Haha! I knew it! Even though the creators may have been trying to not show Marcoh’s new face for a while, they still were trying too hard in the way that absolutely nothing of his face was shown. Not even hints. Besides, the total absence of Mai Chang also showed that the hooded guy that travelled with Scar was one big decoy; otherwise there was no reason for him to split up with Mai Chang and the moustache guy.

Nevertheless though, that fight between Scar and Kimbley kicked ass. While not the deepest character, Kimbley has this air around him that makes him fun to watch. He’s definitely a big change from the first season. It’s one thing that he was a purely evil maniac back there, but the absolutely pathetic way the creators used him in the final parts of the series really made him into one my least favourite characters of the first series.

It’s also interesting that the creators actually paid attention to the effects of heat and cold on metal in this episode. It seems that the winter has arrived, and on top of that Ed and Al have travelled to a high and cold mountain range in the middle of a blizzard. And his automail actually causes him troubles. The strange thing however, is that alchemy suddenly also stopped working. Seeing the nature of alchemy and Rentanjutsu, could it be that something exists that only allows alchemy to be used in certain places? Like, rentanjutsu is the alchemy that’s used throughout the world, but someone created renkinjutsu, which only can be used inside the country.

Armstrong’s older sister is also quite different from what I imagined. While Armstrong always had something comical about him, his sister is dead serious. Or at least, at first sight. And yet, she seems to be even more dangerous than he is.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Holy crap, a double feature of one of my favourite currently airing series. Can things get any better? Episodes 7 and 8 animate the story of Kokoro. I’m not going to bother making separate entries for these two episodes, because they were bundled together as one. And really, Kokoro is just as good, if not better than the previous stories!

During the first half, it might seem a bit like a step down in comparison to In the Woods and No Longer Human, in which we have this lead character who lives together with a woman he likes, and he then invites a friend of his to live in his house, to study with him. This friend quickly steals the girl he likes away. For the most of the first episode, it’s a bit too one sided.

Then the second episode starts, and the fun begins, and the story gets a completely different dimension.

The second episode actually shows the same story from the perspective of the friend. While he was this big brute who took advantages of women in the eyes of the lead character, his real character is completely different. What an awesome idea, and it’s really well executed. This episode is really about love and prejudices, and what they can do to people who normally would just hang out peacefully together. Because they only know part of the story, people’s imaginations start filling in the blanks. Notice how some details of the story differ from the perspective of both of them: the parts in the first episode in which the tall guy was alone simply are what the lead character thought that he was doing at the time.

The rest of this series’ schedule also seems to be a bit weird. Hashire Melos! seems to air regularly during the next two weeks. After that, there is a break of TWO WEEKS, until the second day of Christmas, at which both the final stories will air. I really love the tight schedule of the past few weeks: sundays have always been a blast thanks to this series, but those two weeks are probably going to be one hell of a wait for the final two stories.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Japan: the only country in which elementary schoolers can become masters of aikido. After watching anime for quite a while, I still haven’t figured out how they manage to pull off their notorious work ethic.

In any case, another very nice episode for this show. There’s lots of slice of life, as this episode shows the start of the new year. Although I don’t think that you should be watching this series for its plot, there were quite a few new developments in this episode: Momiji has herself a boyfriend (interestingly enough, she denied it in front of Kou, and yet she called him her boyfriend (in third person, strangely enough) during her silly little “Cross Game Quiz” at the beginning of the episode.

Also, this episode returned to Aoba’s own ambitions: she’s never going to be able to participate in Koushien, and instead of joining a female baseball team, she just stubbornly hangs around with Kou’s team. Kou in the meantime also keeps hanging around Akane (helping her with delivering). It just shows how the two of them, even six years after Wakaba’s death, still are very much influenced by her memories. After all, if Akane would have looked differently, I doubt that he would have given her as much attention as he is now.

Overall though, this was a very fun episode. Seeing everyone hang out and spend the first day of the new year in their own way was very enjoyable to watch. Screw the baseball matches, this is what makes Cross Game awesome.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

whoa. Just when I thought that this show couldn’t pull any more plot twists. This episode yet again pushes the story into a completely different direction. Obviously, if you haven’t seen this episode yet: beware for spoilers because this episode ties up a lot of the mysteries in this series.

Because holy crap, it was Damya all along. This guy really struck me as someone with ambitions, however also with loyalties to the Queen. Turns out, it was all an act: he was the one who ordered the collection of Touda eggs, the attack on the queen, and all of the other things that those masked guys did. On top of that: Kirik is one of them! He was the one who nearly escaped from Ialu a couple of times, and now he’s been sent to keep out an eye for Erin.

This episode also put in some major development for Kirik, and it really paid off. We finally get to fully see what that flashback of his meant: he and his sister were orphans, and were taken in by people who just wanted to kill the two, so he ended up poisoning them. The climax really worked, between him and Ialu.

But yeah, the worst part is going to be Erin: we now know that she’s really been tricked, and that Damya has no good intentions for her whatsoever. Throughout the entire episode, we could only see her sitting in a corner, thinking of the possibility of having the Beast King force disbanded. With only five episodes left, the end is finally getting in sight.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

While still formulaic, this show has just gotten an a bit more interesting. We’re still in the formula of “Lag meets someone related to the plot, Lag cries, lag tries to save”, but the plot in question has gotten quite a bit more interesting now, and this episode did well in exploring it.

Right now, this series’ biggest enemy is cheese. This episode kept it within bounds and even Lag’s crying felt genuine, but that was because it was simply building up. The next episode is going to have to put in some real effort in preventing this episode from going down the same route as episode 6. That plot definitely has potential, and I like the subtle ties that are created between the different characters (that blond-haired office Bee turns out to be a former friend of Gauche, for example).

What stood out in this episode were Nichi’s weird antics again. I’m not sure what’s up with her, but she constantly manages to amuse me, even when she’s supposed to stay in the background while Lag is talking to someone. It’s not much, but it’s things like these that keep me from getting bored during the more quiet parts of this series.
Rating: * (Good)