.

I’m also wondering, since this is a show about idols: will the creators step on the topics of overly obsessive fans? This episode already made it clear that every single male in the school is a drooling fan of Sheryl, but what surprised me is that they all kept their distance from her, and only went after her panties. No autographs? No attempts to get close to her? It’s a rather strange message: an idol’s fanbase isn’t based around her talents or her personality, but instead on her panties. Everything suddenly makes so much more sense. :P

I’m not sure if I’m the only one in this, but so far I’ve found the one-episode stories of Himitsu more interesting than the arcs that took up two episodes. Okay, that may be because the shorter stories were easier to understand, but the shortness of the one-episode arcs also has something appealing to it: it’s episodes like this one that are short and sweet, and still pack a punch. I’m interested in whether this’ll remain the same during the second half of this series (assuming of course that Himitsu will have 24/26 episodes. It would obviously be awesome if there turn out to be more episodes).

In this episode, an important businessman dies. He has a large family, but the most peculiar thing is that he can’t see people’s faces. His entire life, he’s been working hard, though he never could enjoy much social interaction, especially in the later half of his life, I believe. AS a result, he never had a good connection with his family, and refused to put his family into his will, because they’ll just waste the money he worked hard for. Instead, he left all his possessions to the one girl whose face he could see, and whom he met ten years before. That meeting made a huge impact on him. But as a result, his son got jealous and decided to kill him over it.

It’s a bit hard to imagine how someone wouldn’t be able to see faces, but you can also see this in symbolism: the guy was married, he lived with a large family, but there was no attempt made to connect to him, which in his turn didn’t give him much motivation for social interaction. I think he felt like everyone around him was around him because of his money, and not because of himself. That’s why the innocence of this little girl made such an impact on him, because she was too young to really care about his money or status.

Judging from the pattern of this series so far, the next episode is probably going to be two episodes long again. This time, I’m going to try and understand it immediately, instead of finding that I missed some huge plot-hole later. The power of Himitsu really emerges when you see the big picture, and not the smaller ingredients. Though I do hope that the focus won’t be on Aoki so much. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good character, but he has a nasty tendency to overshadow all of the other characters, who are just as interesting as he is. :P