Short Synopsis: A girl whose identical twin sister is a famous idol calls Jigoku Tsuushin
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Oh boy, this series sure has rocked for the past number of episodes. This episode probably was the last of the regular revenges, and the finale should start next week, and it was yet another great episode that yet again shatters the borders between good and evil.

First it’s established that the girl has a very cocky older sister who she envies a lot (including her boyfriend). The girl then gets to take revenge when her sister gets into an accident and she gets to take over her role. While she’s normally shy and held back, she falls in love with standing in the spotlight and soon starts taking over her sister’s life that she worked hard for to attain. Even when the sister gets better, she isn’t backing down. In the end the sister is the one who calls Jigoku Tsuushin in order to have the pesky sister that tried to take over her life moved to hell. What was especially great about this episode is that at one point, you could hardly tell which one was which, and only if you paid a lot of attention you could see which one was being sent to hell.

Okay, so four episodes left, and the creators have done a very good job at keeping the contents of the finale of this series a total mystery. Seriously, I have no bloody idea what the creators are going to fill those final episodes with, apart from one episode’s attention to Yuzuki’s mother, and that pesky spider is probably yet again going to wait until episode 26 before it shows up.

Short Synopsis: Touya gets reassigned as Rina’s manager.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (ZOMG Second Season!)
Aah, this is just too much for me to understand. The most important plot twist of the episode was written down on paper, and I have no bloody idea what it meant. Although Hiragana and Katakana are fairly simple, my Kanji has always sucked because I’ve always been too lazy to really sit down and get these things in my mind…

It went like this: Yuki finally organized her thoughts and wrote a letter to Touya. Of all people, she entrusts Yayoi to deliver it. Yayoi destroys the letter and attempts to substitute her own, while Rina finds the shredded letter and reads it, and to her fears realizes that she’s been too late. My guess was that either in the letter, Yuki wanted to break up with Touya, or she wanted to trust him and give him a final chance. Rina had either been trying very hard to get Yuki and Touya back together, or she assumed that Yuki and Touya indeed had no chance together, and so she took him for herself. Aah, I really need to watch this episode with subs.

In any case, that second season was just what this series needed: now there’s really enough time to really develop the characters and really get to know them. And perhaps for Touya to realize what an incredible idiot he’s been. Thirteen episodes was too small for this series indeed.

But overall though, I hope that the second season is going to inherit the good points and not the lesser points of this series. In the end, this series is at its worst at the times when the very emotional plot twists pop up, like when Haruka broke down in front of Touya’s apartment, Touya professed his love for Misaki and this episode had it too: with Touya’s father suddenly collapsing from out of nowhere. It really doesn’t need those dramatic plot twists, this series already is screwed up enough as it is, but what makes it so much fun to watch is the scenes where people are just sitting or talking. These producers really have a knack in bringing out the characters’ subtle emotions out: they don’t have to say anything about their feelings, their facial expressions speak for themselves, and this series has been really good at throwing these feelings all over the place.

Short Synopsis: A-Laws gathers up all of its forces for an all-out attack on the CBs.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
I keep expecting this series to become a trainwreck… and it doesn’t. Seriously, there was so much potential for these final episodes to delve into a scream-fest, but aside from some slight annoyances (Louise mostly) the finale of this series hasn’t become a total disaster at all. This episode too was again a very good one, strangely enough.

Finally the character-development comes together a bit, and instead of the scream-fest in the veins of Zeta Gundam that I was expecting, the finale seems to be heading much more in the style of Gundam Wing. While there is no huge battleship to crash into the earth (unless Veda decides to plummet into the earth somehow), it basically was a string of very solid all-out battles together with character-development that instead of spiralling out of control made the cast come more together. Exactly what was happening in this episode.

The ending of this episode was also really interesting, with Regetta killing Ribbons, but then again: this remains Sunrise. Ribbons really sounds like a guy who wouldn’t die even if you killed him, and although the idea of Regetta being the new main villain, I first want to see Ribbons really dead in the next episode.

In any case, this series still can go anywhere. It can still be the series to restore the faith in the Gundam Franchise after the likes of Gundam Seed Destiny, or it can just become one total disaster. And I really hope that it’s going to be the former.