Okay, so this series isn’t exactly the best of the season at the moment, but then again that’s only logical since it’s clearly only building up, and yet I’m already enjoying it a lot. when this series started, I admit that I was really doubtful whether or not Chiaki Kon would be able to pull off this series, considering the other shows she has worked on after Higurashi, but this again shows that even directors with flawed records can be able to produce good series if the source material and guidance is good enough.

Anywaay, while the first arc focused on the younger generation, this arc puts the focus at the servants, as they’re labelled as the prime suspects. This episode shows that someone killed Kanon and Jessica, dragged Kanon out of the room and locked the room afterwards. There are only six keys in existence that are able to open the lock, since Beatrice ruled out window-climbing and lock-picking with the red texts. There were two keys inside the room as it was locked: Jessica’s and Kanon’s. That means that there are four keys left, and all of them are in the possession of the four servants left alive.

In this way, the most suspicious one is Gouda. He could have faked his own death in the first arc and he had no alibi for the death of Jessica and Kanon. Furthermore, Battler’s argument of how such a guy with a nice face couldn’t possibly be the murderer is weak. Try saying that to Higurashi.

However, that doesn’t really mean that one of the servants is the culprit. Have we actually seen it confirmed that all four keys are present at their owner? I think that we’ve established by now that the killer is a good pick-pocket. He could have just taken one of the servants’ keys to make it seem like they did it, which also would make more sense because it would be stupid of a servant to put the blame on himself like this. In this way, Rosa fits as the main suspect: she too could have faked her own death in the first arc, and taking charge of the situation as a leader figure does kind-of take suspicions away.

That just leaves the question as to who committed the murders here. The illusions in this series become weirder and weirder, and harder to logically explain. Previously, you could just assume that the murders on Kanon were flashy set-ups by Beatrice, but Gouda actually felt the zombie-Kanon as some sort of solid matter. Do you suppose that the killer actually used some sort of magic mushrooms in order to accomplish that?

One thing that rather annoys me about this series is how they keep censoring the gory parts. I mean, come on. Take a look at Himitsu ~The Revelation~ for example: in that series the corpses were even more disturbing, and not even an iota was censored, which really contributed to its dark and creepy mood. This show airs like, how late? 2:00 in the morning? What kid is going to be awake at that hour?

And as usual: when discussing this episode, please refrain from mentioning events that happen after this point in the visual novel.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

A peculiar episode for this series, especially with only two episodes left after this. You’d think that this close to the end, the creators would pump up the drama, but instead we get what is likely the quietest episode of this series yet. There was a lot of simple slice of life.

So in this episode, Kyouko basically takes Akira, Fumi and some of her classmates to a holiday house owned by her fiance. A lot of the episode was just focused to the bunch of them having fun. There was a bit of drama, but this was much lighter than previous in this series. Basically, Kyouko’s fiance turns out to really like Kyouko, even when he knows that she has a crush on a girl. Yet again a subversion of the “childhood friends becoming lovers”-trope. This also is an important episode for Akira at the end, where she finally seems to realize that she’s the only one of her friends who still hasn’t fallen in love.

With two episodes left, I’m very curious to see how the creators are planning to end this series. Of course, I’d be happy with a second season, but there are other shows that are currently airing that deserve a sequel much more than this series. With the Noise time-slot apparently having bombed, I don’t think that the producers are very keen on keeping this series going, and I’m really not bothered if that turns out to be the case: we’ve got ourselves a nice, short and consistently excellent romance here that was really good while it lasted.

I personally hope that the creators are going for a Hitohira end here: don’t try to save the biggest climax for last, and instead try to wrap up the plot nicely, and let life just go on afterwards. That’s going to be perfect for this series, instead of inserting some shallow conclusion in which Akira suddenly comes to realize that she’s in love with Fumi. That’s going to be rather lame.
Rating: * (Good)