Short Synopsis: Fan Hulic, Miranda and the others make preparations to safe Fan’s damsel in distress.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just trying to catch up on as much as possible of what I missed the past week when I was away. ^^;

In any case, I’ve tried to ignore it, but after this episode I just have to speak up about the animation of this series. It’s just abysmal at times, and yet this series doesn’t belong in the categories of series with crappy art. What impresses me about this series is that even though this series has a very limited budget (most likely the result of Artland taking up two series this season, overcasting themselves with the addition to Count and Fairy), and yet it doesn’t try to cut corners: there are hardly any cut corners. There’s movement nearly everywhere, even though this is a series about people talking. I can spot hardly any still frames, and at times the chins of the characters actually move when they talk (rather than simply their lips moving up and down). It’s a common trait of the recent Artland series: they really aren’t the best, they don’t have the largest amounts of money in their pockets, but at least you can see that despite their shortcomings, they try to make up for it. It works pretty well, though unfortunately it does mean that a lot of faces are really distorted.

In any case, I really liked this episode, even though it was mostly building up. Perhaps it was the prospect that Fan Hulic is actually going to DO something. He may be a lazy bastard, but at least the guy knows what he needs to do when he really wants something. I also suspect that the Euria-traitor is simply going to be political bait again, once he gets defeated by Fan Hulic (I also suspect that that’s why Idris left catching Fan Hulic up to Alsas: he wants to be 100% certain that Hulic is going to lose, otherwise he’ll just lead the same fate as Ariabart and Zalish). I do wonder what the poor bastard was thinking when he volunteered himself to go and catch Hulic, although I guess that he figured that it was a worse disaster for him when he lost, compared to Idris.

I’m also curious: what’s up with Alsas and his “Hyuuren”? He really never seems to change this, despite hearing numerous times that it went wrong. It’s funny, in a strange way, especially since everyone and his dog has to correct him all the time.

Short Synopsis: This episode is about the couple that we’ve seen in Eve’s Cafe.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Well, there go my fears of this show being too short in five episodes: the ending mentions the “second half of the first season”, hinting that a second season is going to appear some day. It’ll probably be around 2011 when it comes out at this pace, but it’s nevertheless a good thing to see that this concept has been given more airtime.

In any case, three episodes so far and each of them was increasingly better. Even though this episode was really different in terms of storytelling style, and Rikuo’s teenaged tendencies were rather annoying, it worked somehow. Rikuo is really turning into a Dori-kei, while his friend is getting even more interesting, looking at both worlds with a rather open mind.

The interesting part of this episode was of course that it’s dealing with not just Dori-keis, but instead about Androids who can fall in love with each other, proving that the concept of love is also familiar to them, and yet at the same time the two of them try to act as humans. What’s different in this series when compared to most other “smart android series”, is that usually these androids retaliate when they’ve gotten smart enough to go beyond their master’s choices (example: The Matrix). Here instead, they try to be like humans.

That makes it strange: why would there be people opposing this? This episode featured some subtle hints that there’s some serious business going on behind the scene, but I still fail to see the problem that they want to prevent. The beginning of this episode also convinced me that they try to use propaganda to prevent as many people as possible to become Dori-kei, with the whole movie about loving a robot and the robot falling apart.

Short Synopsis: Euria runs into problems due to inner conflicts.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
At this point, I’m about to take back all the bad things I’ve said about this series. Tytania has really been getting better and better with every episode. Everything finally makes sense: the characters in this series are meant to be very flawed: they’re meant to stay far away from Mary Sues and Gary Stus, the only downfall of these flawed characters is that they take a while to warm up to, rather than the perfect characters who often appeal immediately.

And really, every character has some sort of major weakness in this series: Idris is a lying bastard, Zalish loses his temper too easily, Alsas is incompetent and a mother’s boy, Jouslan lacks ambition, Ariabart lets everyone walk over him, Ajman never does anything for himself, Fan Hulic hasn’t done anything after his victory and suffers from lovesickness, Lydia is an annoying brat. Really, name any character, and there’s some sort of obvious flaw, only Miranda seems to be an exception to this rule. As stereotypes, these guys suck, but they become interesting once you get to know them, and they become fleshed out beyond the mere stereotypes.

I’m also impressed: the creators found a valid reason to keep Lydia in the story that actually makes so much sense: she never chases after Fan Hulic in the end, she just becomes bait for him after one of her comrades sold her out. Meanwhile, Hulic’s love is more like an obsession than a genuine crush: he can’t stop thinking about her, but whether it’s actually love… I don’t know yet. This episode also showed very much that Fan Hulic isn’t the only one who can outsmart Tytania, when Miranda outruns Zalish. It’s just that Tytania hasn’t given many people the chance to stand in a position similar to him, and his victory also received quite an amount of publicity, making Tytania’s defeat even worse.

Short Synopsis: All over town, people are turning into animals.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
Ah, of course. Finally we understand what was up with the dog and the lighter in the very first episode: it foreshadowed the very final arc. Hehe, nice touch.

In any case, in the final arc of the series, the themes suddenly become environmental. As it turns out the whole arc was about a fox deity who is fed up with humankind ruining the world. It really fits as a children’s series, since children of Ran’s age are often interested in protecting the environment (albeit a bit too moralistic). This arc really doesn’t try to be anything deep: the whole backstory really is as simple as a deity who has gotten angry at humans for screwing up earth so much, period. The interesting things, as usual, were the things that happened around it.

Right now, I’m really curious whether the creators are going to be able to end this series correctly, especially because the inclusion of the evil teacher felt really forced here. I mean, what the heck was her point of appearing, rather than just confirming what the fox said? How did she know about the animals-thing in the first place? (Telepathy, okay, but that doesn’t explain why she found it a good idea to enter the lion’s den…)

Right now, it’s pretty obvious that everything is going to have a happy end: the animals are going to be turned back into humans, the fox deity will see the errors of her ways and the teacher will also become one of the good guys; it’s even more predictable than your average ending. What the next episode needs to do is provide lots of banter. Avoid the straightforward, and make the episode fun to watch despite the predictability. I know that this series can do it, but it all depends whether or not the creators will write themselves into a corner, trying to achieve the “perfect ending”.

Short Synopsis: Celestial Being’s home base gets discovered.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Ah, I must say that this episode ranks among the best episodes of the second season so far. After the build-up it’s finally time for some serious developments, and I really wonder what the celestial beings are going to do now, now that they’ve lost their home base. All that’s left is to make the innovators move away from the evil overlords that they currently are, and I’ll be entirely happy.

And more references to the original Gundam this episode: multiple parts. While it’s not as extreme as splitting an entire mecha in three, the docking scene really reminded me of the “transformation sequences” of the original Gundam. I also liked how the rivalry between Sumeragi and Mannequin is starting to look more and more interesting.

Regarding Anew, it seems that there’s a more complex story behind her than simply being a traitor. When Revive sent his mind crush through the Ptolemy, her reaction wasn’t like someone who had successfully deceived everyone and felt that she accomplished her mission. It felt more like “crap, they found out!”, suggesting that she betrayed the Innovators instead. In the meantime, Nena demonstrates once again that something’s seriously wrong with her, as she plans to kill off Wan Liu Ming because she can’t touch Ali Al Sarshes.

And I must say that it was quite a strange way for the creators to make Saji and Louise find out about each other. Just let the whole transcendental plane that everyone was in become a central part of the story, and not as a cheap Deus ex Machina to bring these two people together. It’s good that Saji finally gained his sense of duty, and let’s hope that he’s not going back into emo-mode in the next episode.

Well, it’s not fun to be harsh against a series that I originally fell in love with, but I have to be honest: The Paris Chapters of Nodame Cantabile are not as good as the original Nodame Cantabile series. It’s still a fun and engaging series, but in the end it didn’t live up to the expectations that were created by the stellar first season.

The cause of this is definitely not due to the main characters: Nodame and Chiaki are still wonderful characters, and the best jokes about them are still downright hilarious, in the same fashion as the first season. In the Paris Chapter, we can explore both of them as they try to break through in the professional classical music business. It’s a tale about young adults, just like you’d expect from Noitamina and it works wonderful.

But in the end, it feels like something is missing. To start with, the side-characters just aren’t as interesting as the side-cast of the first season. It may be because the second season was only handed half of the airtime when compared to the first one, but even then they feel really bland and one-sided when compared to the colourful side-characters of the first season. These people managed to make an impact from the first moment they appeared on screen, which is what I missed here a bit.

And then there’s also the matter that the second season just covers a bit more boring part of the life of the main characters. It’s all pretty straightforward here: you know these guys are going to break through, when compared to the first season where they had much more and bigger problems to deal with.

The animation quality also seems to have decreased: the motion-capture is even more apparent, and the regular animation feels that it was blessed with a smaller budget. Still, don’t get me wrong: this series still is very good. A rating of 82,5/100 for me is still a really enjoyable series, and it’s still really fun to watch. It just doesn’t live up to season one, which was just too good for this series. Sure, the Paris Chapters serve as a good build-up, but as a standalone series you do not want to expect the same quality as the first season.