Awesome episode! Only now I realize how similar this series is to Kurenai: we have Shinkurou taking care of Murasaki versus Shu, taking care of Sara. Manami and Ayaka are comparable to Shinkurou’s two neighbours, while Poririn and the tech-guy whose name I forgot are similar to Benika. In Kurenai, the bad guy is a family, obsessed over their own bloodline, while Crystal Blaze has a crazy scientist who’s obsessed over his own research. Both evil parties also have well-trained goons and spend the first 8 episodes, trying to track down the good party.
The big difference is that Crystal Blaze puts a lot of emphasis on storytelling, while the big focus of Kurenai is the dialogue. As a result, Crystal Blaze has a plot that continues to develop with lots of interesting twists and turns, and Kurenai is at its best when characters are just talking to each other. If I had to be honest, then I’d say that I like Crystal Blaze better, but that’s mostly because of how well it handled the beginning of its finale, when compared to Kurenai. I didn’t pay much attention to it when I watched the latest episode of Kurenai, but the fact remains that Kurenai’s wish to go back to his home one more time, even though they were discovered was stupid, while in the case of Crystal Blaze it was only a matter of time before they were found, plus Shu and the others couldn’t move anywhere because Sophia was turning into glass.
And I must say, that Sophia’s death was really built up well, and it turned out really touching. The second episode then wasted no time to give us a small gunfight, and I must say that it was quite an interesting idea to fool the enemy’s night-vision by turning up the heat to body-temperature. I’m not sure whether this actually works in real life as well, but it’s an interesting idea. On top of that, Akira’s gotten shot in his shoulder. With only three episodes left, I’m really curious to see where this one is planning to end.
Still need to get ahead with this show. But you make it sound much more interesting!