I really must say, that despite the rocky start Shangri-La is quite possibly turning into one of my favourite series this season. If it wasn’t for the likes of Phantom and Konnichiwa Anne, I’d be sure of it. As messy as the beginning episodes were, as solidly everything is coming together at the moment. It just shows how series can completely change for the better as they go on.

I think what sets this show apart is that for this season, it has managed to find the best combination between a complex multi-layered and epic plot, great aesthetics and audio and a very varied and coloured cast of characters, and yet it doesn’t drag or go too fast. I really hope that this can continue on in its second half. It relies a bit too much on coincidences at times, but it’s really nothing serious to get in the way of what’s really important. It’s not necessarily the best at one front, it may have some rough edges, but when combining everything together the picture really makes for a top-notch series.

This episode again had lots of revelations. Indeed, Mikuni is not unique: Kunihito and Kuniko posses the same power that she does. This is why Ryouko was so interested in her, and why she had Kunihito’s personal data blocked (it’s also a nice touch that all three of them have “Kuni” in their names). I’m really going to wonder what kind of impact that’s going to have on Mikuni: she obviously of the three of them is the easiest to manipulate, but there has to be another reason as to why Ryouko is so interested in Kuniko: if she can already read Atlas through Mikuni, then why does she need all three of them?

This episode also marks the end of Sayoko, as she gets arrested from trying to hack in the Atlas server in order to try and find out this information. This means that Miiko is going to have to take care of Mikuni. And speaking of Miiko, it’s great to see how far she’s already developed: now that she doesn’t have Momoko anymore and instead is going to be the one who needs to protect, she’s proven to be a really strong and dependant character, and ended up saving Momoko that way.

For Kuniko, it’s also good to see that she didn’t choose to become the leader of the Metal-age just to save Momoko, but instead because she really doesn’t agree with Atlas’ principles. She even says in this episode that the mission that they’re going to undertake has the priority above saving Momoko (but of course, it never gets to the point for them to save her because she already escaped on her own).

Oh, and Karin was downright adorable in this episode. Especially when she ran into Kuniko, who recognized her from the time she accidentally hacked into Karin’s server. Seeing her shopping and walking around in a bear-suit was just awesome.

And on a side-note: it’s interesting how the names of Atlas are all related to Greek mythology: we have Atlas as the main organization, Zeus as their main server, then there’s Medusa as their oracle. The names don’t really relate to the stories that their mythological figures had, but then again, I don’t think that such an obvious level of symbolism is needed anyway.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Lots of stuff happened again in this building-up episode.

If you consider this episode as a regular episode, it rocked. It closed off the Yayoi and Kanako arc really nicely: in the end all the conflict came from a simple misunderstanding: the two of them simply didn’t know that they can remain in existence as long as they remain close to a person from the current age, and so they decided to steal Arashi’s existence as a means to keep existing. It then proceeds with a little more Jun-jokes when one of her friends protects her secret by claiming to be her girlfriend, and the rest of the episode develops HajimeXArashi by bringing a bit of tension in their relationship by introducing a guy who turns out to have been saved by a future Arashi in the past. All in all, a pretty good episode.

However, this was supposed to be the semi-final episode, and there was no hint of a conclusion in it, or even a build-up for that conclusion, meaning that either the creators are going to stuff the entire conclusion into just one episode, or simply going to end the show by ending with just another manga-chapter without concluding anything. It’s such a shame, really. This would have been a perfect opportunity for the creators to go with an anime-original ending. I know that Shinbo can do it if he wants to, but to do it all in just one episode is really going to push it.

But ah well, who knows whether or not it’s going to turn out awesome or not. Who knows, Shinbo is so unpredictable that he might actually pull it off. In any case, this episode was heaps of fun as usual, and that ending is going to have to be really bad if it wants to completely ruin this series.

Rating: * (Good)
Not the most perfect semi-final episode, but standalone it rocked.

Well, there you have it: Anne’s first day at school, or 20 minutes of Anne making a fool of herself in front of her classmates. While in the original series, she was quiet in classes, she obviously didn’t have those restraints as a six-year-old. This episode was really embarrassing to watch at times, but really: it’s typical of Anne to do such a thing.

As this is one of these episodes in which Anne rambles on and on, I’m not going to translate every sentence she says, but I’m just going to summarize the main points, in an attempt to retain my sanity. The episode starts with Anne’s first day at school. She gets ready for school while at the same time trying to take care of the kids, but she’s too excited to really care about it. Horace and Edward don’t seem to be going to school as well, on a side-note.

Johanna gives Anne her lunch (an apple and two cookies). A walk to school takes about one hours, but Anne doesn’t seem to mind. When she arrives at the school, she immediately starts comparing the most popular girl to a pretty doll (yeah), after which she gets called by Henderson, her teacher, who is all excited to see her. When it’s time for Anne to introduce herself, her classmates obviously make fun of her because of her incredibly long-winded introduction-speech, and how she’s never been to school before that point (and her red hair, of course). The first class is spelling, and Anne shows that she already knows how to write down the alphabet (courtesy of Elisa).

The popular girl’s name turns out to be Mildred, whose father seems to be the mayor of Marysville. They try to annoy Anne during the break, but Anne is too busy with the new things she learned. They then try to give her a bit of a tip of how she could use Randolf(another kid in the class)’s dictionary if she ran into a word that she doesn’t know. So obviously, they pick up Randolf’s dictionary and Anne gets blamed in the end for taking it.

At the end of the lessons, it turns out that the next day history is going to be the subject (unfortunately, Anne can’t come to school that day), and the day after that is going to be a test. Because it’s Anne’s first day at school, she doesn’t have to take it, but she still takes the test seriously. Especially when Mildred pops up and tells her that the test is going to be about India’s history (instead of a simple spelling test). She gives Anne an incredibly complex book to study (which Anne obviously can’t understand).

So Anne ends up asking Eggman’s help with India’s history, and she spends the next few days trying to understand it. Unfortunately, in the meantime Noah gets sick and so Anne alternates between studying and trying to take care of Noah. So at the day of the test, she of course gets really surprised when she prepared for something completely different. Anne’s classmates are doing so-so (especially Randolf screws up), and when Anne gets her turn to try she also fails to spell “chocolate”. Mildred of course jumps in to correctly spell it, and Anne feels pretty down.

The next test is calculating, and like expected Anne has a lot of trouble with the answers (just like the majority of her class aside from Mildred, by the way). Mildred gets asked to write down the answers on the blackboard, though Anne then notices that she made a mistake (100 x 0 = 1000). Everyone in class was so convinced that Mildred could never make a mistake like that, so they didn’t even notice the mistake she made. Anne in the meantime comes with an anecdote she picked up from Eggman when she was studying India to explain why Mildred’s answer was wrong.

Because of that, Anne gets to tell the class a bit about the things she learned about India and the episode ends.

Well, that’s the World Masterpiece Theatre for you. I remember how Anne of Green Gables devoted an entire episode of Anne and her best friend, playing mother and father in the woods. It’s obviously that those things are nowhere near my interests… but it’s so incredibly charming.

And yet it’s episodes like this that really remind me why the World Masterpiece Theatre series is so awesome. There are so few series that have as detailed and colorful characters as they show here. They may be boring at times, but these anime really showed me what a wonderful genre slice of life can be.

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t miss Porfy or Les Miserables: both two brilliant series with some incredibly well fleshed out and developed characters, and both really were unique anime. Konnichiwa Anne in return doesn’t have that overarching plot that these two had: it simply tells the story of an overly energetic and talkative girl called Anne. And yet it shows that even with that, the WMT-series can be awesome.

I’m really curious what the creators have in store for episode 13. In Porfy and Les Miserables, it both was the episode that really set the bigger plot in motion: Porfy had its earthquake, while in Les Miserables it was the point in which Jean picked up Cosette. Obviously such a thing isn’t going to happen here, but I still wonder whether the creators here have some sort of climax planned. If they have, then this episode showed no signs of it.

One issue I did have with this episode was that the animation looked off at times. Faces were more distorted than usual, it seemed. I also believe that Anne suddenly learning a lot about India was a bit overplayed, but it definitely remained charming in the end.
Rating: * (Good)
A rather uncomfortable episode about Anne making a fool of herself in her first day at school, but that’s what storytelling is: evoking emotions from the viewer.

For a moment there, I thought that this was going to be a relatively uneventful build-up episode, but boy, was i wrong. This episode may have lacked a bit of fighting, but instead it was all about the characters. And now that a new arc has started, it’s great to see that some of them are getting some quality development. It’s even better to see that the ones with the most development are the ones who were the most useless and incompetent in the Nosferas arc. Yes, I’m talking about Amnelis and Remus.

It’s awesome to see that Remus is finally starting to realize that he’s been bloody useless throughout the entire series, and I love how the creators were specifically using the Nosferas arc to show what a weakling he was. It seems that his character will be much more important in the upcoming arc, and I’m interested to see how his character is going to develop.

Amnelis on the other hand develops in a completely different way, when she falls in love with… Ardnaris, whom she was supposed to be engaged with. I’m not exactly sure how he managed to pull that off by getting on the Mongol’s good side, but he seems to be enjoying it. Amnelis on the other hand is in for some interesting development that really is going to change her majorly. I’m still not sure whether this is going to be for the better or worse, but I’d love to find out.

This episode also introduces the three mystery characters that suddenly popped up in last week’s OP. They turn to be related to Ardnaris, it seems. The bond-haired guy seems to be his brother, while the black-haired couple also seem among his allies.

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Remus and Amnelis’s character-development? Count me in!