Okay, I was wrong. Roux didn’t come to Toras in order to protect Firiel, he came to Toras because he wanted to get out of the castle, which backfired a bit, so he ended up dressed as a woman in the Secret Garden. The episode answered a number of small questions which came up in the previous episodes. They’re more like details, though they’re good to know.
Whenever the story turns to Roux, the overall mood remains horribly dark. There were no Princess Princess references at all. On a side-note, there were plenty of Utena-references, though. These really made me rejoice. The scenes weren’t as obvious, but the fencing, the stances and the elegance really reminded me of the style that Utena posessed.
Anyway, when the story turns to Firiel, however, the mood of the show suddenly turns light. She suddenly has friends, when compared to the previous episode, and people actually start to notice her. This episode was sortof like a room with a broken light: light-dark-light-dark-light-dark, et cetera.
Anyway, the episode starts with Firiel questioning Roux. Roux gives his explanation, and reminds Firiel that she’s easy to fall for traps. When he walks alone a couple of hours later, he gets cornered by the student council. Apparently, they run some kind of policy to check the underwear of each of the new transfer students coming in. (Hmm, why wasn’t Marie a victim?) Roux, however, reacts totally different than Firiel did, and he manages to get away.
Later, when Firiel, Marie and Roux have lunch (or breakfast, though it seems too late for breakfast), Roux tells what happened, and Firiel is glad that the student council didn’t discover Roux’ identity. Then, they notice that everyone suddenly stares at them. Not with anguish, but with awe. This is either because Roux looks cute in some strange way, or they found out that Firiel made friends with Adale. I’d put my money on the last one.
That night, Roux decides to pay Firiel a visit, and invites her for a play of chess. It really was a good idea of Eusis to introcude Roux to this game, as he’s quite fond of it already. During this game, however, Firiel discovers that not everything of the Ephemeris (Firiel’s father’s research) was burned in the first episode. This was probably the first time that Firiel managed to surprise Roux with her knowledge. Roux then teaches her a few things about the link between chess and the real world.
Another interesting fact is that the main sister of the school, Sister Lain, is often compared to the Astraea statue in Toras. This is why everyone calls her the affectionate spirit. (Roux again uses this moment to point at her slow thinking. Even though she’s one of the smarter main characters out there. But then again, Roux’ awareness is a very extreme example).
We then turn to the end of one of the classes. Roux is sleeping (after all, why would he want to follow courses in order to please men, except for giving Adale a huge source of inspiration?) and Vincent asks Firiel to come with her. She wants Firiel to challenge Ravenna (the leader of the apparently “Fake” student council. Makes you wonder what happened to the “Real” student council) to a sword duel. In sword duels, not the strongest ones win, but the most elegant ones win. I like this. It really reminded me of Utena.
Anyway, we turn to that night, Roux takes a bath, and suddenly he recieves a love-letter. He shows this to Firiel, and she really gets angry at the line at which the girl professed her love for him, though the viewer’s attention was more directed to the sentence above: “In my mind, your back looks just as graceful as stars.” This can’t be a coincidence, after what happened in episode two, and yes, our suspicions get confirmed the day after.
Firiel is determined to find out who the girl was, though she gets dragged off by the Uo and Hana-clones, bringing her to Vincent for her first training. Roux, meanwhile, gets visited by this girl who wrote the love-letter. It appears to be Sister Lain. She mentions Hermes Trismegistus, otherwise known as the leader of the bad guys. She then forces Roux to obey, otherwise she’ll hurt Firiel. I’m very interested to see what he’ll do in response to this. After all, he’s got brains for a reason.
Firiel, meanwhile, gets introduced to another character: Igraine. She’s a master-swordsman, and she’ll be the one to train Firiel’s swordsmanskills. Firiel’s a fast learner, and judging from the battle-choreography from the mock-fights shown in this episode, the swordfights in the next episode might become extremely worthwile. Ravenna then decides to pay the two a visit, after which becomes revealed that the late Roselite was very good friends with Igraine, though she eventually chose for Ravenna. Igraine hates Ravenna because of this, explaining her motivation to train Firiel. Another Utena reference: the more Firiel fights, the more people become to admire her, and watch her duel. Meanwhile, we see Lain staring from a window, with a big smirk on her face. This should promise something for the next episodes.
That night, Firiel discovers a chess-piece from Roux’ chess-game, which she knocked off a night earlier. When she comes to bring it back to him, she finds him in a nightmare, and she discovers all of his scars. What follows is a very nice emotional scene (very early as well, considering that this is only the fourth episode). It becomes even more clear that even though the two of them argue a lot, they will be protecting each other.
