Short Synopsis: Genji’s second child is about to be born.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
I think that one of the hardest parts in trying to understand this series is keeping track of all the different characters, combined with how all the characters like to talk in old Japanese, though this surprisingly isn’t the most difficult series to understand in the end (out of the currently airing series, that honor goes to Munto). while watching, there were a lot of question marks that popped up, and scenes, I couldn’t quite grasp, but at the end of the episode everything came together wonderfully and suddenly made sense.

So in this episode, Genji’s wife gets pregnant, and it takes place during the nine months of her pregnancy. This rumour reaches the ghost woman, who becomes even more struck with grief, and so she attempts to kill Genji’s wife as well. After the second attempt (after the baby is already born), she succeeds. With four episodes left, I believe that the creators are saving her as the main villain of the series, but the little girl still has yet to be important, even though she’s supposed to have a huge role in Genji’s life.

And I also loved how this episode had more visual effects than ever, and as usual, they looked GREAT. Especially during the climaxes, the creators were throwing these effects and filters everywhere.

And here’s something interesting: Genji has currently gotten two women pregnant, and has been flirting with quite a few more. Now compare this to Touya from White Album, who also is surrounded by a lot of females, though less extreme. I’m still surprised at how much hate Touya gets for being unrealistic and a bastard to women, and how Genji doesn’t get any hate at all, while his actions have been much worse. Sure, it’s probably due to the lack of subs for this series, but it’s interesting to see that some series are easier to hate than others.

Short Synopsis: Keiichi and the others go to the pool
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (There are going to be five episodes of this!?)
Uh… yeah. Here I was expecting Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei to deliver some more background information about the series, flesh some more characters out and all… yeah.

In the end, this turns out to be more Arusu The Adventure: random stories involving the lead characters. This one had everyone and his dog chase after Keiichi’s swimming trunks because it was supposedly cursed. In the end, the only clue that we have that it was indeed cursed was the word of the one who sold it to him.

In any case, the episode was as hilarious as it was disturbing (try to imagine Tomitake and Oshii in the pool….), and the thing turned into a huge self-parody. Interestingly, the original director didn’t return to the director seat, but instead the one who did the series composition created this… thing. And to think that there are four more episodes left!

On a completely different note, though: that OP rocked. It doesn’t quite beat the original OP of the first season, but I’m glad to see that it’s still experimenting with different exotic instruments and sounds. It works really well in this case.

I remember when Zegapain first started, I was really turned off by its first episode, so I dropped it without giving it much of a second chance. In the end, though, this series turned out to be pretty capable. While it starts out like any other series does, with a typical teenager who just lives a normal life and gets to meet a cute girl and pilot a big mecha (like an expert as well), it gradually evolves into a fascinating post-apocalyptic series, successfully degrading human beings in a bunch of computer bits.

This definitely is one of those series that doesn’t play all of its trumps right in the first turn. The whole mecha-fighting indeed does feel like a mere game to the lead character in the beginning, but gradually more and more about the setting of this series gets revealed. It’s basically the Matrix meets anime, though with differences I’m not going to spoil here.

The cast is likable, no character really feels wasted in the end, and overall it’s a pretty solid series, although it doesn’t hit any heights. My only gripe with the series is that the final bad guy hardly has any attention or development at all, and feels a bit shallow because of it. The action-scenes are also very prevalent throughout the series, but they hardly ever form any highlight. This is going to be a short review, because there’s not a lot that you can say about this series. Basically, there are some very nice ideas put into this series, and that’s the biggest reason why you should watch this.