Oh god, guess who’s back? The one guy who could only turn this into an even bigger drama than it already was. He’s changed a lot, though. He was this confident asshole, but now he’s more like a wimpy moron. However, the impression he left on Misaki remains.

In any case, this episode marks the beginning of the climax. My guess would be that the creators finally found it time to start with the drama, and my guess would be that each of the successive episodes will now deal with and close off the stories of the various characters. The one to kick off, is Mana.

So yeah, she’s been paying Touya out of her own pocket money to keep Touya with her. In this episode her mother finds out. Since this is the same mother that employs Touya, this also means that Mana figures out that Touya is working as Rina’s manager. In any case, Mana runs away from home, Touya figures that she might have gone back to Haruka (involving her back into the storyline), but at the end of the day, she’s still missing.

The next episode should give us a bit of a hint into exactly what kind of finale the creators are going for. In terms of Mana’s story, there’s no reason for them to hold back anymore: the next episode is going to climax her story, as Touya either finds her back, or she commits suicide or something else that’s crazy. I see no reason why the creators can just make this into a temporary climax, because running away from home is pretty radical: Mana’s mother now also has to see that something went wrong with the way she raised her daughter. She’s a smart woman, so she will learn from this incident.

Also, I loved that little scene in which Touya ran into the girl he stood up earlier. ^^;
Rating: * (Good)

This show just continues to blow my mind with every episode. This episode again did such a wonderful job of tying the whole arc together in one heck of a climax. This show doesn’t show any signs of slowing down, does it?

Okay, so the big secret? The white-haired guy can absorb books. Therefore he can absorb souls and gain their powers. Absorbing powers isn’t totally new, but within the context of this series it gets a totally new dimension. The kid (Enlike Bishile) whose story we kept seeing is basically just a Meat with his bomb removed (I assume this, at least), who was trained in a magic power, just so that his book could be absorbed by this guy.

What caused the breakdown of this guy was that Enlike somehow managed to take control over the guy’s original body. I can see this happen: nobody said that those powers are 100% accurate. His powers are very rare and unknown, and therefore he might indeed not have known what would happen if one would absorb too many books. Really, the magic system in this series is just so imaginative and well-detailed.

And the animation! While the fight scene with Noloty wasn’t quite of Birdy the Mighty, it actually came damn close; I totally take back when I said that the animation in this show would be simple. These animators here rock.

There was one part that I might have missed though: what did the old guy mean with that Enlike rejected Hamyuts Meseta’s smile? Or is this something that still needs to be revealed. After all, what was up with that blond guy? I suspect that he also has an entire backstory left to tell. And the old, bearded guy also is still a complete mystery: In the last episode, you could see that he was against the church, but here you can see him talk with other people from the church like it’s nothing. What is up with him?

Seriously though, this series is exactly why I like anime. Those series that show up completely at random and blow you away.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Whoa, this series has really gotten significantly better in the past couple of episode. It’s hard to imagine that the first few episodes were a bunch of depthless guys, because this episode had a really good main character to play with. There’s something with teenagers making an appearance in otherwise adult shows: in teenaged series they’re often annoying, but this episode had definitely its charms.

A teenager addicted to cell phones. It’s something very typical of teenagers, and the start of this episode had something sadistic, in which both Irabu, as the nurse as his classmates started picking on him. And yet, this episode did a wonderful job of making me feel sorry for this guy. The ending was really well written: there’s no forced climax, but instead it made perfect sense.

The ending would have happened as well if the guy didn’t pay a visit to Irabu, but Irabu’s addition had a very nice effect on the episode, the way in which he, after he realized that his friends weren’t who he thought he were, they simply invited him with all of the other patients. It’s an interesting story about a loner trying to fit in, yet trying way too hard in the process. In fact, his frustrations which seemed to cause his cell phone addiction (what if he got left behind by them?) only caused a distance between them.

And to a surprise, this episode continued to flesh out Irabu and the nurse, surprisingly enough. Especially that nurse is quite unexpected: I really thought that she was going to be a simple plot device. Also, this episode had quite a few of references to other episodes: there were actually quite a few cameos from previous episodes, and I also like the subtle part at which the theme song is played, and the lead character claims to really like the “drama” it’s based on. Yeah, right. ;)
Rating: ** (Excellent)

I think that at the time that I started this blog, I never would have guessed that I’d still have it four years later; it really was created on a whim, and eventually I just never had any intention or reason to quit it. Anyway, today marks Star Crossed’s fourth anniversary. Like I also did in the previous years, here are some statistics:

General Statistics:
Up till now, I’ve made 3019 posts, regularly blogged 108 different television series and 13 movies and OVAs.
The site has been received 3020186 unique visitors, which consist out of 1942846 first time visitors and 1257340 returning ones. (Basically, in the past year I received nearly the same amount of visitors as in the entire first three years combined).
18085 comments have been posted (many thanks to everyone who posted one)

Top-10 Most Accessed Series:
(note that this list is from the past year only, otherwise it’d just look too much like the list I made a year ago)
10. Michiko e Hatchin
9. Guin Saga
8. Bonen no Xamdou
7. Mushishi
6. Jigoku Shoujo
5. Pandora Hearts
4. Phantom
3. Casshern Sins
2. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
1. Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood

Top-10 Most Accessed Posts: (a bit one-sided this time)
10. Hajime no Ippo - New Challenger Review
9. Which Autumn Series do you want me to blog?
8. Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood - 23
7. Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood - 26
6. Mahou Shoujotai Review (for a series that had such an enormous impact on me, I surely did write a crappy review of it).
5. Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood - 27 (the internet is weird… this post is barely a month old… and it’s about a bloody recap…)
4. Bonen no Xamdou - 02
3. Full Metal Alchemist - Brotherhood - 19
2. Darker than Black Review
1. Top 10 Anime (the old version)

Top-10 Google Keywords: (aside from the obvious ones as “psgels”, “star crossed” and variations of “top 10 anime”)
10. Umineko no Naku Koro ni
9. Pandora Hearts Blog
8. Saiunkoku Monogatari Season 3
7. Genji Monogatari Sennenki
6. Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood 23
5. Guin Saga
4. Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood 27
3. Mouryou no Hako
2. Aoi Bungaku
1. Darker than Black Review
(Especially number 2 and 3 surprise me: those were the last two series I expected to generate lots of hits O.o)

Amusing search-terms (I can’t believe how many screwed up ones I managed to find this year…)
anime girl with 5 different personalities - Schizophrenia, anyone?

crazy person claiming to be the real neo trinity forum - I don’t know what’s worse: a person claiming such a thing, or people actually searching for this guy…

dress up kurenai sense but first she has to be naked - What the heck did this guy have in mind? O.o

hi me anime - Hi… um, me psgels

porfy is a stupid name. say it. porfy. - It’s short for Porphyras, a greek name. Obviously it’s going to sound wierd in English.

anime in which a star turns into a skateboard? - Oh god, please no!

anime were can i buy paprika - at the local supermarket?

how to blog anime - Go to wordpress.com, register and start writing

how to make an anime with you as the star - You really don’t want that to happen.

sky bolg of nice girl - Even though this is a typo, I have no idea what this guy was trying to find with this term…

what does 3 year anniversary mean - That something is three years old, idiot.

what season is august in - You seriously needed to search for this?

26 + 74 = one hundred - Erm… thank you for this piece of information…

japan, producing of the worlds weirdest shit since 1952 - Certainly!

a 13 to 15 line paragraph on how i betrayed my best friend - Write it yourself, how should I know about that friend of yours?

a anime where you can see girls - You’re going to have to be a bit more specific than that. ;)

who blogs star crossed anime - I do.

humanity calls out for a hero… can a child of ruin be the savior of mankind? anime - Oh no, not another one!

i can’t understand your blogs cuz of your bad english - Um… sorry. I’ll try to type more clearly from now on.

i will force that reasoning aside with my unreasonableness” - I like this one.

when did june start 09 - Um… on June 1st, 2009?

when some when apologize and i dont want .. nicknames - Why?

a letter to have good first impression from a nice girl - Again, write one yourself.

at the beginning, to begin with, afterwards, finally, after a while - Get on with it!

i have a great idea for an anime but don’t know what to do with it - Here’s my advice: just go sit in a corner, and wait until the idea goes away.

i’m not fully understood - Who is?

i’ve been a princess - Who isn’t?

interesting metallic thing - I really wonder what this guy was hoping to find when he typed this in…

what’s the weird anime that anne is not telling me about - … no comment.

“parents are still alive”, anime - That’s rare…

what would kaiba say - “Screw the rules I have money” (only the ones who watched the Abridged Yugioh will get this reference, but ah well).

is that a motha-fuckin’ rpg?! is that a motha-fuckin’ rpg in a backpack?! - This one’s my favourite. ^^;

IRC-Channel
Oh and if I recall correctly, a few months some people requested an irc-channel. So, why not:

#starcrossed @ irc.chatspike.net

This is pretty much an experiment, but if it catches on I’ll post a link to it somewhere on the main page.