Kobato - 20
You know what this episode reminds me of? That one episode of Touka Gettan: the Lost Episode of Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito. The Tsubasa Chronicle cast drops by, they have nothing to do with the story, and at the end they just say goodbye and leave again to go back to their own story when there don’t seem to be any feathers here (or whatever they’re searching for at this point in the story, since Sakura was absent and all…). At the start of this series, when I found out that this kind of an episode would pop up I was very afraid that they would hog up all the screentime, but this was a really good episode, which made them more than Clamp’s usual cameos, and yet didn’t overdo it.
On top of that, the few revelations that their visit brought was interesting. It was a nice way to hint at Ioryogi’s original form. Who knew that he was his world’s Kurogane. I never realized that they had the same voice actor, and exactly for that reason. I also love the way in which Fye wished Ioryogi good luck with Kobato. He clearly seemed to know what was up with her.
In any case, this episode skips about a month and a half forward to Valentine. Predictable, but at this point I don’t care. For me, this show has reached the point where the creators can stuff their characters in any sort of setting, and make it utterly enjoyable. The valentine episode also was surprisingly good for the romance in this series, without going too obvious. You can see that Kiyokazu has grown a lot closer to Kobato during the past months that weren’t shown, and the valentine’s episode wasn’t used as a cheap knock-off getting the two of them together. Speaking of which: I very much approve of series that keep track of their own time: that’s an awesome way of showing the development between the characters, and making it less sudden.
And that ending was very powerful. That’s some great build-up there: this moment was bound to come: Kobato was bound to run short on time because of how easily distracted she can be. As a kid at heart, she constantly needed to be pushed by Ioryogi and yet you can see that she genuinely wants to go to some place. We have no idea why, all we know is that it’s something very important for her and that she’ll never have any more chances after the deadline passes. With four episodes left, I hope she gets there.
strong>Rating: ** (Excellent)
ED: Really weird place for a new ED, but better than the first one and a solid ballad.