Ah, a calm before the storm. Something’s telling me that in the next episode, all hell is going to break loose and after the relatively light-hearted past few episodes, I’m very eager to see what kind of climax this arc is going to come up with. And this episode wasn’t wasted in any way either: it had a very quiet second half, but that really allowed the character-development between Cal and Reiji to show.

But this episode started out with me getting very surprised at how Claudia suddenly killed off Isaac in order to calm down the angry gang after Ein provoked them. Talk about hitting two flies in one blow, because with this the matter of Isaac’s betrayal is now also solved. But damn, that’s about the least thing I expected. There were no close-ups or dramatic build-up, no long death speeches nor any sorts of melodrama, nothing. Just that guy getting shot and falling down.

The thing is, that the matter of Cal’s revenge is also taken care of. The question now becomes “how to get Cal out of this mess”, but the matter get srather complicated when Cal has grown a bit too fond of Reiji, and is seriously trying to become an assassin herself, because it was the first time she felt appreciated. At the same time, Reiji is torn between leaving Cal and making sure that she doesn’t grow up to be a broken human like he is, and staying with her because of how she managed to mentally help him get over his past.

Okay, so the past few episodes weren’t as intense as the Ein Arc, but definitely awesome in their own way. Cal is an excellent character, and I really liked how the creators portrayed her influence on Reiji, and how the two of them gradually get to understand each other. Really well done.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Okay, so in this episode we continue where the previous episode left off, at which Oz and Alice end up returning in the middle of one of the Pandora council meetings, of all things. It was definitely fun to see the chaos that erupted from such a weird scenario, and this also allowed the proper introduction of Oz to the rest of the people from Pandora when Jack took over his body. That does leave the question of what he actually is, and if that was the real Jack, then what the heck was he doing in Cheshire Cat’s dimension, of all things?

But my favourite part of this episode was that we finally get to see a really different Break, now that Vincent pretty much screwed up his plans of getting to know what really happened at the tragedy of Sabrie. His hate and annoyance for Vincent is strangely adorable. At the same time, we finally get a bit of insight into Vincent’s intentions. Or at least, some of them: he kidnapped Sharon to prevent information about him being behind the tragedy of Sabrie from leaking out, but something tells me that his ambitions are far bigger than that.

There’s also this revelation that the leader of the Baskervilles turns out to be still alive, which for some reason is something that onnly Jack knows. My guess is that that guy is hanging around somewhere in the Abyss as well, and Oz was targetted by them because they believed that his powers could end up bringing him back, though that failed.
Rating: * (Good)

You know, I previously kept saying that Aoi Hana was my favourite summer show and all. But that was before I watched this episode. After this episode, I’m going to take that statement back entirely: Tokyo Magnitude is without a doubt the best show this season. This episode was utterly amazing and exceeded all my expectations. Even for Noitamina, this episode stood out as one of the best.

What baffles me the most is that it’s only been two episodes: this series only needed one episode of build-up and character-introduction, and after that it was able to put down such a sad and depressing episode around Mirai, who saw her entire world crumbled. What made the most impact on me was how she was separated from her brother at the time of the earthquake, and so she had no idea whether he was alive or not. She was all alone amidst tons of people who also struck with the same fate.

And the thing is, that if she listened to Mari it might have taken ages before her brother was found and he might have died of smoke. Only because she kept looking for him was she able to figure out that he went to the toy store afterwards, and got trapped underneath the shelves. The first episode really put her down as your average whiny teenager, but this episode most definitely made her human, and just a weak little girl.

And yeah, this episode also did a fantastic job of not just showing Mirai, but also how just about everyone else in the area is suffering because of the earthquake, all in their own ways. This is one of these series in which every random bystander is a character, rather than a paper bag who is just there to fill air.

This obviously isn’t a series for you if you hate depressing series, but damn. I really hope that the creators can keep this up. I’m going to be a bit careful expecting the rest of this series to be amazing after Eden of the East dulled in a bit after its introduction, but with this series, all the creators have to do is logically progress the story, throw in lots of realism and keep up with their realistic characterization. I really hope that the creators are going to be able to pull it off, because this episode was just too good to just waste on a mediocre series.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

Okay… so this series has just delved into WTF-territory. I think it’s best to just quote Random Curiosity’s summary to show what I mean:

“Flora explains that, in the past, descendants of giants related to the creation of the universe lived on the moon. Earthdash was created by gods, and mankind’s playing of sports with balls stems from the fights of those gods. The legend is of someone with the ability to manipulate the ball of thunderbolts saving Earthdash and the moon, and the trajectory of that ball shows the shape of the creation of the universe.”

I mean, who in his right mind can come up with such a ridiculous back-story? And that’s just the tip of the ice-berg in this episode. From the moon they ended up at what seems to be the place where Iceman grows up and lost his arm and leg, called Dead Bottom. In there, Sera and Flora (who blew her cover, by the way, with nobody being really surprised) somehow end up working at a night club while Miyuki fixes their bigfoots which were badly damaged in the crash. Miyuki then runs into another tech geek who hates her last name.

Dan meanwhile ends up arrested from out of nowhere by strange masked people, and then ends up fighting in some sort of bloody arena to the death. He ends up beating his enemy with… a basketball. When he’s forced to kill his opponent, he runs away and a bounty is suddenly on his head. He then ends up in a weird place with huge lizards and another mysterious bigfoot. Yang meanwhile pops up from out of nowhere and hires a prisoner to kill off Dan.

Does it make any sense? No. Did I like it? I guess so, yes. The setting has definitely gotten heaps more intriguing with this episode. Setting aside the really weird story of how people are playing basketball today because that’s how the Gods fought with each other, Dead Bottom looks like a really interesting setting, that’s definitely shown a different side of the world that Dan and the others live in. This episode also debuted a bunch of new background tracks, and they really fit with the dark and mysterious image that comes from this city.

In the next episode, we should see the new director taking over. It’s going to be interesting whether he can give this show the finale it deserves.
Rating: * (Good)