Ah, screw what the popular opinion on this series is. This show rocks.

With this episode, I was reminded what makes Gonzo’s best series so good and unique. It’s indeed true that they like to take risks, but what I’ve found in their top series is that they’re really good at variety: every episode or two episodes, the mood, themes and nature of the show completely shift while still forming a whole in the end.

With this episode, I realized that Shangri-La is the same: four episodes ago, we were in Akihabara with lots of otaku references, then we went on to hacking, techno-babble and the world carbon trade, and now in this episode the focus becomes the youth prison that Kuniko was locked into. It’s really this sense of unpredictability that’s really made me like Good Gonzo.

One of the big question-marks in that first episode was why Kuniko ended up in prison in the first place. This episode actually finds a pretty plausible reason to return Kuniko there (because people are starting to realize that she’s special, and what better place to test this out than in prison, where they have full control over her and she can still show what she can do). This episode really established Kuniko as special; not just because she has some mysterious powers that can influence carbon trade, but also because of her personality. This episode really established that she is a born leader: where most people would be scared in the situations she’s thrown in, she instead looks at opportunities, and bringing people together. While her character at first seems a bit cheesy, it’s starting to come together now.

I believe that the whole point of her character would be the strong leader that breaks through Atlas, and for that you really need careful build-up, otherwise you’re just going to end up with a hopeless flower-child. As long as she’s going to be well developed, this shouldn’t form any problem though, and the past few episodes have done a pretty nice job at fleshing out her character, and showing her in different situations.

I also liked the portrayal of prisons in Shangri-la, it showed that the creators really thought about it: with Atlas sending everyone and his dog to prison, there are of course a lot of girls who normally shouldn’t be there and only committed small crimes among the ones who really are causing problems. That’s probably why Kuniko became so popular during her first visit there: she could relate to most of them and therefore easily became friends. This time, a bunch of new girls was introduced to the prison who were rather dominant and violent, and when you promise them a place in Atlas then yeah, they’re going to do their best to make Kuniko’s life miserable.

Oh, and on a side-note: I’m really not sure what the heck the animators were smoking in those first few episodes. Yet again, the animation in this episode looked really good, and nothing like the inconsistent mess of episodes 2-4.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
I usually dislike geniuses because they’re often badly portrayed and used as cheap plot devices. Somehow, Kuniko avoids this completely.

Now this was supposed to be the episode to make or break this series; with this episode, we would know whether or not this series is able to animate large-scale fights that put armies against each other, and which will probably become the biggest focus of this series. We’ve already seen how Valkyria Chronicles screwed up when it didn’t seem to know whether its enemies were tactical geniuses or incredibly stupid, but I must say that Guin Saga gracefully avoided this flaw. This was such a great episode, and I’m even more hungry to see the next episode.

So as it turns out, Guin’s plans consisted partly out of psychological warfare, and partly out of using the local monsters near Nosferas. They attacked in small groups in order to draw out the Mongol Army, Guin also showed himself a few times, and when they became angry, they unleashed carefully timed giant blob monsters on them.

The thing is that this plan mostly worked so easily because of Amnelis’ incompetence. The way she’s dressed and the way she acts suggest that she’s never really lost a battle, or came close to it. The Mongol army really seems like an army that uses pure numbers in order to overcome its foes, and that means that they’ve never really had to use smart tactics in order to win: they’d just overwhelm their enemies and get things over with. My favourite scene this episode came when Guin actually nearly killed Amnelis when she moved too close to the front lines.

This episode was basically one very big wake-up call for Amnelis. Her numbers meant that she was overconfident, and with such a huge chunk eaten out of her army, this now means that she has to get serious and start using her head and listen to the advice of her companions, who are much more experienced than she is. Guin may have his giant slime blob, but now it’s also known that fire will repel it.

With Valkyria Chronicles, the characters in charge just felt too much like stereotypes: there was nothing that really set them apart. Amnelis, incompetent as she may be, is slightly different. We can really see what’s going on inside her head and where her weaknesses lie. She’s a flawed character, there’s no mistake about that, but she doesn’t have the personality of a paper bag.

Usually in anime when battles between huge armies are portrayed, they fail to impress because the creators are trying to rush through them too much and fail to keep track of this army. I often have no idea how large these armies are: all we see is just a bunch of people fighting here and there. And here this series comes, and simply by saying how many soldiers are involved, I feel much more able to imagine the sheer amount of soldiers that play a part of this.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
This episode had one of the best battles on a really large scale I’ve seen in a long while.

Okay, so I had my doubts, but now I’m for sure: Anne is AWESOME. Even in an episode in which nothing major happens, she never fails to charm, and that really is the strength of the WMT-series: at times it really can be about nothing, and yet the characters rock beyond belief. Anne was downright adorable in this episode, simply because her talking really never seemed to stop!

With episodes like this, I’m not crazy enough to summarize every single thing that Anne rambles on and on about, I’m just going to discuss the important points of the episode. The episode starts as Anne is holding Noah and talking to Katie Morris (a cupboard). She tells that Katie once was a friend of Elisa who she told everything to, and so Anne is also going to tell everything she experiences to that the cupboard in the same fashion.

In the meantime we return to the house of the old lady that we saw in the first or second episode. Her name is Minton (or however it’s spelled), and we see two of her relatives paying a visit to her house. Not knowing that she’s there, they start talking about how she’s known to be very grumpy and greedy, when in fact she fell on the floor because her back went out. the house is also a mess because she hasn’t been able to clean up because of this, even though she refuses to take on help.

Next up we switch to a local shop in which her relatives are worrying about her in front of the shop owner, about how she really needs someone to help her out, but the shop owner says that it’s practically impossible since she’s known to be greedy and probably the most disliked person in the entire town. Anne then hears this and offers to take up the task to work for her. The relatives don’t really believe in her, but take her along anyway.

When they arrive at the house, Anne quickly forces herself in the house and starts cleaning and annoying Minton a the same time). At the same time there’s also a cat that runs wild, and Minton quickly sends her away when she gets distracted by some pretty drawings on a plate. It’s pretty hilarious to see that Anne doesn’t have any shame, and still thinks that Minton is just a friend of the “real” Minton, like how she introduced herself in the first episode, and so she calls Minton all sorts of things that her relatives have been calling her.

Anne of course doesn’t leave that easily and doesn’t understand at all that Minton doesn’t want her. She just keeps rambling on and on. Minton eventually gets to sleep, but that evening Anne comes and says that she has to leave. Later Minton finds out that Anne spent the afternoon cleaning up. The next morning, Anne is up early and Minton finds her talking to another cupboard: Alisa Morris, Katie’s twin.

When Minton starts eating her breakfast, she’s finding it hard to eat because Anne keeps looking at her. When she offers her a bit of bread, Anne refuses it since she can’t take away other people’s breakfasts. In the end, Minton gives in because of this, and promises to give Anne her breakfast when she finishes cleaning in order to make her accept this breakfast. But she also says that she’s never allowed inside one of the rooms in her house.

A week later, the shop owner talks to Bert about how he’s surprised that he’s still working. He then tells Bert that Minton used to have a daughter, but she changed after this daughter died. At the same time, Anne screws up by letting the cat inside the secret room, and ends up entering it. This room indeed turns out to be the room of Minton’s late daughter, and when Minton finds out about it she gets angry and immediately sends Anne away.

Anne runs away to Bert, of all people, and there Bert tells about Rosa, Minton’s daughter. She died 34 years ago and ever since Minton locked herself in and became the greedy old lady she is now. The next morning, Anne asking Horace and Edward to look around for a couple of roses. She then gives these roses to Minton as she visits Rosa’s grave, as a bit of a strange birthday present. It turns out that Minton had even forgotten her birthday, and so the two of them make up and the episode ends.

So yeah, the episode ended on a pretty sappy note, but I don’t care! This was such a sweet episode and in fact, this has been the pattern of this series for the past four episodes now. Sure at times it’s a bit too dramatic, and the same flaw turned me off from watching Kemono no Souja Erin, which also was just too formulaic, and yet I just CAN’T bring myself to dislike this series. Anne is such an awesome character that she SO makes up for some of the overly sappy moments. With more than thirty episodes still to go, I foresee lots of awesomeness in this series’ future.

I also like how Budge Wilson decided to write this story. She announced clearly that she wasn’t going to mimic Lucy Maud Montgomery’s writing style, but instead went with her own. But still she did include quite a few homages to some of Montgomery’s other works. This episode shows some parallels to Emily of the New Moon, and especially Elisabeth’s secret room of her lost sister.

My only real problem with this series is that the animation doesn’t look as solid as it’s supposed to. There quite a few points at which character drawings looked rushed. Porfy and Les Miserables were able to cover this up, but in this series, it unfortunately does stand out.

Rating: *** (Awesome)
With most other characters, this kind of episode would have been dull, but Anne single-handedly made it awesome.

What started out as a seemingly silly episode in which Hajime and Arashi break the metal bird on top of the cafeteria and muscle guy being ordered to buy women’s underwear, it gradually turned out to be an episode that added even more depth to Kaja and Jun’s characters. I really must say that Jun is one of the most convincing cross-dressers out there, because for once she has a very solid reason to act as a boy, compared to most of the other cross-dressers, who seem to be only there for fan-service.

In this episode you could really see that she feels insecure about regular girls: she doesn’t like their style and fears that she might end up as the same. While the source of it is still unknown, but it seems to be strong enough for her have to endure the other side of the coin: Hajime’s abuse. It’s also strange that Jun’s classmates didn’t feel like stereotypes at all.

And at the same time we learn that Kaja is very uncomfortable among men, due to the way she was raised in her time. She’s probably fine with Hajime because he only has eyes for Arashi, but when those students showed up she really came into a situation she never was in before. The episode then continues as she tells how she believes that she appeared in this time for no reason, and that they’re just there to relive their summer. Jun then however, realizes that they’re both just thinking too much of others, and refuse to think about themselves. Basically, what Hajime and Arashi have been doing all along.

There also was a lot of building up in this episode. We now know that Arashi and Kaja died on the same day. It probably was because of a bombing, but I doubt whether it was that simple. We also know now why Kaja came back, but what about Arashi? We have yet to see what her regrets are, and she’s very good in hiding this. On top of that, there has to be some sort of role for the muscle-guy, has there?

This series will probably be only thirteen episodes long, since Shinbo seems to have yet another show scheduled for Summer, plus the original manga only seems to have released three volumes so far. If this is true, then we’ve just passed the halfway point of this series, and there are actually lots of ways for the creators to settle this series. Let’s hope that everything can come together.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Very nice episode for Jun and Kaja and the visuals still are very good.