Short Synopsis: Akiyuki’s father meets Kakisu at the Sentan Island war memorial and MAJOR SPOILER ALERT.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Those who’ve been following more of my entries for the past weeks must have noticed the lots of 8/10s for the episode ratings, but that’s exactly what nearly all of the shows I’m currently blogging are: consistently excellent with hardly any weak moments. The same goes for this episode: despite the slow pacing it was yet another really moving instalment.

With as highlight of course the death of Kakisu. It was a very subtle death, exactly what you’d expect from this series, and it was also wonderfully animated. When Akiyuki’s father shot, I was really surprised that the screen didn’t black out, followed by the sound of a gunshot. I only realize it now, but such a trick is very often used in anime as a cheap trick to avoid having to draw a bit of gore. On top of that, the amount of blood that was gushed in the process felt about right: there were no galleons of blood spilled, as many shounen-series tend to do in these sorts of situations. All of that gave something very creepy to his dead body.

Fusa was also as good as ever with her monologues. Akiyuki and Haru meanwhile find out that the gathering of the Xam’d comes along with a mass suicide and as expected: the white haired guy has a much different perception of human life than Akiyuki and Haru, who went through the horrors of the assault on Sentan Island.

The rest of the episode focused on building up for the series’ finale, which most likely is going to focus on the all-out war between the north and the south, and possible other fractions. Midori is being moved to the battlefield as we speak, while Raigyo and Benikawa are also busy helping their allies. Tessik village also has its own super weapon, so it’s definitely promising to be an interesting finale, especially since Akiyuki, Haru and Nakiami, who are supposed to be the main characters of the series, don’t play a major part in it, apart from Haru’s connection to Midori. I really wonder what the creators had in mind for them for the final episodes of this series, because at this point I have no idea.

Short Synopsis: Makina again gets the chance to meet the ones who killed her.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7.5/10 (Good)
Whoa, there surely have been some changes between the first and second season. Some were expected, others not, and both seasons now have their own advantages and disadvantages. Thankfully this episode was much better than the first episode of the second season, so all hope is thankfully not lost. Anyway, here’s a list of changes between these two seasons:

Season 1 < Season 2
- Characters are fleshed out and some of them are developed by now: they’re easier to connect to and more enjoyable to watch.
- AWESOME lighting effects: the second season looks even better than the first one due to the increase of lots of CG for lighting.
- The monster of the week-theme seems to be gone now (not sure about that one, though).
- Faster pacing. Potential for even better fight scenes.

Season 2 < Season 1
- The second season now really is a shounen series: group of good guys fights group of supernatural bad guys with large powers.
- Too much angst about Keisei’s death.
- The sense of humour is much worse. In the first season, the humour was there before you knew it, and then gone again, while it feels much more unbalanced in the second season.
- As a sacrifice for the lighting effects, the animation quality went down.
- What the heck is up with that Idol Shikabane? Very weird and out of place fanservice.

I really am not sure whether the second season is going to turn out well or not. It all depends on how well the creators manage to do the rest of the battles of the series. What it absolutely MUST NOT do is end every single battle like they did in this episode: with Makina struggling without any will to fight, only to awaken to her desire to avenge Keisei and release hidden powers. Things like these are good once or twice (like what this series did with this episode), but a very nasty habit of shounen-series is to overplay this cliché way too much. It’s been ages since I watched a really good shounen-series like this one, and I really hope that the creators can pull this one off.

One big advantage that this series has is that the antagonists are by now means too powerful. They retreat too when cornered, the only advantage they have is that they work together as a team. Compare that to many other shounen-series, where we have a near-impossible to beat enemy, and so the creators have to mess with power-level inconsistencies as large as a black hole in order to make the main characters win in the end. What I’m really hoping for in this series is an all-out war between everyone in the finale.

But yeah, the two major factors that are going to decide whether the second season is going to be worthwhile are: 1) the amount of Keisei-angst from Makina and Ouri, and 2) the laziness of the creators during the fights. The fanservice is definitely annoying, but it’s not going to make or break this series.

Short Synopsis: Hatchin gets used to life within the circus, when she meets a certain Michiko
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Seriously, Hatchin is an awesome character. At this point, I don’t care what kind of direction this series is going to go into: when she’s around, it’s going to be lots of fun either way. Another thing I like so much about this series is that it rapidly switches from hilarious comedy to powerful drama, and especially this episode was good at that. The news reporter in this episode was hilarious, even though he was trying to deal with such a serious topic as child exploitation.

It seems that Michiko didn’t have to search long for Hatchin. I’m not sure what part I missed where she found out about the circus, but I expected a lot more time to be spent on it. I’m still surprised at how long it took for the two of them to make up: normally things like these are resolved in one episode, in extreme cases two. The way they made up was also delightfully far from cheese, and it felt really true to their characters.

In the end, Michiko’s pride and Hatchin’s responsibility just remain adorable. I loved it when Michiko found out that Hatchin preferred her to the fat lady Michiko, and Hatchin, even though she despises Michiko, did rescue her in the end. There are a lot of things in this series left unsaid by the two of them, but that’s also what makes them such great characters to watch.