Author: psgels

Ergo Proxy – 09 – Finally some answers

by psgels, posted in Ergo Proxy



This episode answered a lot of questions about the show. And suddenly, everything begins to make sense. Warning: major spoiler coming up. Do not read the rest of this entry if you haven’t seen episode nine yet.

Anyway, the reason we don’t see the dude which appeared at the end of the episode, is simple. He only was meant for these two particular episodes. It seems that he’s saved Vincent, and took him to his home: a tower in the middle of a green, Romdeau-like city called Asura. Apparently, this dude is named Kazkiz Hauer, and he was the one controlling the autoraves from last episode. He also was the one who sent Senekis Proxy to wipe out all of the residents of Haroth (the place from episode 8). Why? Because they lived for no purpose. They had to be wiped out, and someone had to do it. At least, those are Kazkiz’ reasons. I hated him already at this point.

By the way… how the heck to you spell Senekis… or is it Senex? The same with Ril… eh.. Lil… Real… Leal… Riru? There are about a dozen different ways to spell both of their names, though which is the right one? (Raul? Raoul?)

Kazkiz then confirms that he loved Senekis, and he claims that Vincent killed her. Then we indeed get the confirmation the previous episode had been hinting at: Vincent is indeed a Proxy, though he doesn’t know it. Kazkiz gets a bit angry when he finds out about Vincent’s ignorance. He then reveals that he’s used his robots to wipe out the entire population of Asura and Haroth, and that he’s in fact a Proxy himself: Kazkiz Proxy.

It then appears that Vincent actually loved Monad Proxy, though he killed him anyway. This would explain his actions in the first couple of episodes a bit. He also gave him a part of his memories, which explains his anmesia about everything. Anyway, Monad Proxy smacks Vincent, whose eyes begin to act like a couple of flashlights, and begins to transform. No offence, but that transformation scene was horrible. Afterwards, however the show catches up to its awesomeness from before again.

Then Vincent is in his Proxy-form for the first time while realizing it. Then, however, he loses control, he fights a bit with Kazkiz Proxy, and eventualy manages to kill him. This episode was mostly meant for Vincent to discover that he is a Proxy (Ergo Proxy, hence the name of the series). I just loved the creepy atmosphere that kept playing through the entire episode. The music, along with the creepy screenpans, the dark drawings and the twisted Kazkiz provided an awesome result.

There are still so many questions left unanswered.
– Why was Kazkiz happy that Senekis was killed? Why did he pick up the joker-card and smiled in the previous episode?
– In this episode, it gets revealed that Kazkiz Proxy is the emissary of Light. Ergo Proxy is the emissary of Darkness. What does an emissary mean? And which kinds of emissaries were Monad and Senekis Proxy? What’s the relationship with this and the deck of cards from last episode?
– Why did Vincent give his memory to Monad Proxy?
– What was Monad Proxy’s human form?
– Why is he so attracted to Ril?
– In fact, why was Ril absent yet again in this episode?

It’s also very intresting that at the beginning of the show, more emphasis was put on Monad Proxy, while Ergo Proxy was put a bit in the shadows. This makes you think that the anime will be revolving around Monad, only until you find his dead body somewhere in a dark alley. In fact, I only began to see Ergo Proxy as a main character until the previous episode.

Vincent may have been amazing in his role. But the true star of this episode was Pino. As an autorave, she finally begins to think a bit on her own, instead of copying others like she used to. The result is absolutely great. She knew about Kazkiz’ identity, but she couldn’t convince Vincent to leave, so she leaves on her own. She then tries to find the Usagi (the ship the two of them travelled with) on her own. Though she then realizes that she wants Vincent along with her. That was just too awesome to see. And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that she knew all anong that Vincent was Ergo Proxy. Absolutely beautiful, though I want to see Ril again. I’d better hope that she plays another major part in the next episode!

Bleach – 79

by psgels, posted in Bleach



I still haven’t figured out whether I liked this episode or not. Renji’s first encounter with the phenomena called “coffee” was awesome, though the drama included may have been a bit too much and predictable. Our female bounto Yoshino goes to challenge the unbeatable Jin. I have no idea why. In fact, why did she even think she’d be able to scratch him?

Jin also finally reveals his plans. He wants more dolls and to turn time for the bounto’s back on. The former is about the most cliché you can ever get, though the latter shows promise. If he really wants the bounto’s to age, then what are his reasons to do such a thing? Why has he been doing so much in order to achieve this goal?

Anyway, for his plans, Yoshino’s absolutely vital. Why? Because she conveniently has the power to reproduce. Why? No idea. At the same time, Ishida is not needed anymore. The reason also remains oblivious. In fact, why didn’t Jin just beat Yoshino in the first place? He could’ve just taken her power when he first met her… Though instead, he had to execute the plan of gathering followers, absorbing living souls, kidnapping Ishida and taking out our protagonists. I guess he loves to play games…

Anyway, basically, Yoshino fights Jin, she doesn’t stand a chance, she and her doll fuse together, they still don’t stand a chance, Jin kills her. She vanishes into green sparkes, which trigger a huge wave of large mosquito’s, who apparently are newly born dolls. Nothing special, though thank goodness we still have Ishida. He has fallen in love with Yoshino, of course, and seeing him get desperate was very interesting to see.

Then we turn to the incredible Ichigo and Renji. What the heck was their role supposed to be? They came to the destroyed mansion, and start fighting a couple of goons. At the end of the episode, they’re still fighting the same goons. If they can’t even beat two of the weakest members of Bounto’s, I’m beginning to wonder what kind of training they did in the first place.

Dumped by Blogsuki, an interesting development

by psgels, posted in Special Articles

Okay, so suddenly, Jason removed Star Crossed from BlogSuki. Why? I have no idea. He gave two reasons in his little post, about the criteria of blogs to be removed. The first one is that you make make too many off-topic posts. Well I don’t recall having made absolutely any offtopic posts at all, or maybe my entry about my exams, back in december suffices, though I doubt Blogsuki ever existed at that time, so that can’t be it. The second reason he gave, was that you do not get enough readership.

So far, in the month May, Star Crossed gained an average of about 500 unique visists a day. This number has been rising ever since I set up this blog (November: 55 pageviews, December: 1233 pageviews, January: 1808, February: 2795, March: 6369, April: 13811, judge yourself). In my opinion, this is a pretty large number, though it makes me wonder what number will be good enough. In fact, I’m wondering what is even defined with enough readership. Let’s take a look at the stats for this month, shall we? What are the two pages with the most people viewing it? Higurashi no Naku Koro ni 04 and 05. Ironically, the anime with one of the most people blogging it is still way ahead of the anime I’m the only one blogging (say, Popolocrois). I just know, that if I started to blog Haruhi, Mai Otome, Fate/Stay Night and Magikano, that these would also have the same amount of readership. Does that mean that I have to start blogging just the popular shows now? Or did Jason mean something different by readership?

To be clear, this post is definately not intended to bash Jason in any possible way. After all, it’s his site, he can do what he want with it. I do admit that I’m not pleased with him kicking me just out like that, without any message whatsoever. Though I realize that it was me who sent him an e-mail in the first place, not the other way around, so I’m the one to blame in this part, it was my own responsibility. Anyway, this post is more meant as a bit of self-reflection. What am I doing wrong? (I’m obviously doing something wrong) And what can I do to improve it?

I believe that the biggest problem people have with this blog is the writing-style. Yes, I’m friggin’ Dutch. Of course my writing-style couldn’t par any of the native guys and girls out there. Just add this to the fact that I haven’t had any interest in writing until about a year ago, and you have an even more horrifying writing-style. I’ve aquired most of the writing experience I have right now in that year. One of the reasons I started this blog was also to learn more about writing, and it definately provided enough material for me to write about. I’m also finding that I’m not the best comment whore out there. And yes, indeed. I should be commenting other blogs a lot more often, though that’s just my nature. I’m horribly shy in real life. On the internet, this is significantly less, though I still find myself unable to write giant-length comments about just anything. I’m still amazed about how people like kawai are able to write such behemoths of comments, they must have some kinds of superpowers…

Then there’s the issue that passed about a week ago on Blogsuki. About the content of blogs, and how bloggers should not only post summaries, but also some in-depth articles. And indeed, all about I’ve ever done is make posts about individual episodes, write series reviews and posting previews of the upcoming seasons (heh, I’m probably the blogger who posts the earliest first impressions of all the other bloggers out there ^^;). I have some ideas about articles, though. For example a rant against people bashing RPG-based games, or a little opinion about the Naruto-fillers. (Note to self: write these articles once you have a lot of free time on your hands) I indeed hate it how lazy I am concerning these things. Another thing I’m lazy about is keeping up my blogroll. I’ve been wanting to update it for a long while now, as there are so many new interesting blogs which caught my eye.

When I look back to my earliest posts, I can see a lot of differences. At May 22nd, I’ll be celebrating the half-year aniversary of this blog, and since November, a lot has changed. First of all, my writing style was even more horrible than it is now. I think that that’s the worst thing about my posts back then. Another thing is that it really surprises me how short my posts were at that time. Most of them were as big as my individual quick first impressions right now. If you compare this with my recent posts that average about 500 words, alongside some entries which even manage to get as far as 1500, it really is interesting to notice. Though, I do have to say that I had something back when this blog was just fresh, and which I don’t have right now: my fanboyism. In the past, I used to get all giddly about some episodes, while currently, I’ve taken a way more objective look at things. Though, I’m not even good enough to say objective. I’m too happy with almost each episode I watch. Every episode is good in my standards, with only Bleach being a healthy change. I especially noted this when comparing my own entries of Ayakashi to Hopeless Sensei’s. I just had the same opinion I always have. And still, I seem to have lost my inner-fanboy. This makes me wonder whether I should pick up a show like Gintama… Anyway, I’ll try to find ways to counter this.

Another good aspect which I did have back in the old days, but don’t have right now is a simple one: Mahou Shoujotai. This is simply the best anime ever. No discussion possible. It was also one of my biggest sources of fanboyism, and one of the reasons I started up this blog in the first place. Now that I’ve finished it, I’ve ever since been searching for an anime which would be able to call Mahou Shoujotai its equal. I haven’t succeeded yet. I’ve seen a lot of amazing series, though, but they’re all just a bit below the awesomeness Mahou Shoujotai managed to create.

Though, when I look at my recieved comments, I indeed realize that this is one of the lesser sites out there. My maximum number of comments on one post remains six, while other people somehow manage to bring in fifteen comments for each one of their posts. Even if it was something as simple as a visit to the bathroom, they will be swarmed with at least ten comments, while I have to hope to get any comments at all. The comments I do get, however, are greatly inspiring. I especially love Hopeless Sensei, along with lolikitsune, Anga and Mina. I’m also incredibly glad with the people who keep pointing out mistakes I made in some of my posts, even though I don’t always show it. Believe me, I might be making the most mistakes of anyone in the blogging community.

The final flawed aspect of this blog that I can think of right now is the fact that I’m a post whore. At times, I really make four or five posts a day, because of the fact that I reserve one post per episode. When you have a day at which five episodes come in, the numbers pile up. I also keep thinking that I’m blogging way too many series at the moment. There are fourteen of them at the moment, which will soon be twelve when Noein and Jigoku Shoujo have their final episodes subbed. Then again, it will be thirteen again when Mushishi comes back into action, which could be any moment now. It’ll be most likely to come sooner than Noein and Jigoku Shoujo can finish, so I’ll eventually end up with fifteen blogged series at one moment. I might be experimenting with multi-episode posts in the future, though for organizational purposes, that would be horrible again. Still, I have been worse at times in the past. For the last couple of months, my maximum number of posts per day has been at april 1st and 2nd, after the combination of my exams and a sudden tidal-wave of new Jigoku-Shoujo and Utena-episodes coming in caused me to fall behind, and forcing me to catch up an incredible lot. Though, when you look at my christmas update, there appear to be even more posts made in one day (12, to be exact, in comparison to the 10 of april 1st).

Ah well, this event certainly won’t be keeping me away from blogging. It’s not like I needed Blogsuki anyway. Yeah, ok. It’s good and convienient for bringing in visitors, though I managed to survive for more than three months without it anyway. Also: if you’ve got a suggestion, or if you’ve got some critizism for this site, by all means, do not be afraid to post about it. I read all my comments. I’m an active member in a game-design community, so I KNOW that constructive critizism is extremely valuable. And for anyone actually bothering to get to this point of finishing the article: thanks for actually reading this little rant of mine. ^_^

Popolocrois Story 1998 – 10

by psgels, posted in Popolocrois Story 1998



It’s a shame that you never hear anyone talking about Popolocrois. This anime’s brilliant! I guess that people are turned off because of the strange character-designs and the fact that it’s based on an RPG. Well, guess what? These people are making a HUGE mistake. Just because Final Fantasy Unlimited sucked, it suddenly is common knowledge that every anime based on an RPG sucks, is just like saying that Tekken was horrible, so that must mean that every anime which involves fights is horrible as well. HUGE mistake.

This episode was one of the best yet, even if you consider the already high standards Popolocrois set. After last time’s intermezzo, we now get to see Gamigami actually carry out his plans to try and steal the Crown of Wisdom. It was in one word brilliant.

We start with the night before it all happens. Both parties prepare themselves. Pietoro swears that he’ll protect the crown, and Narcia decides to help him. The two of them looked so cute at that time. Anyway, the king’s advisor is getting more nervous by the minute, though the king uses as argument that if he can’t protect the crown, he’s not fit as a ruler. Gamigami, meanwhile, completed his newest invention, which he shows to Ston and Sanda. Hyuu, meanwhile still is in doubts.

We then switch to the next day. We’ve got a happy middle-aged woman, coming from the country and carrying a whole bunch of apples who tries to enter the castle. It then appears to be Gamigami is his new invention: a robot, capable of just about anything, including a middle-aged woman disguise. He manages to get inside the castle, and rushes to the king’s chamber. His plan is to shoot the crown right off the king’s head, though right at the moment he wants to shoot, Pietoro runs into him. It was hilarious to see Gamigami talk himself out of that situation. Then he finds another quiet spot, and Narcia runs into him. Again, the same scene of Gamigami talking himself hilariously out of the situation occurs. Then, the knight runs into him. This time, though, Gamigami’s moustache gets a bit stuck in his robot, which gives a strange moustache to the disguise.

Anyway, Gamigami begins to see that things aren’t going too well, so he decides to wait until dark. He presses a button, and what once was a woman, suddenly turned into a large cubical shelter, complete with bathroom and television. It’s a surprise nobody actually noticed it during the day. ^^;

We switch to the night. Ston and Sanda head to the castle on their own, as they have no idea what Gamigami was up to. Pietoro, meanwhile is tired, so the knight offers to take his place, so he can get some sleep. Gamigami, meanwhile, reveals his latest plan: an invisible, wall-crawling, mechanical spider. He takes a little detour, mistaking the king’s advisor’s room for the king’s, though in the end, he manages to find the right window. He enters the room, and instead of just grabbing the damned crown like Ston and Sanda (who just arrived) suggest, he reveals another one of his inventions: a crane game. This, of course, doesn’t work at all. I do love Gamigami, though. He takes simple concepts, and somehow manages to solve turn these into incredibly creative, though unneeded behemoths of concepts. Though, I guess that that’s the reason he’s brilliant.

Sanda meanwhile found an apple, dropped by Gamigami’s invention, while Gamigami begins to get a bit tired of his failures. So what does he do? He takes out even more cranes. This seems to work. They manage to hold the king down, so Gamigami has a good aim. Though, then Pietoro manages to rush in at the last possible moment, warned by Sanda and the apple he managed to find. This was probably the weakest moment of the episode. Still, I enjoyed it. And Gamigami afterwards totally makes up for this, by resorting to the thing he should’ve done in the first place: he grabs the crown and runs off. ^^;

Then we get to see a brilliant chase. Gamigami’s trying to get out of the castle, and of course, the different members of the cast try to stop him. The knight come in first, by cutting off the mechanical spider’s legs, only to reveal a couple of wheels afterwards. Then Pietoro gets a bit of help from Kai in flying mode, but Gamigami literally drives into a building to avoid the two of them. When he reaches the end of the building, he crashes though a wall, and seems to fall, only to reveal that his invention also flies. He then takes off, though Pietoro finally manages to get the crown, simply by throwing himself on Gamigami. He leaves along with Kai, and Gamigami smiles.

Popolocrois castle rejoices, Pietoro gets praised, though Gamigami isn’t done with his plans. He grabs a large speaker, takes his time in testing it, and then declares that the crown that Pietoro took back was a fake, and puts on the real one to prove it. Pablo gets angry, and throws his crown away, only to reveal that Gamigami lied about him having the real crown, which means that Pablo just threw the real crown away. Gamigami grabs the real crown of wisdom, and his mission has succeeded. Pablo admits his defeat.

Pietoro is destroyed by this moment, and breaks down. After all, he vowed to not let anyone have it, and for the second time, he couldn’t protect something important. It was just too sad to see him like that, and it also gives great potential for coming episodes. I’m beginning to like Pietoro more and more. Okay, he’s impulsive, and he wants to make as much people as possible happy. Though there’s a difference with him and all other main characters out there: he acts genuine. That’s something only girls seem to be doing in anime nowadays, though it works perfectly.

Makai Senki Disgaea – 05 – An Interesting Anime for Children

by psgels, posted in Makai Senki Disgaea



Yes, this show is meant for children. And thus, it suffers from the flaws most of the children-shows suffer from. Laharl just wanders around aimlessly and runs into random things for no apparent reason. At least, the bad guy (girl in this case) is the only one who knows this reason, as she’s apparently been waiting for him. The fights are also extremely simple. One slash or one blow and it’s over. Ah well, at least it beats Bleach’s fights. The characters also like to sing and act at random times (look back to episode three, and this episode had Laharl imitating an old Japanese-theatre). Characters also don’t need reasons, and when they do, they usually are based out of boredom (still, in Laharl’s case, they do give him a character). It also works with lots of reused-scenes. Especially the ones reused 20 times can get a bit on my nerves.

Still, the fact that it’s a children’s show also has a few good signs. To begin with, the repetition really works at times. Just take a look at Mid-Boss’ ramblings, Sardia’s continious use of the word ‘maybe’, and Etna’s struggles to not being found out by Laharl. I also notice that persons are incredibly dependant on each other. It offers a nice variation when compared to all the other anime, which try to make their characters as independant as possible. I especially love Etna in this issue. She wants the king dead, but still she clings to him for protection. It’s so cute to see. It’s also a good thing that this show knows that it’s horribly predictable, as it makes use of this at times. I’m referring to the dinner-scene. The scene’s so obvious, and Etna indeed makes indeed a comment about this, and how he’s the easiest to poison in the entire demon-world. This is quite funny, as she was the one who poisoned him in the first place.

Also, because we’re dealing with a children’s show, the art of the backgrounds has become a little brighter. Combine that with the fact that this show’s supposed to play in hell, and you get an interesting concept, which really shows. A dark forest is suddenly vibrant with colors, the desert has been more yellow than it ever was, giving it a very warm feeling, and a small lake really contrasts well with its blue water against the green grass. I found myself enjoying these backgrounds whenever a scene was taking place outside.

Makai Senki Disgaea is indeed not the best anime out there, but I love the characters somehow. They’re all like a couple of little children, with each of them trying to be something. In Laharl’s case, he wants to be cool. In Etna’s case, she wants to be with Laharl, though she tries to deny it completely. In Flonna’s case, she wants Laharl to learn about the beauties of life, even though she doesn’t understand these herself yet. These characters are each so adorable to watch, even though the show itself might be totally ridiculous.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 05

by psgels, posted in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni



Now that I found out about the premisse of the show, a lot of questions are suddenly answered. What we have here, is a story, that keeps repeating over the same timeline, though each time, the characters take different actions, which lead to different results, and in the end, different people getting killed.

While the last arc was focused on Keiichi and Rena, it seems that this arc will be focused on Keiichi and Mion. It also seems that Rika, the blue-haired girl, will play some kind of role, as we see her killing herself in the preview of this arc. I’m not too happy about the creators showing this. It spoils a bit too much, in my opinion, and it takes away a bit of the power of the scene.

I’m wondering if there’ll also be arcs at which Keiichi won’t be the one to play the role of main-character. It’d give some interesting perspective, but then again, I think that each of the other characters has her own mystery, so that idea also has some backfires.

Anyway, this episode, we are introduced to another character: Shion, Mion’s younger twin sister. This also explains the two mions next to each other in the still amazing OP. Both of them have total different personalities, and it seems that in this arc, both of them have fallen in love with Keiichi. I had a good time watching Keiichi, who originally believed that Mion and Shion were the same person, suddenly became aware that there were two of them.

I also had to get used to the fact that Rena’ll probably play a small role in this arc, so there’ll be no paranoia attacks from her for a while, in huge contrast to the previous arcs. We also get our first small part of information about Rika: she may look cute, but in fact, she’s really strong. Keiichi may not like this in future episodes.

This episode was, with ease, the quietest one of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni yet, though I think that each beginning of an arc will be like this. I wonder what the Watanagashi will bring us this time. (Interesting note the only total similarity with the previous arc so far was Rika abandoning the club-meeting to practice for her role at that time).

Tsubasa Chronicle – 28

by psgels, posted in Tsubasa Chronicle



Hmm, for some reason, the creators like to put Syaoran in the middle of explosions right before the cliffhanger. That’s the second time in two episodes he’s doing that.

Anyway, either Shougo or Nokoru is the culprit, or the both of them are involved, that can also be. The other contestants don’t have any introduction whatsoever, and I don’t see Ryuuoh being any form of bad guy, after what happened this episode. Tomoyo’s probably also involved, though I do believe that she’s still on the good side. She probably used the feather as prize to lure out a couple of criminals, because of the moment she said that certain people took the bait. Still, I wonder who this bad guy might be, who keeps pulling all of these traps.

This arc was very cleverly built up. Last time, we saw a number of people finishing the preliminaries, and qualifying for the race, but apart from Syaoran, Sakura, Kyrogane and Fye, we didn’t learn anything yet about their personalities, and who was important and who wasn’t. The introductions of the three most important contestants only followed this episode. Another interesting thing is, that even though the other contestants haven’t been introduced, you know about their personalities a bit, from the previous arcs. This way, they don’t fall like random goons, so you do feel that our protagonists are racing against other human beings. A very clever trick from the creators.

About the race: for some reason, the musicians managed to create the perfect background music to accompany it. It sounded awesome, just like last episode, and when you combine it with the other events, ranging from Kurogane getting angry because the announcer keeps calling him Kuro-tan and him and Fye finding out about how the first checkpoint works to Syaoran trying to accompany Sakura, who hasn’t mastered the flying cars yet and Shougo being the first one, along with a random contestant to clear the second checkpoint. I love it how the side-characters all get to play a very subtle role in this race, instead of being fated to go under. You also see that the best one range among the best, and the lesser ones are also the first to fall (the best example for this is the wizard from the second arc in the first season).

So far, this series hasn’t been disappointing. It shows huge premisse, both for the next episode as for the show in general. I’ve got a small issue with some coincidences which seem a bit too coincidental, though it was to be expected, as the first series suffered from this as well.

xxxHolic – 05

by psgels, posted in xxxHolic



This episode wasn’t as serious as the previous ones, it was a bit more relaxed. here weren’t any serious problems like in the previous episodes, and it basically consisted of telling the story of two supernatural foxes, a lucky arrow and Shiritori.

We start out with Watanuki and Himawari attending one of Domeki’s arrow-shooting tournaments. Domeki wins, and he gives Watanuki the end of his winning arrow, as a memento. Watanuki, of course, doesn’t like this. When he walks to Yuuko’s place in order to make her some food, he runs into a strange food-stand, and two badly drawn human-like foxes. One old, and one just a child.

He eats a bit from their stand, and gives the small fox Domeki’s arrow, which appears to be a strong fortune-bringer, keeping away evil spirits (this is logical, as it comes from Domeki, after all). The food appears to taste delicious. Watanuki then remembers that Yuuko’s still waiting for him to make her food, so he leaves. The foxes give him a little meal as thanks for the arrow.

Yuuko, of course, has run into the foxes before, as she’s totally excited when Watanuki brings their food. This has to be, of course, celebrated, involving lots of sake. We also see a couple of screens of a nearly full-moon, meaning that the next night’ll probably feature a full one.

The next day, Yuuko requests Watanuki to go back to the foxes and deliver a package (remember her policies? ^^). Though, as it will be full moon, such as hinted, in combination with friday the thirteenth, and Watanuki’s little problem, he has to be very careful. Therefore, she gives him a little backpack with wings. I don’t know where I’ve seen this, but I got a serious deja-vue with this item.

Anyway, Watanuki heads out, and indeed, he runs into evil spirits, cleverly disguised as poorly-placed shadows. The backpack seemed to contain Mokona, who starts playing Shiritori. Shiritori works like this: you start with a japanese word, and the person next to you has to say another word, beginning with the same letter the first one ended with. This seems to repel all of the evil spirits, though Mokona can’t resist to make Watanuki’s job hard by ending all of his (her? what kind of gender is Mokona actually?) words with “Ri”. We also see Mokona for the first time serious, well, at least semi-serious. I have to say that I liked this play of Shiritori, while running away from the evil spirits.

They arrive at the fox, and then it became clear that Shiritori originated from people who had to walk through evil forest-like surroundings. The Shiritori would keep away all of the evil spirits and danger. Yuuko’s package appeared to be two rare shadow-birds, who only seem to appear in the light of the full moon. The old fox seems to be quite fond of them.

For a laid-back episode like this, I liked it. xxxHolic seems to be following the same pattern Jigoku Shoujo and Mushishi did, only with a lot more emphasis on the main characters, so laid-back episodes seem to be perfect to have been included once in a while.

Saiunkoku Monogatari – 05

by psgels, posted in Saiunkoku Monogatari



I managed to see the first fansub of the series, and a couple of more things became clear. Mostly about the backgrounds of the story and people, and what position’s they’re at.

Shiurei’s family has a very important status, though despite the status, they’re incredibly poor. This is mostly because her father spent almost all of his money to good deeds. She’s not only asked to be the emperor’s concubine, she even gets to become his wife, which explains the awe everyone suddenly has for her.

Shiurei’s father is the castle’s librarian. He doesn’t make much money, though he’s a well respected man.

Ran Shiuei and Koyu are both assigned to keep an eye on the emperor. They’re both very talented commanders in the royal army, though especially Koyu isn’t too happy with his new function. They also spend most of the time idle, as the emperor keeps wandering off without a trace.

The emperor, who’s apparently named Ryuuki, is the youngest brother of five. Or six. I have no idea which is the right number, though different sources state different facts. Anyway, three, or four of his brothers died while vying for the throne. His only older brother left when he was young, so he’s been assigned to take up the throne, mostly to keep up the name of the royal family. The fight between his brothers explains why he always came so heavily beaten up to Shiurei’s father. He was the only one to comfort him.

When Shiurei got assigned as Ryuuki’s wife, Seiran, for some reason, got assigned as a captain of a certain squad (forgot its name, unfortunately). I still have no idea why, but it does explain why he keeps popping up in the castle, and not to mention why he got to participate in last week’s tournament.

Another interesting fact about the story itself: Long ago, there used to be demons roaming around the country. Then one legendary warrior came and defeated them, along with his eight supervisors: the eight sages. These eight sages continued to watch over the land, even after the death of the warrior. This’ll probably useful info for later in the series.

Anyway, about the episode, it was incredibly fun. We get to see the introduction of another side-character: Ran Ryuurei. Yes, indeed. He’s Ran Shiuei’s brother, and a very peculiar character as well.

We begin with Shiurei and her two servants holding a random conversation. We then switch back to a very hilarious scene, at which Ran Shiuei and Ryuuki talk for a bit, and Shiurei overhears them. She only hears a part of the conversation, and now she thinks that Ryuuki also has a relationship with Ran as well.

She then comes across Ran Ryuurei. He’s dressed rather odd, and when he tastes one of Shiurei’s dango, he utters some weird critizism. At least, in Shiurei’s eyes. He then randomly begins playing a flute, though it’s horribly off-key. Ran Shiuei then arrives, and recognizes his brother. He has no idea what he’s doing at the palace (heck, I still don’t know that as well), and tries to make him go back, to wherever he came from. Ryuurei just doesn’t want to, so he has to stay for a while.

Ryuurei then randomly disappears, to the great displeasurement of Shiuei, and ends up playing a card-game with the three old men. This was the first time I saw a comedical moment of theirs, and it worked pretty well. They were very angry that Ryuurei beat them all at once, and they won’t let him go until they defeated him. (Interesting note: this could be a sign for future episodes. This might show that they always act like this whenever defeated. If it does, then they’re going to play a huge and probably magnificent role).

With Koyu joining them, Shiuei and Shiurei finally get Ryuurei away from the old men. This was quite hilarious to see, especially Koyu apologizing while running away at the end. Shiurei then figures that it might be nice for the three of them to show Ryuurei a bit around the palace, but he only ends up taking a little nap at something that looks like the emperor’s throne.

When it appears that Ryuurei’ll be staying the night over at the palace, a place for him to sleep needs to get decided. Of course, Koyu gets to be the fortunate one to sacrifice himself. Needless to say that he’ll be waking up quite pissed the next morning. ^^;

Anyway, while Koyu’s getting the worst night of his life, the emperor’s heading to Shiurei’s bedroom, with a smile on his face which instantly screams that he’s been looking forward to that moment for the entire day. Then one of the three old men comes, and tells him something. The two have a serious discussion, though I have no idea about what that might’ve been. When Ryuuki reaches Shiurei’s place, she tells him how she’s studying very hard. She has probably very good reasons for this, though I have no idea what they are.

The next morning, after a little rant on Koyu’s side (^^;), Shiurei finally manages to calm Ryuurei down, to the surprisement of Shiuei and Koyu. Afterwards, the two have a bit of tea, which Kourin brought them. Ryuurei mentions a couple of things, and Kourin falls down because of these things. She’s being saved by the other servant, though this shows that there’s something on Kourin’s mind. Though I don’t know what. I guess we’ll have to find that out later.

Then Ryuuki sees the two of them walking, and asks who Ryuurei might be. When he asks for Shiurei to come with him, Ryuurei invites her to come along with him to the town, as he still has to pay her back from the dango from earlier. Shiurei agrees and Ryuuki feels a bit worried. he tells Seiran about this. I thought that he also ordered Seiran to follow them, but we never see Seiran again this episode, so they must’ve been talking about something else.

In town, we get to see that Ryuurei’s the total opposite of Ginko when it comes to playing the merchant: he sees a bag of beans, and buys it. He then trades the beans for a couple of eggs, the eggs for selery, the selery for firewood, the firewood for flowers, the flowers for a fish and the fish for pack of straw. He finally gives the straw to a lonely child, who just spilled hers all over the ground, making it useless. He ends up with only one piece of straw left, at which he keeps staring for a couple of seconds. Even though the meaning of this remains oblivious, I somehow found this very enjoyable, seeing Ryuurei just trade random, useless things for even more useless things. The face he kept when doing all of this was priceless.

Now that I think a bit about it, it appears to be that the two of them were looking for some kind of food, as Shiurei suddenly seems to be all giddly over a fish. But then again, she probably never ate any fish, so it she must be very curious about trying one. Still, it’s nice to remember this. It might come back.

Anyway, we turn to dinner, at which the two of them begin to get a bit closer, and finally, Ryuurei starts to fall for Shiurei as well. I was really reminded of the harem-shows at this time, though almost all of them had something that Saiunkoku Monogatari doesn’t have: an impulsive young male lead. Because of this tiny difference, I managed to enjoy this.

We then have some final discussion between Shiurei, Shiuei, Ryuurei and Shiurei’s father (these names look a lot like each other, don’t they?), and Ryuurei leaves. I don’t know what happened in this discussion, though it left a great impact on Shiuei. We end the episode with Ryuuki trying to make up with Shiurei, by buying her what looks like the most horrible and useless stuff ever. And in large quantities as well. Shiurei, of course, doesn’t like this. ^_^;;

Like I said before, I really liked this episode. Each of the characters is unique, and funny in his or her own kind of way. And even though the show contains healty amounts of comedy, it knows when to be serious, and leave the jokes aside. I really like the way this anime is going.

Good Witch of the West – Astraea Testament – 02

by psgels, posted in Good Witch of the West - Astraea Testament



This episode was a bit confusing and hard to understand, though if I’m not wrong, the following things became clear:

– Firiel is Adale’s sister, I guess this would be a half-sister, as her father isn’t the same as Adale’s.
– Roux is the easiest way for the enemy to find out about Ephemeris, as Firiel’s father’s now nowhere to be found and the books regarding the Ephemeris are burned.
– Roux really hates all kinds of nobles.
– Whoever’s blood can react with the queen’s stone, has the right to become queen.
– Somehow, the queen can also be called the Good Witch of the West, though I have no idea why.

Apart from that, we have a very deep storyline going on, though I don’t understand any of it yet. I think we get more info on that in the next couple of episodes, because after all, this only has been the second episode. A scene that caught my eye was where Roux got tortured. This was probably the first time ever I’ve seen a mere child get this treatment.

This was clearly an intermezzo-episode. It wasn’t as good as the first one, but still I enjoyed watching it. The characters, for one, were very interesting, apart from perhaps Adale. I don’t know why, but she’s a bit too friendly with Firiel.