Short Synopsis: Lyuze and Ringo return.
Highlights: How come Ringo and Casshern went to exactly the same place?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
This episode returns us to the main storyline, when first Lyuze finally decides to show up and kill Casshern (she’s been following him everywhere, it seems). Even though Casshern still doesn’t remember what he did, he knows that he committed a horrible sin. As it turns out, Lyuze’s sister was the first he killed, and infected with that robot-breaking-down disease.

At the moment, Casshern is some sort of combination between human, robot and immortal being; there are so many facets to this guy: he doesn’t need any food, yet he can shed tears, he’s incredibly powerful, he can heal any sort of wound, and yet he suffers from memory loss and he’s got an alter ego that appears once he’s angry. I suppose that this alter-ego here is the key to everything. My guess is that Luna did something before she was killed, which tried to suppress Casshern’s violent personality, though only succeeded in this partially.

I was a bit disappointed when Casshern suddenly was able to save Ringo from out of nowhere, though. Has it been clearly mentioned that the two had the same destination, which I missed somewhere? Otherwise, it’s a pretty jarring coincidence on an otherwise excellent series. I already really like this series, but it’s just too early for my suspense of disbelief to just ignore these sorts of things. The point the creators tried to make with it was clear, though: up till now, Casshern’s violent side only disappeared when said side calmed down, but this time Ringo was able to call the guy out of it.

It’s very strange; this series is really well-written: the single dialogues are really detailed, and bring out the best of the different characters, and then there are a few things in the set-up that just don’t sit right. This episode too portrayed the ugly robots as much more evil than the human-like robots. It feels as if this series has a crappy guy behind the series composition, and yet the most amazing scriptwriters and art directors. Especially considering the former, this does make sense when you look at the staff-list, since the guy behind the series composition also did those of Claymore, Yume Tsukai and Shakugan no Shana. The chief animation-director also did the same for Mushishi, which could explain the amazing visuals, but I still have no bloody clue where that amazing dialogue comes from. Could it really be, that after directing countless of Dragonball Z-movies, the director suddenly saw the big bright light at the end of the tunnel or something?

Short Synopsis: A bunch of teenagers jack a car and are attacked by a Shikabane.
Highlights: TRANSFER STUDENT! TRANSFER STUDENT! TRANSFER STUDENT!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6,5/10 (Lacking)
Ack, this series was doing so well, and then that transfer-student popped up. This is all just a pet peeves of me, and I don’t care whether it makes sense or not. It’s not even the fact that she’s a transfer-student, but I personally HATE the scene where suddenly a girl whose prettiness somehow outshines every other girl in school introduces herself to the class, how every single male APART from the lead character makes loud comments on how hot she is, and out of everyone out there, she chooses the male lead as a friend, making every other guy jealous at him. I don’t care how the anime tries to explain it; I don’t bloody care whether it’s important to the story. I’ve just seen the same friggin’ scene way too many times, with hardly any variation. The fun is really gone at this point.

Seriously, anime makes it look like every single good-looking Japanese is continuously travelling the country or something.

In any case, the rest of the episode thankfully proved to be interesting enough to stop this episode from being unimpressive and disappointing. The first is obviously the car-Shikabane, which kidnaps unsuspecting teenagers that are looking for an exciting ride. I mean, you just have to think of it. ^^; The whole action-scene within that car maybe lacked a bit of horror, but nonetheless it was very fun to watch.

At the same time, the creators continue to very slowly give more and more depth to the characters. I mean, the big twist in this episode was no surprise for anyone who read the premise of the series, but it’s like I mentioned before: this series really takes its time, and that’s a good thing so far. At the same time we also see the new bad guy, who is the only one of his… organization (or whatever it’s going to be called) not faded out in the OP.

And really, I don’t hate the new characters or anything. They’ve got potential, but the way in which they were introduced was just… ugh…

Short Synopsis: The reunion with Mina doesn’t become so certain anymore and Major SPOILER ahead.
Highlights: It’s finally time for the creators to use everything they’ve built up for…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Holy crap, I knew it! My suspicions became sure at the beginning of this episode: the creators have been systematically removing everything that ties Porfy and Mina to Simitra, up to the point where there were just two things left: Apollo and Apollo’s medallion that Porfy made. Yeah.

The episode starts with Porfy, arriving at a local farm, and he asks the farmer whether he can give him some water. The farmer’s wife then returns a bit later with a rumour about a small girl who travels with her fortunetelling mother in the next town. It sounds too good to e true, but Porfy goes to check it out anyway, as the farmer gives him a few apples, and he and his wife feel pity with the guy.

Meanwhile, we see Mina again. She’s inside a train, and at that point she asks Isabella to tell her fortune. The first card that she opens unfortunately happens to be the death-card (foreshadowing, anyone?). Isabella then comments on how Mina has changed a bit. She’s indeed become more open when compared to when we last saw her.

Porfy meanwhile arrives at the town from which the rumour came, and indeed the villagers seem to recognize the description Porfy gives them. Meanwhile, Isabella’s father has troubles with his back (foreshadowing, anyone?), and they decide to travel on foot because the train won’t show up. Porfy meanwhile finds the inn the rumoured Mina is staying in, though they just checked out. He manages to find them, just before they hit a bus, but like suspected, they are some completely different people.

However, they do seem to know Isabella and the others, and in fact they met them once. Especially the girl was able to accurately describe Mina. They’ve got no idea where they are now, but nevertheless, there’s a good chance that they’re going to be heading to Paris. So, Porfy plans to head North, with the assurance that Mina’s doing fine (foreshadowing… anyone?).

At the local inn, Mina enjoys Isabella’s performance, and then suddenly she breaks down due to some vision she had or something similar (foreshadowing, anyone?). A bit later, we see that Porfy’s lost in some remote forest, with a hunter nearby (if that isn’t foreshadowing, then I don’t know anymore…). Porfy runs into said hunter, who asks what he’s doing there. It turns out that Porfy’s on some private property of that hunter, and even though Porfy tries to apologize and tell him that he’s lost, the hunter doesn’t believe him, and thinks that he’s the guy who has been stealing from his lands. He then sees Apollo and shoots him.

Meanwhile, something strange happens with Mina, and she somehow seems to feel Apollo’s death, and this time, she breaks down completely. She even calls out Porfy, for the first time since they separated. We switch back to Porfy, as he has just created a grave for Apollo. We never see him cry about it, nor do we know whether he did or not. And the episode ends.

I must say that even though there were so many signs of foreshadowing, Apollo’s death still made a lot of impact there. I think that this episode also introduced the final arc of this series. There first was the Greece-arc, which was slice of life, then the Earthquake-arc came, which was downright sad, the Slow Travel-arc then came, in which the stories took up three or four episodes, then the Fast Travel-arc, which was instead episodic, and now the Final Arc comes, which focuses on both Porfy and Mina, travelling to Paris, and it’s probably going to go back even more to the Earthquake-arc, but with an even more depressing mood. The question is of course going to be: does the final arc have what it takes to surpass the amazing Earthquake-arc?

With this episode, we also know for sure: SOMETHING is going to have to happen to Isabella’s father. There’s no other way to interpret his aching back. I also predict that whatever it is that will happen to him, it’s going to trigger Carlos’ time-bomb. What surprised me was how mellow Carlos was in this episode. There wasn’t even a bad word that came out of him.

There’s also something I’ve been wondering for episodes right now, because I’m also watching Perrine Monogatari at this point. Porfy grew up in Greece, so he’s not used to bad weather. Now that he’s in France, and it’s starting to become Winter, then won’t the guy catch a cold at one point? It’s strange, because there have been no signs foreshadowing this yet, and at the same time with nine episodes left, there still is enough airtime left for that to happen.

I’m also wondering: Mina’s death card was about Apollo… but did the creators mean more by that? The creators have been systematically killing everything from Simitra so far. Will they also give Porfy and Mina the same treatment. Like mentioned above: their reunion suddenly doesn’t become so certain anymore.

Short Synopsis: Obviously, the police isn’t going to let Michiko get away without a fight.
Highlights: Surprisingly genuine.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
Well, since Michiko e Hatchin’s second episode took so long to come out, it’s taken me quite a while to finalize my blogging schedule, but here it is (note that the days correspond to the days in which I can expect to get my hands on them, rather then their actual airdates)
Monday: Blade of the Immortal*
Tuesday: Nope
Wednesday: Mouryou no Hako, Kurozuka, Porfy no Nagai Tabi, Michiko e Hatchin**
Thursday: Shikabane Hime, Casshern Sins, Bonen no Xamdou***
Friday: Tytania
Saturday: Telepathy Shoujo Ran, Jigoku Shoujo
Sunday: Mobile Suit Gundam 00
*airs bi-weekly
**could move to thursday at this pace
***seems to be on a hiatus for about a month

Like always, the good shows seem to have concentrated themselves on two or three days, rather than spreading evenly, so Wednesday and Thursday are going to be pretty busy, while Monday and Tuesday will be quiet.

In any case, I’ve decided to blog this. The first episode could have been better, but there’s definitely potential here. Manglobe is a unique animation company, in the way that they only release a series every two years or so. This is a very risky strategy, because if the sales disappoint, they’re screwed, but this way it does allow them to put extra effort into developing their series, and making everything come out right. In Samurai Champloo’s case, it enabled them to create some really awesome fight-scenes, Ergo Proxy did this with its plot, and Michiko to Hatchin seems to be doing this with its characters.

The fight are not amazing, and neither the plot is very complicated, but the characters so far are feeling much more genuine than with Samurai Champloo and Ergo Proxy’s case. If given time, I can really see Michiko and Hatchin develop into an excellent duo, which makes up for their own weaknesses. At first sight, they may seem like a standard “Strong and Weak person who Travel”-series, but I’ve yet to see such a series where the strong person is such an irresponsible person as Michiko is. And yet, she does show that she can take responsibility, just as how Hatchin is a strong girl, but can just as easily collapse, since she’s still only nine years old.

I just wonder… why are there two people called Michiko and Hana, walking around in Brazil? They don’t really strike me as typical Portuguese names or something. Still, I do have to admit that I really appreciate it that the creators have chosen such an original settings. There are so many different countries out there, with so many different cultures and potential for juicy stories, and yet 90% of all anime plays in Japan, 5% in a fantasy world, and 4% somewhere either in Europe or the United States (okay, so these numbers are way from exact, but you get the picture). It’s awesome to see a series that attempts to screw conventions and go with something completely different.