This episode was a typical building-up episode, but it definitely added some extra intrigue to this series. Most of the episode was about Saki’s first interview, but we also get to see two more of the Selecao: Number One and a strange woman whose number we don’t get to see and who seems to be a bit too full of herself. That Number one really baffles me, though. There are lots of hints pointing at how he’s the supporter, he seems to have a lot of connections to the Selecao, and yet he didn’t just kill off pre-mindwipe Akira like he did with the other two.

Speaking of which, if you take a look at the OP, at one point you see connections being made between certain numbers of the Selecao: One is linked to all of them, while Nine (Akira) is linked to Four (Kondou), One is linked to Two and Ten once more, and Three is linked to Twelve. There are three numbers that disappear: Four, Five (as shown in the previous episodes) and Ten, who I guess would be that woman of this episode. What’s also interesting is that apart from them, it is suggested that nobody dies… or that might be saved for the movie.

In any case, it also gets revealed that Akira didn’t kill off the NEETs at all: he just dropped them in the middle of Dubai and had Juiz made it look like he killed them so that others wouldn’t start searching for them, allowing the NEETs to finally have to do something for themselves. And that was his way of trying to make the world better.

Saki was also great in this episode, with her first job interview and all. Her depressed look after seeing the interview failed felt really genuine to me.

Rating: * (Good)
Just building up, but still a very nice episode.

Okay, so this episode explains what the heck happened in those first three episodes, although most of it consisted of things that we already were able to guess: ten years indeed have passed, and Raven indeed is Gilbert. The reason why Gilbert betrayed Oz turned out to be simple brainwashing: in this episode we meet the one who did it, inside Oz’s house that has aged ten years and all. That still leaves the question of why Sharon didn’t age one bit, though.

My problem with this episode was that it may have been a bit too cheesy in the end. Brainwashing is very hard to do well, simply because it’s so easy for the characters to break the spell of brainwashing through the power of love, and for a moment it really looked like this was going to be the case when Oz yet again had to face a brainwashed Gilbert.

I didn’t expect him to pull the trigger, though. Obviously something is going to happen that’s going to prevent Oz from dying instantly, but I’m intrigued as to what exactly it is. We’ve now seen that this is a show where people don’t necessarily die when they’re killed, but the matter is going to be whether they can explain it well. For example the latest subbed episodes of Gintama have had Gintoki penetrated by swords, bullets and god knows what, only for all of these wounds to completely disappear a day later. That’s obviously not how to do this. But in Pandora Hearts, if there indeed is some sort of link between the Abyss and dying, I’ll buy it.

Either that or the gun just missed; that’s also of course a possibility. But then again, this show doesn’t strike me as the type to use those kinds of anti-climaxes.

Rating: (Enjoyable)
Really evil antagonist, good to see a bit more of the past of Oz and Gilbert, though a bit too cheesy in the end.

So at last we’ve gotten to the main part of the story: getting Dan to the moon so that he can find a way to fix Coco’s legs through some version of major league basketball (or Basquash). This episode shows the auditions, which include of course Dan, Sera and Iceman, but also one of Iceman’s old rivals, a tall black long-haired guy (apparently called Man-Z) and… our little princess (coached by Coco). Never knew that she had that much inner basketball talents.

But yeah, the reason why I like Basquash so far is that there’s always so many different stuff going on. The show doesn’t have a particularly big cast when compared to others, but it does feel like everyone is doing something. There are countless subplots going on in every episode, ranging from trivial to important. It’s great to see a character in which everyone is chasing after their own agenda and what they themselves feel important, rather than everyone walking after the lead character like a tame little lamb. Sure, Dan’s passion for basketball is the thing that keeps this series together, but everyone seems to react in a different way to this.

And that’s the thing with this show: behind the boobs, strange use of basketball and… businessmen who give pet names to boobs and blow soap bubbles, there’s quite a bit of substance behind it that you wouldn’t suspect on first sight. This series never forgets that it’s supposed to be a fun show (at least, up to this point), and yet there’s an air of seriousness that never feels out of place.

It’s also good to finally see some of the faces behind those pesky cops who keep ruining everything as soon as they come walking in with their own mechas (walking police cars… you just have to think of it). I also like how this show manages to portray the street culture here. Man-Z for example: he never got himself a proper introduction, but he was just one of the other guys who passed the audition and simply started chatting with Sera and the other winners. Very natural.

Rating: * (Good)
Introduces a bunch of new characters, a new arc and quite a bit of potential while still remaining fun. But why he bubbles?

Six episodes in, and Phantom still is one of my favourites of the current series. Even for a Bee-Train series, this show is magnificent. The characterization is so subtle, and yet it works so well. It’s something Koichi Masahino has always been good at, but with because his source-material this time was already very good, this promises to be among his better work.

And I must say, that despite the increasing fanservice, Ein’s character-designs are what I consider the best of the season. I’m probably one of the few who believes “simplicity = better”, but Ein really looks gorgeous, even though her character-designs are kept simple on purpose (and with this I don’t mean simplicity in the way of Cross Game, but rather not going through huge lengths to make characters look unique. Something that a lot of harem shows need to understand).

This episode was much more about the assassin-part of this series. While the mafia-boss of the previous episode may have lost his wife and son, he still has a couple of powerful allies, and they get taken care of in this episode. Mostly by Phantom, but I also liked how Inferno has a strong support cast to back them up and help them. You can really see that everything was planned carefully ahead to bring the risk to a minimum.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Very strong episode as usual with the lead characters getting only better and better

Okay, so most of you probably know that I don’t write a lot of editorials because I suck at them, but I still want to say a few words about this subject. After Howling-Kun mentioned the DVD-sales of certain shows in the shoutbox, I started looking at some of the other data in this topic. Now, this is not going to be a rant on how most of my favourite shows aren’t getting any DVD-sales. Everyone’s of course entitled to what he wants to buy (although it does get harder and harder to associate myself with this fandom when shows like Training with Hinako top the charts…).

Instead, those rankings reminded me of all the fuzz that’s going on, and how many people seem to be claiming that “anime is dying”. With this many times that the same doom-scenarios popped up, I almost started believing this myself, until I saw the actual facts in the following graph of DVD-sales in the topic mentioned above.

Well, I may not be an economist or anything near it, but here is my interpretation of the graph. First of all, I don’t get any of those arguments about how anime is supposed to be dying. Sure, sales have gone down compared to 2005, but that’s just a very selective analysis: compare it to ten years ago, and you can see a huge increase in sales. The decline in sales of the past years is about the equivalent of a kick in the groin: sure, you’re going to be walking funny for the next couple of hours, but “dying” is a big overstatement.

The thing is, that the year with the biggest sales was 2005. Interestingly enough, the response in 2006 to this was a huge increase in the amount of different anime titles that was released, as everyone seemed to be profiting from this boom in the sales of the industry. Unfortunately though: just like in the stock market, when sales suddenly go up, this isn’t going to continue forever. Right now, the anime industry is trying to find a new balance amidst the significantly increased interest in anime for the past ten years, and until it has found this the market is going to wobble around like a drunk student on his way home.

And as for the relatively low sales figures of 2008: did you seriously expect anything different with the current economic crisis? The recession has also hit Japan very hard, so it’s of course to be expected that last year’s sales would decrease. What I actually haven’t seen yet is people who are looking at the future. Sure, reports like this are nice and all, but they seem to assume that this recession is going to take forever.

With a bit of luck, the economic crisis is going to be mostly over in 2011 which is going to allow the industries to recover. So what’s going to happen with anime when that point arrives? When that point arrives, people are going to have more and more money to spend on anime, so there actually is a chance for a very solid recovery in the not-so-distant future. Who knows?

And really, as long as producers are able to churn out well-produced series of which they know are never going to sell well, I’m not buying those “anime is dying”-arguments anymore. As long as there are Genji Monogataris, Himitsus, Porfys and Kaibas, it shows that the animation companies aren’t at the real edge of destruction.