This episode was extremely cool. Fandavale turns out to be a very interesting world. The newly introduced characters really work well alongside the others.
I was also very surprised when I found out that Randagio isn’t Puss in Boots after all. He’s part of the Town Musicians of Bremen. This really teaches to look a bit further into backgrounds. ^^ These town musicians were a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster, who head to Bremen to become musicians. Of course, these four animals don’t exactly produce operasounds. It’s more like a composition of yelling, barking, squeaking and screaming. Though a possible meaning of the original fairytale is to symbolize that Bremen in that time was a free trading city, in which there was a spot for every possible profession. I wonder whether the creators of Otogi Juushi Akazukin will be using this. Another strange thing is that the dog seems to have made way for a squirrel. I’ve got no idea why this is…
Anyway the episode featured a lot of talking, unfortunately. It made the episode awesome, though difficult to understand at the same time. Still, I do think that I managed to catch the most important details. I hope. In any case, we go to Fandavale, in which Souta and the others appear. The slide funnily enough continues in the sky of Fandavale. I think it’s named the “Otogi-Road”, or “Fairy Road”. This is what connects Erde and Fandavale.
In any case, the slide is quite rough. And long. However, this Fairy-Road seems to be breaking down. Shirayuki reckons that it’s because something happened to Fernando. It seems that he’s responsible for maintaining this road. Now that he’s gone, it breaks down. Unfortunately, Souta and the others are still on it when it does, so they fall from the sky. Shirayuki covers the ground with snow, in an attempt at a safe landing. She, however, makes the now a bit too fluffy, with hilarious results. ^^
We then see some bird-like creature (actually the rooster of the Town Musicians), in some kind of dungeon. One person is held captive. It seems that he’s refused to eat, or respond to anyone, in fact. The rooster teases him a bit, though he still remains as silent as ever. Then, it’s time for a flashback, explaining why he ended up the way he did.
The guy seems to be named Harmeru (I do hope I spelled that right). He’s a warrior in Fernando’s army. Quite an important one. The flashback shows him fight off some monsters who invaded. When he does, he runs off, and notices some suspiciously darkened grass. Probably a barrier. He then sees two Nightmarians attacking other soldiers, and he fends them off using some kind of magic horn, producing sound-magic. When the Nightmarians are gone, he notices the guy behind all this. Another new character: Datamarche (probably the worst way to spell it, but whatever). It seems that he once was a warrior for Fernando as well, though he changed sides to Cendrillion, Hansel’s master. Then, Datamarche seems to be attacked by his own Nightmarians, ironically enough.
We then switch to a meeting of Fernando and Harmeru. Fernando regrets that something happened to Datamarche. He also tells Harmeru that he’ll be leaving to do some tasks of high priority, which would explain his sudden disappearance. What kind of tasks these were, I couldn’t understand, unfortunately. Fernando then orders Harmeru something resembling having to wait for Erde’s key to return. In the end, he was captured by the enemy. They took over the castle, and locked Harmeru away.
Back to Akazukin&co, Shirayuki notices the same barrier from before, and they reach the castle. Nobody’s there at the moment, as either the soldiers seem to have left, been captured or they were all killed off. It’s indeed suspicious, so Souta and Ringo stay behind while Baru, Shirayuki, Ibara and Akazukin check things out.
Inside the castle, they hear weird singing come out from one of the room. They only can recognize the silhouettes of the creatures, so they think that they’re dealing with Nightmarians. The creatures also loudly sing about how they caught Harmeru. We then switch to Hansel and Cendrillion, having a talk. For some reason, Cendrillion is locked inside a huge mirror. Either she chose to do that herself, or she has been locked away or something. They seem to be planning… something. Didn’t understand that. Sorry.
Souta, meanwhile, is as happy as a cat in a fishstore with a sign “Cats Allowed”. Elementary, Fandavale contains lots of flowers an Souta really has a great time discovering this. He also discovers something else, nothing like flowers at all: a couple of tin cans. In the end, it seems that Randagio landed in the same place they did, and decided to take a little nap, leaving all of the canned food he took from Erde (see episode 2 ^^) for everyone to see. Ringo indeed wonders what something like that is doing in Fandavale, only to realize that Randagio has woken up. They then decide to hide themselves in his backpack, which inevitably becomes extremely heavy for Randagio to carry. ^^;
Back to the castle, in which Akazukin, Ibara, Shirayuki and Baru are about to attack the silhouettes who suspiciously look like Nightmarians. They’re quite surprised when they find a weirdly dressed rooster, squirrel and donkey instead. These three then prove their name by attacking with soundwaves. The rooster also puts up a talk, which made me suspect that they were never good at anything, though Cendrillion made them see their good points. He says this while being surrounded by a heavenly-looking light, which makes you suspect whether they really are evil. Shirayuki, meanwhile, creates a barrier, disturbing this strange monologue.
I especially like the squirrel and the donkey. They don’t say a lot, though they’ve got funny and interesting personalities. The rooster, meanwhile, heads for the basement, in which Harmeru is locked up. He then threatens to hurt Harmeru. Akazukin wonders why Harmeru managed to be locked up, as he’d easily have been able to escape.
The rooster also seems to have Harmeru’s horn, though Ibara attempts to steal it from him. This causes the horn to fly away, and hit Randagio in the head. Apparently, he just arrived, quite tired. ^^; Then, the four musicians introduce themselves: Randagio (the cat), Alekturne (the rooster), Anen (the squirrel, seriously, why a squirrel? It’s supposed to be a dog) and Ensel (donkey). Again, I hope that I managed to spell their names correctly. Katakana can be such a bitch at times.
They actually continue their introduction by singing a horribly corny and more importantly ugly song. Thank god Shirayuki ends this fast by dropping a block of ice on their head. Alekturne answers this by stepping on Randagio’s tail, making the poor guy scream, creating another attack with soundwaves even Shirayuki isn’t able to block. Then, when he sees that he actually did something good, he gets surrounded by the same heavenly light Alekturne was surrounded in earlier. Same cheesy monologue included.
Harmeru, meanwhile, has remained silent the entire time. Meanwhile, Souta starts speaking from Randagio’s backpack. Randagio’s look was priceless when he found out what he’d been carrying all this time. ^^; In any case, Souta’s presence makes Harmeru talk. He frees himself when he learns that Erde’s key has arrived. Alekturne grins, however, as he still has Harmeru’s horn. He gives it to Randagio, who attempts to blow it, though nothing happens. Then, Harmeru grabs a stray leaf, left on Souta, and produces sound-magic along with it. It seems that you indeed need to master the instrument before you can use it. That’s so much better than the ones who see a weapon and instantly master it without any training at all. The city musicians are experts on creating voice-sound magic. Harmeru, however, is an expert in sound magic using blowing-instruments (how did you call these again). (By the way, the leaf produces an interesting sound. You wouldn’t expect it from such a small thing).
In any case, the leaf makes the City Musicians fall asleep. We then return to the throne room, where the City Musicians are tied up and which Harmeru informs the others informs the others about Fernando. When that’s finished, it seems that the City Musicians have escaped. Later, Harmeru leaves the others in order to save Fernando. I’ve got no idea what Souta and the others are supposed to do, though.
I’m also not sure why Harmeru kept silent all this time, not responding to anything. Same thing with what happened to Fernando. In the end, it seems that he was captured by Cendrillion after all. Fernando told Harmeru afterwards to wait for Souta, though apparently, Harmeru took this a bit too literal, and did nothing but wait for Souta. There’s got to be a better explanation than this.
Overall, this episode was fun. Especially the City Musicians’ hopeless attempts at singing. It sounded rather cute in a way too. Apart from that, this episode also was surprisingly dark for a show with such a nature. There’s indeed an interesting plot being developed. Also, with episodes like this one, I really regret that I set the standard of just six screenshots per image. There are so many interesting scenes to show.
Just one thing… what happened to Gretel?
The best part of the episode was when the chicken release Randagio’s ultimate attack by stepping on his tail. ^_^
Hehe, that was a great moment indeed. I also loved it when Shirayuki dropped the block of ice on the Musicians. ^^