Remember that episode in which that kid stood amongst a crowd that was looking at some sort of fight going on? Yeah, this episode explains the reason behind it: a reporter with an out of control obsessive compulsive disorder was attacking a homeless guy for groping school girls. Makes sense. :P

But yeah, this episode showed yet again that the psychology is just a vehicle to this show’s real purpose: entertainment. This really turned out to be a show that makes fun of obsessive compulsive disorders, but it does it in such a way that it also becomes a bit relatable. And really, this series works great as a comedy: that chase scene was really hilarious in its over-the-topness.

And yet, this episode actually had quite an interesting message as well, the fact that not every psychological ailment can be cured. Here we have a guy who can do his research, and thinks that for every ailment there’s a sure-fire cure. In the end though, he just ends up living with his ailment. I think that this was actually one of the more powerful endings that we’ve seen in this series yet.

I’m actually pretty curious to what this show has in store for its final episode. With the way that it keeps referencing previous episodes, there is a possibility for it to take this to a next level at the end.

At this point, I’m pretty sure of how I’d rank this year’s Noitamina-series:
4) Eden of the East
3) Kuchuu Buranko
2) Genji Monogatari Sennenki
1) Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

It’s overall been a great year for this timeslot, full of daring concepts and creative ideas. Sure, some series didn’t go as well as planned (Eden of the East… I still believe that it was poorly balanced), but you can see that a lot of time an effort has been put in every single one of them.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Okay. What the heck?

This episode had a very good chance to be among the best of this series yet. It was chock full of character-development, changing relationships, extra character-backgrounds, characters coming to realizations. Touya spinning even more out of control, and yet everything fitted. To think that Menou was the president’s daughter! That fully explains her rebellious attitude and it also gives a whole direction to Mana’s loneliness: she doesn’t just suffer from being neglected by her mother, but she also has to endure the fact that her older sister gets much more attention, because she just happens to be able to sing well.

Also, Akira and Misaki have finally broken up, which also really had it coming. Even though Touya tried to stay away from them, it was clear that Misaki still had feelings for him. She tried dating Akira, but in the end her feelings remain. Touya then obviously continues to screw even her. Or at least this is implied very heavily.

But yeah, we get more and more evidence that everything that made Touya the way he is stems from his childhood, and his relationship with his father. My guess is that the reason his father kicked him out of the house was in a desperate attempt to make him create his own happiness. It’s clear now that his father was very bad at raising his son: he wanted to reach out to him when Touya was feeling down, yet instead he tried making little girls do it.

But then, yeah. The cliffhanger. KANON-SPOILERS in the next paragraphs.

Akira… was hit by a car. Bloody hell, it’s now certain that the creators are planning to drop a bomb during the finale. I have to praise this show for really making me not suspect anything: even in retrospect, it came completely out of the blue: no shallow build-up or foreshadowing. But yeah: car accidents are always tricky to do. The question is: did the creators have a clear purpose for it. Are they going to use this to get the best out of the characters… or was this just a cheap death for extra melodrama.

I remember when Kanon pulled this, and I was reminded the most of that particular scene when Akira crashed down. In Kanon, it hardly served any purpose; it felt random and out of place, and just for the sake of a sad climax. This is pretty common in anime (or any other storytelling medium, I guess): We need extra drama! Let’s have a car run over someone!

These final episodes are really going to make or break this series. It’s been building up to this for so long, there had better be fireworks at that ending. What I want to see is total chaos that yet stays in canon with the rest of the series: I want melodrama that fits within the story without any cheap plot twists pulled solely for the purpose of extra drama. We’ve got Code Geass for that.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

And here the next arc starts, and the creators yet again have found themselves a great concept. It’s here where any concept of “main character” gets completely lost. I guess that really the closest thing to a main character in this series has to be Hamyuts Meseta. Not because she has the most screentime, but rather that she’s somehow involved in every episode, even if it’s just watching from the sidelines. There’s still so much that we don’t know about her.

But yeah, even though Bones has its powerhouses of Full Metal Alchemist and Darker than Black, for me this remains the series with the best fights of all of the currently airing shows. Armed Librarians has this whole extra layer of strategy involved. It actually succeeds in something that only few series can boast: it has incredibly powerful characters, it has intricate strategies, and it has incredibly dangerous villains who can easily take out any moron who comes in their path. And yet, these incredible superpowers remain well defined, matched and logical.

Compare this to just about any other anime in which characters have huge superpowers: especially in the case of the villains, writers tend to write themselves into a wall with these types of characters: how the heck do you beat them without giving your main characters some godmode powers as well? It leads to huge power-level inconsistencies. And Armed Librarians is one of the few shows who can actually avoid it, thanks to Hamyuts Meseta, but also because its characters use their own powers wisely. In this series, you get a very good view of everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, and what their powers allow them to do. Even Hamyuts Meseta, the most powerful character in the series isn’t simply god-moded either: you can see that it’s possible for her to be defeated, if it wasn’t for Colio.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

I had my doubts when I heard that the goofballs of the first season would return in this episode. Especially combined with Hei, shaving his beard: the creators would have to very skillfully write these final episodes, even more than the previous eight episodes. The danger of this show turning into one that goes into its on direction, yet gives up in the end and simply decides to go with the tried and true formula of the first season would be disastrous.

Instead, what this series now has to do is instead of completely going back to the style of the first season, bring both seasons together: converge the two of them into one. And bloody hell, this episode actually did it.

Of course, this perhaps wasn’t the best episode of the second season, but the two goofballs were a lot less annoying than what I remember them to be. They again had a clear purpose: to form a contrast with the contractors in this series, and they went further than the goofball in this series by actually pushing Suou towards meeting her mother; something that she for some reason didn’t look forward to. It’s a really good episode that contributed to how she’s struggling with her own identity as a contractor, while brilliantly having her avoid the usual angsty indecisive teenager route.

On top of building upon the themes of the second season, this episode was also chockful of references to the first season: Amber seems central to the plot, Hei has cut off his hair and finally has another reason to act like the nice guy he pretended to be in the first season. What’s more, some of the characters of the first season seem vital to the plot of the second season. You can see that the creators have put a lot of thought into it.

That scene in which Suou met her mother surprisingly lacked impact for me, though. I’m not sure what it was, but I was much more interested in just about everything around it. There are still a few huge questions behind it that need answering: why that woman from the CIA direct Suou to her mother? What is she trying to achieve? What has Suou’s mother been up to anyway?

Also, colds in Japan are weird. Instead of taking quite a few days to blow over, you simply faint, sleep and it usually completely disappears after a few hours. Either that or a lot of Japanese mistake colds for anemia, which is also much more common than where I live…
Rating: * (Good)