Short Synopsis: Ranka and Brera arrive at the home planet of the Vajra.
Highlights: Well, finally it seems that the love-triangle is over.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
Okay, so this episode was meant to spice up the upcoming finale a bit. It was a it of a mixed bag, like usual with this series. There were some things I liked:
- Sheryl’s little bits of screen-time
- Some more exposition about the nature of the Vajra and Ranka’s background. The creators actually remembered that huge space-craft of ten episodes ago and explained what it was about. As it turns out, Grace once lived together with Ranka and her mother, and they lived happily together with the Vajra.
- A few scenes here and there about the casualties that the recent Vajra outburst caused.

There were also some things I didn’t like. Most importantly Ranka, getting captured by the Vajra like the damsel in distress that she is. Really, I want to like her, and her character isn’t badly written at all. It’s just the way that the creators use her that bugs me like no other. Especially since now it seems pretty much clear that she’ll end up together with Alto. Okay, Alto said that he’d rather kill Ranka than let the Vajra use her for destruction, but I really doubt whether the creators have the GUTS to kill her off.

There’s also this bit about Brera, being Ranka’s brother, which has been delayed way too much in my opinion. It was pretty obvious that the two were siblings more than thirteen episodes ago, and only now the creators decide to reveal it to the characters. This should have been clear much earlier, to allow for some development between the two. To think that even Brera didn’t know.

Please, Ranka. There are two episodes left. Please do something in that finale other than predictably provide a Deus ex Machina ending. Kick Grace in the ass, make the Vajra kill Leon, anything as long as you don’t end up being some god-moded damsel in distress!

Short Synopsis: The secretary general gets some more background, while the search for Kushima’s consciousness continues.
Highlights: Extra bit of depth about the secretary general was very much appreciated.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Okay, so I’m probably the only one who’s still crazy enough to watch this series without subs. Still, this episode featured a lot of interesting things. It’s slowly getting clearer as to what the heck happened, back in episode 21: apparently, Kushima is experiencing the same thing that Haru went to go through for fifty years at the moment. His brains that were found in the previous episode didn’t carry his consciousness, and only a few programs were left on it. One of them is an emergency AI-program he wrote for himself. It’s a really neat idea, to just be able to automate some of your thoughts, in case your consciousness loses it. In this case, humans have really become like machines, and the only thing that separates androids from real humans is that they’re completely mechanical, and their memory programs are designed to be functional, when compared to the whimsical nature of human brains. That’s one thing I really like about this series. It may have screwed up with its characters a bit, but Masamune Shirou’s setting for this series is rock-solid.

In any case, this episode gave some very much needed background to the secretary general, and shows the moment when she met with Souta, and fell in love with him. From here, we can probably guess that they started working together, and at one point she forced herself onto him. She really feels much more as a balanced character after this episode, but the problem is that this should have been a point of character-development. Instead, this episode just showed different sides of her. This shouldn’t be happening THIS LATE in a series, and there’s still that matter of Jennie’s lack of development. there are only three episodes left, but PLEASE give the guy some depth!

I still haven’t figured out what exactly Jennie is planning, but it seems to have to do something with the artificial island that had been built. And whatever it is, it seems to be in the interest of most of the inhabitants of the island. There also seems to be something that’s threatening the artificial island, which I guess is the same thing that Haru encountered.

Short Synopsis: Natsume gets visited (read: possessed) by a youkai who used to play a traditional Japanese instrument called the “koto”.
Highlights: Yet another great character-study, and the gender-bending was hilarious too.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Like I mentioned before: the past summer-season has been different from nearly all other seasons so far, in the way that I was able to blog a relatively huge amount of series, in comparison to the amount of series that came out. This allowed me to experiment with a number of series that I normally wouldn’t have the time to blog about. In some cases, I was pleasantly surprised, like with Ultraviolet and Birdy the Mighty’s cases, and other series became rather pointless blogging-exercises, like Mission-E, and strangely enough also this series. Which is really ironic, since it’s one of my favourites of the past season.

The strange thing is that even though this series has great characters, I hardly have any inspiration when I try to write an entry. Right now it’s the same, which is why I’m rambling a bit right now about something totally unrelated to this excellent episode. This is much more a series that you want to enjoy in a relaxed way, not try to over-analyze things. I also now know that it was a good decision not to blog Mokke, but instead casually enjoy its greatness. Some shows are meant to be thought about, others aren’t. Natsume and Mokke are typical shows that you just enjoy, nothing more.

Ah well, with three episodes left, I might as well continue to blog this series for such a short time. If there is a second season coming, I might give things some serious thoughts whether I want to blog the same thing again. If there isn’t going to be a second season (which unfortunately is likely, since Brains Base has never produced a series of more than 16 episodes), then I really wonder how the creators are planning to end things. There probably is going to be one episode dedicated to Nyanko-sensei, explaining what he’s been doing at his few nightly trips, and I’d also like to see one more episode that focuses at Reiko, which tries to explain why she compiled the Yuujin-chou in her youth, and what became of her. I’ve got tons of unanswered questions about her, and I’d love to see at least some of them answered.

There’s also one point of criticism I have for this series: this series is supposed to be “Natsume’s Book of Friends”, and yet it’s been ages since Natsume used the damned thing. It needs to come into the foreground some more.