Well, I didn’t see this one coming. Here I thought that this episode would show us the next ordeals that Guin and the others had to face with the new ship they sailed into, but instead none of them even appear in a single scene this episode. We aren’t even shown what they’re doing, the story simply puts its attention to something completely different. I like it; there aren’t many series that have the guts to ignore all of their main characters like this in favour of the side-characters.

So yeah, this episode is all about the wedding between Ardnaris and Amnelis, and the ones around them. Marius had originally the mission of killing off Amnelis’ younger brother (I’m assuming that he’s the oldest male heir to the throne, or something similar), but gets too attached to him and refuses to do his job, and so instead he creates some story in which he doesn’t need to kill the guy, because of how close they’ve gotten Marius has him under control.

Meanwhile, Amnelis has completely changed ever since she fell in love with Naris, and doesn’t even seem to notice how he’s trying to use her. Speaking of which… what was he doing with that Naris-lookalike at that strange city? Who was that man anyway? I guess that that will become clear once the two get married in the next episode. And yet there seem to be enough people aware of his plans, who seem to be people who want Remus to take the throne, instead of Ardnaris, and seem to be planning to use the guy as their pawn (probably still assuming that he’s the same weakling as ever). It should become very interesting if this guy would actually return to the throne, and try to take over the world. At least, if the anime actually gets to the point of animating those chapters…
Rating: ** (Excellent)

So yeah, for the past few weeks I’ve read a lot of comments about people who are disappointed with some of the cuts that this version of the anime made. They’re thankfully not annoying to read (unlike a certain other show), but they are rather one sided. From what I gathered from all of the comments I read by the manga readers, the manga seems to be the most perfect thing ever, and the Brotherhood adaptation is a flawed adaptation.

From my perspective (as I haven’t read anything from the manga), Brotherhood is doing a pretty terrific job so far. The thing I especially like about it is how it toys around with your emotions, and this episode was an especially good example of this: Ross escapes from prison after being framed for the murder on Hughes. Roy then comes and kills her off, of all things! The episode ended without any clear hint about what happened to her, whether it was a clever decoy from Roy or whether he really turned into such a bastard that he’d actually kill her for Hughes. That scene in which he sits in his office… I didn’t know whether I should laugh, mourn Ross, feel sorry for Roy’s co-workers or get angry at Roy for what he did, and there were a lot more scenes with similar effects, in which so many different emotions rush through at the same time. Did the manga have the same effect?

So yeah, I pretty much loved this episode. Barry indeed was awesome in the way he bust Ross out of prison. The whole escape scene in fact was awesome, in the way that Lin tagged along, and when they ran into Ed and Al, so many things happened at the same time. The scene later, with Ross’s death only made things better, when this series kept reminding Ed how helpless he is in protecting the lives of others. This was also the first time that I saw Armstrong seriously angry… and that made a lot of impact as well.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Well, so this was an episode for the romance on the show. The evil coach is gone, and most of his team transferred away again, with the exception of Azuma. The training pitch has become a lot less like a war-zone, and Kou and the others finally can practice in the open, which results the popularity of the main cast members growing quickly, as shown by the countless amount of fans for Azuma, Kou and Aoba.

This paragraph contains a MAJOR Touch SPOILER, so look away if you haven’t seen it yet. And so, it was inevitable for rumours to start wandering around, in true Adachi-fashion. This time, it’s spread by Akaishi who feels that the two of them would make a nice couple. but the big difference with Touch at that point was that Minami was already in love with Tatsuya while Kazuya was still around while Kou and Aoba only got closer after Wakaba’s death.

This episode also showed a potential girlfriend for that guy whose name I can’t remember. It’s very nice to see this series break through a flaw that a lot of romance series seem to suffer from: the “only main characters may fall in love”-syndrome, in which the side-characters almost never seem to get hooked up themselves, amidst the romantic adventures of the lead characters.

The rest of this episode was filled with the banter between Kou and Azuma, who seems to have moved into Kou’s house since losing his scholarship. The two of them work surprisingly well together in these light-hearted moments. I’m really glad to see that even after seventeen episodes, this series still hasn’t shown any sign of losing its wit. My personal favourite still remains Akaishi. I just loves how innocent he tries to look whenever things don’t go his way.
Rating: ** (Excellent)