Short Synopsis: We learn what happened to Atsuko after episode 10.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Good to finally see a bit of quality airtime devoted to Atsuko. Most of her airtime so far has simply been a few minutes here and there, but this time she has an entire episode for herself, and she uses it quite well. It’s a shame that there wasn’t even a second of Hatchin, but nevertheless I really enjoyed this episode.

What I especially loved is how much Atsuko hates her new job. She never actually mentions it, but her expression says a thousand words. The once proud police woman who climbed her way up from a mere street-punk is now cleaning cans at a local Aztec ruin and chasing runaway pet monkeys. This episode was mostly about her getting her motivation back, and that’s mostly done by her, meeting a child who strangely resembles a younger Michiko. (And her, finding a newspaper article about Hiroshi’s newest movie, of course).

I do hope that Satoshi is also going to get an episode like this one. Like most people in this series, he’s been a very interesting character, but only appeared in one episode for as far as my memory doesn’t deceive me. Imagine the potential when he gets even more time devoted to fleshing out his character. But then again, that’s probably going to come along with Hiroshi’s development, who also is about to get into the spotlights. What is the guy doing on the silver screen, and if he’s that rich, then why did he abandon his daughter to some random evil pastor family?

Short Synopsis: Sougi and Itsuki tell about their background.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Now this is more like it! This is exactly the reason why I came to like the first season so much, and I’m glad to see that the second season is going to be more than a weak sequel of the first. Sure, this episode was much about a side-plot of this series, but a bit of background never hurts, and this episode definitely shows that the creators haven’t lost their touch, after the rather disastrous fanservice-problem of the previous three episodes.

This episode was all about Sougi and Itsuki, who in their early days looked suspiciously like your average shounen-lead-pair: a dorky male lead gets contacted by a female with power, in this case because Itsuki hit a truck and happened to form a contract with Sougi before she turned into a berserking Shikabane, complete with the introduction-scene at school (again…).

But thankfully there was much more to that episode than just that. While Itsuki wasn’t as tormented as Makina by revenge, the two of them had their own problem. Itsuki was practically a corpse, and yet Sougi saw her as a regular girl, without any special powers. This caused him the huge scars that he has on his body, simply because he wanted to protect Itsuki from getting hurt, even though she could simply regenerate her wounds, while he couldn’t.

So, yes. The fanservice was definitely a problem, but this series does know what it is: entertainment. As much as I’ve ranted on these past three episodes, they never failed to entertain me, and especially this episode was full of adrenaline, even though there were plenty of quiet parts. If the creators can keep the same mood for the rest of the series, with Makina’s storyline and all, then I’ll call this second season a success.

The next episode should be either fun or a complete disaster: Makina is being transported by a group of monks, without Ouri, and suddenly one of the seven stars attacks, impersonating Keisei. Let’s see where that one goes.

Short Synopsis: This episode is all about Midori
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
This episode was quite an interesting take on the “calm before the storm”-trope. The big climax of this series has definitely still to happen: the Zanbani and Kujireika have yet to even arrive at the village of the Quickening Chamber, and yet this episode formed an excellent conclusion for the Midori-storyline. We’ve already seen that Xam’ds can be pulled out of despair with the right catalysts, so of course the same would happen with Midori. The past few episodes have been a bit too generous on the death count, so it’s good to see that people actually survive, despite the predictability.

It really seemed that Midori never really got to say a proper goodbye with her mother, and it also seems that the communication between the two wasn’t going well. Because of that, Midori always felt a big gap between the two of them, since she didn’t know what to say at the right time and her mother was an impatient person.

I´m really curious as to whether this series can pull off a worthy finale. It might seem obvious that series that are slow and focus a lot on build-up will automatically feature excellent climaxes, but as series as Ghost Hound showed, this isn’t always trivial. It’s all going to depend on how the creators are going to interpret the fight between Akiyuki and the Hiruken Emperor, and whether they can throw in some juicy plot twist that fit within the series and make the ending rushed.

In any case, the animation in this episode was so awesome. I’m not sure where Bones got the budget for this series, but it’s one heck of a budget well spent.