Short Synopsis: The second half of Birdy’s past
Episode Rating: 9/10 (FUCKING EPIC!!!!!!)
Oh my god. This episode was utterly incredible, the best of an already superb and magnificent series. I still can’t believe how amazing and outstanding this show has turned out. I knew it had a splendid director already, but that’s not always the reason to get your hopes up since in 50% of the cases, they just don’t live up to his previous works. Well, I’m glad to say that THIS ONE CERTAINLY HAS! If it continues to get better and better like it is now and the ending doesn’t mess up the story, it could actually make my top 10. The second season is simply brilliant, rich, grandiose, glorious… and I’m going stop now before I run out of adjectives.

Those flashbacks that we kept seeing were incredibly sneaky. Birdy has had deal with a pretty cruel event in her past, and yet we were given no hint to that until this episode. All the scenes that we saw were either from right before or right after Violin got killed. And holy balls, I thought that the terrorists simply detonated a bunch of bombs in central tower, but they slaughtered the entire place completely. Now I also understand why Nataru is so hung up on his past, because what happened there was downright terrible: Ryunka was abducted and protected by the ones that we saw Nataru kill off in the past few episodes. That’s why he hates them so much, because they pretty much ruined the life he could have had with Birdy.

Violin’s death was especially sad since Birdy grew up seeing her not as an android, but simply as her mother. When she got destroyed, this image of her broke completely and Birdy wasn’t even allowed to say a proper goodbye to her, since in her mind, Violin turned into someone completely different from who she grew up with.

And oh my god, the animation! The godly animation! This episode looked downright awesome, especially when the incredibly messy visuals appeared. It looks like Kazuki Akane plans to go further with his specific style than he did in Noein, which is promising SO MUCH goodness for the final episodes of this series. While at first it indeed seemed to be going into the direction of Kemonozume, but the end of this episode truly looked unique, and even went where Kemonozume didn’t go.

The question now remains: who the heck was the person who carried Birdy away later? The only one who he reminds me of is the grown up Natoru, but this show doesn’t seem to be about time travelling, unlike Noein.

Short Synopsis: A scientist calls Jigoku Tsuushin
Episode Rating: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
This was definitely the best episode of the third season yet in terms of solid storytelling. Now this is EXACTLY why I’ve become such a big fan of the franchise: it’s nearly always entertaining to see the different revenges, but the real goodness pops up once the story starts touching the main storyline, which is purposefully saved until near the end.

In the third season, where most of the revenges simply looked like each other, this episode stands out as a really unique one, in which it attempts to combine technology with the supernatural. Faking a grudge with the help of a machine. Most of the time, magic is something… magical that no technology can touch, and here we have a very practical example of how technology can manipulate the human body, and so affect the magic in this series. And of course, any episode in which Ai appears for more than three minutes is nothing short of awesome.

And yeah, it’s AWESOME to see Tsugumi back again. To think that it’s been twenty years since the first season. Now all that’s left is for Hajime to make his reappearance with more than that very short cameo in the second season, and I’ll be really happy. It’s also interesting how Tsugumi doesn’t address him with “father”, “dad” or any other Japanese equivalent, but instead addresses him with “Hajime-chan”. That just signifies how extraordinary the relationship between the two has become (well, okay I know nothing about how this goes in the Japanese society, but at least it’s pretty rare for anime; I can only recall one other series which did the same: Arusu in Mahou Shoujotai, which immediately makes it something awesome).

Short Synopsis: Yuki and Touya finally get to see each other again.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Whoa, so many things happened in this episode, and yet it felt like a really quiet and slow-paced one. At this point, it’s pretty certain that this is one of these series that’s continuously building up for one big finale, and it’s also pretty sure that Touya and Yuki are going to break up with each other. The question is just going to be: how? And how are the two of them going to end up afterwards?

So this whole time, Touya has been trying to live his own life, I think also trying to find something to be busy with in order to forget how often he’s apart from Yuki. Most people indeed wouldn’t put that much time into the wishes of someone else like he’s doing with Misaki, but I think that he unintentionally tries to seek distraction, and with that he’s also getting more and more distanced from Yuki. I’m starting to get the points that this series is trying to make like this.

I also loved the very subtle sense of humour in this episode. The jokes around Haruka were fun, but not meant to be laughed at. Still, it was pretty cute when Touya discovered how she broke into his apartment that evening. We do need to see a bit more about Haruka, though. Something’s clearly bugging her: she’s jealous of Yuki, and probably looked up to her, since she apparently spent a lot of time with Touya since her childhood and was never really able to let this go, but I just know that the creators are still hiding something from her. That breakdown of hers isn’t just explained through simple loneliness.

My only problem is that this series the umpth one that is overplaying the “dead parents” trope a bit too much. I know that it’s a good way to evoke sympathy and all, but when it’s becoming an exception for a character’s parents to be both not missing or dead, then you know something’s going in the wrong direction.

And what the heck was up with Yayoi at the end of this episode? This really is the first episode where Touya definitely cheated on Yuki, but why Yayoi of all people?

Short Synopsis: Lyle tries to talk some sense into Anew
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
I have a HUGE hate/love feeling about this episode. Some parts were really well done, excellent and points where things came together really nicely, while other parts were downright abysmal. Huge bad signs for the finale of this series. At this point, this series still has the potential for an excellent finale if it does everything right, but the potential for a trainwreck is just SO BIG. Agh!

But first the good part: Lyle vs. Anew. A bit cheesy perhaps, but Lyle’s attempts to get Anew back were surprisingly genuine. Anew’s death was very sympathetic, and I especially loved how Setsuna didn’t hesitate to kill his former friend. I’m surprised as well, but Setsuna has turned into a really nice main character: none of the problems I have with this show have to do with him.

But yeah, there was lots of bad stuff in this episode as well. the creators really did the seemingly impossible in this episode: they made the Saji vs Louise plot-line even MORE annoying: they introduced brainwashing! It’s like saying: we need drama! Let’s brainwash a bunch of people into doing bad stuff so that they won’t listen to people reasoning with them! The brainwashing effectively eliminates any form of free will, and turns the characters involved in brainless fighting machines. How the heck are they going to get good drama with that?!

And yeah, this episode pretty much hinted that the creators are going for an “everyone dies” ending. There are so many couples whose finale can resemble that of Anew so much that it’s going to surprise me a lot if half of the cast still alive in this episode doesn’t end up getting killed in some way. Anew’s death worked well, but if the creators are just going to repeat the same thing over and over again, the fun quickly dies. No pun intended, by the way.