Oh my God, Cal just becomes more and more awesome with every single episode. Up till now we’ve only seen glimpses of her new version, and what she turned into ever since she was abandoned by Reiji and taken in by Scythe, but only in this episode we get a full grasp of her deep-seeded hate against Reiji. And this episode yet again was absolutely amazing. People have often asked me why the heck I’m such a big Bee-Train fan. Now THIS is why! Time and time again they end up creating a truly awesome cast of characters.

And while it’s indeed true that they sexed up Cal a bit too much, they do get the point across: someone who started out as a sweet little girl is now cursing all over, lost any trace of compassion, living solely for revenge and has no future at all if she does manage to kill off Reiji. What hit me the most was when Reiji asked her to leave Helen alone. It then all hit her that Reiji indeed was the bastard she imagined him to be, who left her for dead and instead is willing to protect Ein with his life.

At this point, Reiji’s apologies and the words that he thought she was dead obviously can’t easily put things right anymore, since they’re just going to come off as cheap excuses. The fact remains that Reiji just walked off without confirming Cal’s dead body, because he was too occupied by Helen. It’s completely understandable, but it completely destroyed Cal’s chance of growing up happily.

Also, I’ve said this many times before, but I really feel the need to repeat that I absolutely love the soundtrack for this series. In this series, it has become much more than simply a bunch of songs that play into in the background. Bee-Train was already experimenting with this kind of soundtrack during Blade of the Immortal, in which it really worked, and for this series they again compiled a crazy soundtrack that’s full of many different songs, ranging from the quiet ones to the mindfuck tracks. These songs aren’t meant to be simple elevator music, but they’ve become a very important part of the storytelling itself, and I really love the way it turned out.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Whoa. Even for Pandora Hearts, this was a surprisingly good episode. Since it already has been two weeks since the plot disappeared (with the previous week a hiatus and the week before that more aimed at comic relief), but damn, I didn’t suspect that the creators were already going to arrive at Break’s background this early.

So this episode basically starts out as Oz manages to get himself an appointment with the person who most likely is to remember something about the tragedy of Sabrie 100 years ago: Rufus Barma, the longest sitting of the four dukes, and a collector of information. Apparently, Oz had heard of him from before he was cast in the Abyss. Makes sense.

Anyway, it then turns out that Barma likes to play with his visitors, and creates a whole illusion to try and hide who he really is. With the threat of the Baskervilles and all, this indeed seems like a wise move. Anyway, it seems that the biggest reason why he accepted Oz’s invitation is because he wants to learn something from Break. On a side-note, the foursome of Break, Oz, Gilbert and Alice look awesome in formal attire. It’s nothing new, but this series sure is good at its costume designs.

Anyway, while this seems nice and all, the second half of this episode completely turns the chessboard upside-down, to come with an Umineko-reference, when it turns out that Break’s background is much darker than I imagined (or should I say, Kevin’s background). In his original time, his family was murdered and he willingly travelled into the abyss to get their murderer back. He already had a contract back then. He then met the White Alice, who turns out to be no-one else but the “Will of the Abyss”. She then pokes Kevin’s eye out, gives it to Cheshire Cat, and kills his chain. wtf. To make things even more inexplicable, a young Vincent (who seems to be an acquaintance of the Will of the Abyss), brings an unconscious Gilbert (who also happens to know her) in and acts like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

This explains quite a bit: it explains how Break knew of the Cheshire Cat, and what he wanted from him (his eye back), it also is probably going to explain why he has such a deep-seated grudge against Vincent. The next episode is probably going to show Vincent doing something really nasty to him. As a result, it’s probably because of this that Break has vowed to find out what happened in the Tragedy of Sabrie: it’s his wish to find Vincent’s weakness, and what Vincent absolutely doesn’t want is the truth about the tragedy to come out. The reason why he refused to sacrifice Sharon has probably to do with his little sister.

Also… about Alice being the Will of the Abyss, this is just a theory but was the Abyss actually created along with the Tragedy of Sabrie? I mean, the people who returned from the Abyss all were special cases: Gilbert and Vincent were there when it was created if this is true, and this would also explain why Vincent knew the Will of the Abyss so well. Break meanwhile was probably the only human who willingly entered the abyss, which seems to be confirmed with how the Will of the Abyss said that he was the only one who maintained his conscience. Oz was special because he found Alice’s locket, which somehow did something with one of the Alices to make some connection.

Also, was I the only one who noticed the weird Rozen Maiden cameos in the Will of the Abyss’s dolls?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

The past two episodes of this series made me think a lot about the nature of criticism. Especially after the previous episode, which I slammed down for having Yuki supposedly collapse for cheap drama, even though it’s not that weird for people to get sick in these situations. I also remember people who weren’t happy with that episode because it included robots. But yeah, then you have things as this: is it still unrealistic and unbelievable when it’s being used in real life?

I think that a lot of people (including myself; I’ve caught myself doing this plenty of times), whenever they are turned off they start looking for reasons why. These seeming logic flaws are then very easy targets for these criticisms. Ignoring the obvious cases in which a plot twist becomes so stupid or unbelievable that it destroys the entire suspension of disbelief, these things often aren’t the real reasons for these declines in quality, and in the case of very realistic shows as Tokyo Magnitude, you can see people who start blaming things that turn out to be perfectly normal.

In the end, the only thing that I can really criticize this series for is that I don’t like the OP. I’m one of those people who is too lazy to skip through OPs (aside from perhaps marathons), but at the same time I’ve never been a big fan of neither j-pop or j-rock, and Abington Boy’s School is no exception to this rule, and the song they used for this series’ OP is getting more and more on my nerves.

I think the thing with this series is that episodes 2-5 were utterly amazing, and the past episodes, instead of building up to a great climax at the end, instead went to go for a much quieter aftermath. It’s not exactly the same as Eden of the East, where it became clear along the way that the creators just took too much on their plate and badly paced the series after its initial episodes. With Tokyo Magnitude, I think it’s obvious that the past few episodes lacked the same emotional impact of the first five episodes. The question however is: does it need to be?

I’m getting more and more convinced that this show indeed doesn’t really need to be. I’ve become so used to anime, which nearly all have the general pattern of a build-up that gets increasingly full of tension, but here we have an entire subversion of this trope. During an earthquake, the biggest emotional shock comes right after it happens, and after that the tension, while it’s still there, fades as more and more people regain their sensibilities. The more I think about it, the more realistic it becomes.

Anyway, about this episode, aside from the total chaos in the hospital it was a very quiet one. Yuki turns out to be fine for now, while Mirai has visibly grown up while Mari becomes more and more worried as to what happened to her children. It’s a role reversal here: the reason Mirai managed to grow wasn’t just because she had to look after Yuki, but also because Mari, who started out as a mother figure, started to show more and more of her weaknesses. And that was the strength of episode six: its purpose wasn’t to insert some random illness, but instead show that Mari instead was just a human being, and at that point Mirai realized that her whining wasn’t going to help at all to solve the situation, especially since you can really see that she wants Mari to be reunited with her daughter.

As for the reason why Mari refused to take the scooter in episode: she might actually be running away. Take a look at this episode: instead of walking fast, like what I would do when I was worried about someone, she often walks way behind Mirai and Yuki. It’s as if she’s scared to find out that her daughter died.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Edit: I rewatched this episode, based on your comments, and you’re right: they’ve given this episode a completely different meaning, and what I believed was a rather quiet episode has now become incredibly sad instead. I really have to give thumbs up for the creators for having the guts to go this far.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Okay, that’s it. This series has completely given up any form of logic at this stage. I mean, seriously. It surpasses itself in terms of stupidity in this episode. There were plenty of moments in this episode that just made me ask… “why?!”.

A list of bullet-points of all the wtf-moments of this episode:
- Satelight: what the heck are you doing making Flora fall IN LOVE with Dan. There are five episodes left, for God’s sake. What the hell are you doing slapping on a harem at the last possible minute?!
- In this episode, Dan and Flora end up abandoning everything else in order to be able to reach Rouge’s last concert on time. In order to get through some sort of customs that are in the way, they dress up as women. Never mind the question where they got these clothes from, DAN STILL DOESN’T REALIZE THAT FLORA IS A GIRL.
- To make things worse, even though he thought of the clever plan of dressing up, he ends up blowing his cover, simply by getting into another fight with Spanky.
- There are lots of guards at the customs, with advanced weaponry, mechas and professional equipment. Dan blows his cover right in the middle of them, surrounded by about two dozen of these guys. And yet they let them go. They don’t arrest a criminal who is wanted for committing multiple crimes and who even is notorious enough to have entire billboards full of wanted posters. Yes.
- Also, check this picture of Rouge as she’s lying under some medical thingy. What the hell is up with that waste? I mean, anorexia is one thing, but this is just ridiculous.
- Later in the episode, Dan and Flora get themselves surrounded yet again. All these soldiers are armed with guns. Dan fights them off… with a basketball. A freaking basketball. Versus dozens of guards. And he actually wins.
- To make matters even more ridiculous, Flora finds this a good moment to show her real identity. She pulls off her clothes, under which her full princess outfit was hidden.
- The only thing that all of the guards are able to do is kneel and make weird puking noises. No seriously, what was up with those yelps of pain as they kneeled before the princess?
- Flora uses her authority to stop Dan’s arrest. Yes, being a princess is fun!

But yeah, on the other hand: who cares? I think that we all should have seen this point coming, right when it became clear that the director of Kiss Dum was going to take over this series. In the end, all I’m asking from this series is an entertaining finale. I remember that last year at this point, Macross Frontier did the complete opposite and delivered an incredibly generic and boring finale for me, so my big hope here is that Satelight is able to avoid this and end the series on a high note, rather than with a disappointment. You can see that this series is still building up at this point, so it really can go anywhere at this point.

And for all the stupidity, I also have to admit that this episode was fun to watch. Sure, it didn’t make any sense, but setting aside the newly developed romance it was fun to see Dan and Flora together, and especially Dan’s dress rocked. The new soundtrack of this series is also really good. And finally we have a Kawamori-series with a soundtrack that isn’t based around j-pop.
Rating: (Enjoyable)