What an amazing conclusion to the No Longer Human story. The past four episodes have really been storytelling at its finest. This episode yet again pushes the characters into an entirely different direction, and it’s really been character-development after character-development for the entire story.

This episode fast-forwards a number of years. So the lead character? He got married to the girl with the red umbrella. His friend? He has grown up a lot. He’s no longer the punk who drags the lead character into the wrong business, but instead has decided to join the army, leaving his wild years behind.

At first sight, the lead character seems saved right now. He has stopped drinking and fooling around with women thanks to his new wife. The seemingly limitless amount of trust she has for him really helped him get himself together. Or so it seems. I’m not sure whether she got raped or whether she was fooling around with someone behind his back, but nevertheless, their balance gets broken abruptly when he finds out.

But even before that, it becomes clear that even though he may have left his old habits behind, he still hasn’t fully healed. Especially when he finds out that his father died, he doesn’t care in the bit, and it becomes painfully clear that he’s still living inside a fantasy world, refusing to simply grow up because his profession as an artist and storyteller doesn’t require him to do so. Eventually however, he breaks down and takes an overdose of some sort of strange type of pills. Again, he survives. But barely.

The part that impressed me the most comes next. Despite how the guy has broken down, and proven that he’s a huge failure as a human, the two women he lived with still don’t mind. What they see is a guy who definitely has problems, but despite that is an incredibly nice guy. Even though they probably know nothing about him, yet want to be with him again, that was so heart-warming.

Okay, so No Longer Human was amazing. What’s next? The rest of the series is going to be filled with three more stories of two episodes, and two of only one. Their short length is either a blessing or a curse, but let’s see what they can do with their limited airtime. I really like the set-up of random stories though: you’ll never be able what to expect, but the writers are totally free in what they can do with it, or in this case which stories they can adapt. This is another reason why this series is superior to Kuchuu Buranko: those random stories all were written by the same guy, based on the same formula. With Aoi Bungaku however, this series is promising to become incredibly varied.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Whoa, an entire episode dedicated to the background of the Ishbal Massacre. It shows how Roy, Hawkeye and Hughes met and how their experiences in the war changed them into trying to find a way out of this endless violence. Usually in when a massacre in anime takes place, you get a bit of depth on the ones who ordered it, but not often do you see an in-depth look to the ones who actually carry out those orders.

There are two major questions that have arisen from this episode: First of all: what was up with that tattoo covering Hawkeye’s back? In this episode, we learn how she’s the daughter of the alchemist who taught Roy Mustang his tricks, but there seems to be much more to her than just that. I’m not even sure whether Roy knows about that tattoo, but my guess is that it has something to do with her father.

Second of all: we meet Kimbley. This guy was one of the worst characters of the first season: the creators set him up as a competent and ruthless criminal… only to abandon this halfway through and turn him into an incompetent imbecile afterwards. My guess is that even though the creators came up with a very nice alternative story for this setting, they never really knew what to do with him, or they realized too late that that bomb guy also needed a part.

In any case, in this episode we learn where the Philosopher’s stone that was made from the Ishbalians went to: Kimbley. I’m surprised at how little of these people were actually needed, and really wonder why an entire city needed to be wiped out, just for ten guys who could also be simply taken from the prisoners on death row. The big question also is: why Kimbly? Why entrust something as important as that stone to someone like him? And where the hell is he right now? My guess is that since there already were seven humonculi at that point, Father was experimenting with new ways to use the Philosopher’s stones, but there still remain a lot of question marks in the Ishbal chapter.

And yeah, Scar also now has a new target for revenge. I’m not sure whether he’s really going to be an ally of Ed now, however. It’s all going to depend on whether or not he can forgive the guy for killing Winry’s parents…
Rating: ** (Excellent)

What an amazing episode. It’s installments like this that really show why Cross Game is such an excellent slice of life series, it was constantly playing with the set-up of the arrival of Wakaba II (who turns out to be named Akane).

The entire episode was one big tease. To start with, you know how Kou said “Wakaba”? That sequence got repeated about three or four times? Well, it turns out that it was also imprinted on the bag she was carrying. A bit long to get to that punchline, but well worth it. For the rest of the episode, I was really looking forward to the next time she’d show up again, but the creators had other plans, and instead showed some very good slice of life scenes instead, preparing for the upcoming festival and the anniversary of Wakaba’s death (if I understood correctly).

Only in the final quarter of the episode, she appeared again, and the results were amazing. Everyone who ran into her had the same reaction: “what’s a ghost doing here!?” The look on everyone’s face… it was just priceless.

Oh, and as an extra bonus, my favourite minor side-character got some attention again: Momiji. Especially now that she has reached the same age as Wakaba did when she died, she’s hopefully also going to start playing a larger part in this series.

And that’s what I think is the biggest difference between Cross Game and Touch: Touch was far better with its baseball matches, while Cross Game’s baseball is the least interesting part of the series. However, Cross Game is far superior when it comes to slice of life, in which Touch was a bit too long-winded. With the exception of two notable episodes, of course. those who watched Touch will understand which ones I mean.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

An entire episode dedicated to the new queen, who just ascended the throne in one of the worst possible times, just when the stability between the two halves of the country is beginning to waver. And what an intense episode it was.

Of course, the sons of the grand duke aren’t stupid enough to give in to the false accusations that Damya throws at them. Not only that, but they also end up making the first move when Shunan even proposes to Seimiya, in an attempt to bring the country back to stability. The thing is, that Seimiya just has too little experience. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but she doesn’t seem educated at all in politics. She lived the good life, protected by everyone else including her mother. Her ideal wedding was one with Shunan, but now that he’s marrying her for country purposes, rather than because of her became a huge shock for her. Even if there wasn’t Damya who would try to take advantage of her, she’d probably end up destroying the country herself.

Damya meanwhile remains an interesting variation to the stereotypical evil right hand man. You can see that he’s already manipulating Seimiya: portraying himself as the kind uncle to her, so that she feels trusted with him. However, you can also see that he genuinely cares for the loss of his mother, and he feels sorry for his niece. Unlike her, however, he knows what his ideals are, and he’s well aware that he has a very good opportunity to realize them.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

This episode was actually pretty good. It’s still the kind of drama we’re used to from this series: simple and emotional, and on top of that this episode simply showed the story of a random person who happened to cross Lag’s path at an unfortunate time. However, the way in which letter Bee sets itself apart from all of the other dramas this season is the way in which its drama feels really genuine.

Normally this episode would have been very cheesy indeed: we have this girl who has lost her little brother, and the final wish of this brother is to send a message to a Letter Bee who used to be friends with them. However, this episode was surprisingly well told: the creators added lots of small details that spiced up this episode, like the way in which that girl first deceives Lag, Nichi who wants to be called a Dingo while Lag wants to return her to a place in which she can grow up safely (still not recognizing that he’d be absolutely screwed if it wasn’t for her), the traveller and his falcon, the villagers, the background music. It all amounted to a surprisingly good climax.

Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but if you exclude the still frames, then the animation is actually pretty good, isn’t it? And with that, I mostly mean the in-between animation. I think that that’s also the thing that Studio Pierrot is especially good at. I especially noticed this when I watched Kaze no Youjinbo: its animation is either incredibly good or incredibly bad. And you can also spot those really good parts of animation in the opening episodes of GTO. I’m hoping that the awesome animators who were responsible for those good parts are going to return here as well. This episode was at least an indication that the creators are going for a very good frame-rates.
Rating: ** (Excellent)