Popolocrois Story – 1998 – 20 – Let’s Hope the Final Episodes Arrive Soon

by psgels, posted in Popolocrois Story 1998



I finally managed to catch up with the fansubs. Now all that’s left is hope that they come out soon. Overall, the series was at its best at episodes 8-14. At that time, Gamigami played a huge role, though now he’s a bit too pityful. He doesn’t really work if he’s trying to be serious, although episode seventeen remained awesome. Though that did make me hope for the love-potion to wear off soon.

This episode, Hyuu tries to tempt Pietoro by promising to return his dragon powers, if he promises to stay with her forever. I feel that she tries a bit too much and too long. Though I don’t think that she has any better methods of convincing Pietoro, so we might see some change in this soon. The great element in this episode came from Ston and Sanda.

The two of them are just so incredibly indecisive. They were looking like crazy during the previous episode, but at the beginning of this one, Ston had already given up. Only to realize that the wind-kind will punish him if he doesn’t look after her. Later in the episode, they attempt to actually kidnap Pietoro, because he is the one who makes Hyuu not want to go back.

Overall, Gamigami was funny, though his brilliance lies in his countless inventions. He hasn’t been inventing much lately, unfortunately. Narcia was still extremely cute, though. The entire episode was focused on one decision Pietoro had to make. He chose the most ambitious option, though it’s indeed clear that Hyuu won’t continue as queen much longer. The last five episodes will probably focus on getting rid of the wind-kind.

Memorable moment: Ston and Sanda trying to kidnap Pietoro. And failing.

Nitaboh Review – 65/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Nitaboh is a historical movie. It plays in Japan, from 1865 till about 1875. Japan is gradually getting more and more american influences. The movie follows the rise of Nitaboh (hence the movie’s name). Nitaboh became blind when he was eight years old, due to an epidemic. Ever since, he’s been enjoying things that make sounds. When he, three years later, gets into contact with a shamisen (a three-stringed japanese guitar. Mostly played by blind people. Think Samurai Champloo 20 and 21), he decides to be a great shamisen-player. Because of his hard work, he manages this in the end.

This movie is ninety minutes long. After watching it, I had a good feeling about it. Some great and inspirational scenes are featured. Some of the tunes are surprisingly good. Both the shamisen-tunes as the regular background tunes. Seeing Nitaboh train hard, even when suffering works really inspirational. His friends also add up to this fact. The characters are really likeable. Still, there’s one big issue with this movie: it’s slow. Very slow. This makes most of the scenes in this movies very boring. But the few good scenes become great due to this effect.

The art looked a bit messy at times, though through the major part of the movie, it looked very crisp. Especially the very few action scenes it featured came out great. Still, when people played shamisen, their movements still didn’t look right. It’s something no anime has yet to accomplish: showing expert musicians playing their instruments. They always smuggle, making everything look unnatural. Nitaboh gives a good attempt, but the movements of the musicians’ hands is too fast and too unnatural.

Overall, this movie is good, but it didn’t feel like it was worth the time it took. If you’re really bored you could check this out, but most of the anime is just a bit too slow. But that’s the case with most historical anime.

Some quick first impressions: Coyote Ragtime Show, Tsuyokiss and Zero no Tsukaima

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

We now turn to the second batch of summer-anime. These were the shows which were the most hyped for the summer-season.

Coyote Ragtime Show

This is a science-fiction action series which just oozes with style. The first episode was more focused on the side-characters, instead of the main characters, which means that we haven’t seen too much of what this anime will really be like. We did get the chance to take a good look at the bad guys, though. It seems that they’re an army of twelve extremely dangerous cyborg-sisters with highly developed artificial intelligence. Only that was enough for me to keep following this series, though the best part of this anime is the action sequences it features. A lot of things happen at once, events succeed each other in a rapid pace and the music is awesome. It did have some boring parts, but overall, I liked this first episode.

Tsuyokiss

When I first heard about this show, I feared that it would probably become horrible, with each character as a tsundere. Still, it was better than I expected. Then again, my expectations weren’t what you’d call high. I’d describe this series as plain mediocre. It’s not nessecarily good, but not bad either. It wasn’t scared to throw all of the harem-cliche’s on one pile, the little brat, the silent girl, the annoying student council member and the big-breasted teacher. But the brat was okay, I guess. I also like the orange haired girl. Though my main problem with this series were the main characters. Both the male as the female one. Whenever the two of them were together, this series became predictable as hell, and not in a good way. Actually, I think that if Tsuyokiss would have been a yuri-anime, it would have stood a chance (the hug was about the only effective scene in this), but the male main character will probably ruin things. Still, I’m really recommending this to you if you have some sort of sleeping problem. Just watch the episode right before sleeping, and I’ll be a definite help.

Zero no Tsukaima

Now this is the real garbage of this season. What we have here is a pretty good concept, being handled by the guys who produced Shana. The result is a horrible mess. Everything that could have been messed up has been messed up. The backgrounds feature some fancy CG, but in exchange for that, they lack in so much detail. A room feels more like a cheap movie-stage now. The main characters aren’t any better, as they fit every stereotype in existance. The bishounen could have been so much funnier and half of the scenes just seem aimed to display as much fanservice as possible. The anime also shows that there hasn’t been any research put into the world, as the concepts just seem totally random and convenient. My advice is to not even touch this series with a ten-foot pole.

Otogi Juushi Akazukin – 02 – Akazukin = God

by psgels, posted in Otogi Juushi Akazukin



I’m going to handle the series which I’ll be blogging for this season a bit different from the Spring Season. Back then, I started blogging every good series, but if I’ll do that again for this season, I’ll be overwhelmed. I therefore decided to pick up three series this season. The first will be Otogi Juushi Akazukin, and the last two will be the underdogs of the season. Much like Gintama of the Spring Season.

In any case, I’ve also decided to try out one series raw for each season. In this case, it’s Otogi Juushi Akazukin. And I have to say that I couldn’t have picked a better one. Everyone who wants to start with checking out raws really should start with this series. As it’s a children’s anime, a lot of simple language is used. I have to say that I was able to understand 80% of the episode globally, and I managed to figure out the meaning of 40% fo all the lines spoken.

In any case, this episode was great. It doesn’t follow the OVA anymore, so it finally has the opportunity to show its own storyline. And I have to say, Baru is awesome. The episode was mostly about introducing Akazukin to Erde’s technology and introducing the second musketeer: Princess Shirayuki (I so hope I spelled that right).

The episode starts with Souta waking up, realizing that all that happened was not a dream. Ringo then yells to him, from the corridor. As usual, she made breakfast for the two of them. Souta then gets scared about what might happen when Ringo finds out about Akazukin, so he tries to hide this. In the end, this doesn’t really work, with quite hilarious results. I’m amazed that this show also manages to include some very effective comedy. This only makes this show more enjoyable.

What follows is a very amusing conversation, in which Akazukin and Baru introduce themselves to Ringo. Akazukin also seems to have no idea that her mission’s supposed to be secret, so she blurts it out, before Baru gets the chance to remind her about her tasks. I just love how the dialogues are just so carefree. ^_^

It seems that those creatures from last episode were Nightmares, sent after Souta. We then switch to the little cat, who managed to get his hans on a tin can from a vending machine. Then Hansel pays him a visit, to check up on things, and the cat quickly hides the can behind him. Though this doesn’t really work in a room full of mirrors. ^^ It was great to see Hansel, actually checking out the vending machine, later in the episode. ^^

Akazukin, meanwhile, is amazed by the magic of the washing machine, fridge and the tv. As Ringo has yet to hear the full story, she gets more sceptical by the minute when Baru and Akazukin keep referring to “Mahou”. The TV inspires Akazukin and Baru meanwhile to go out to the town and try out some special food they saw in a commercial. This does mean that Baru has to be put on a leash. He didn’t really like that. ^^;

When Akazukin finds the food stand she was looking for, she attempts to pay with money from her own world. As Souta doesn’t have any money with him, Ringo ends up being the one who gets to pay. Ringo now gets so pissed that Akazukin has to tell her what’s going on. The two of them do have to promise to keep it a secret. Akazukin reveals that she and Baru indeed come from another world. It’s called Fandabere (“called”, not “spelled”. I still have to figure out how you spell that damned word). The world Souta lives in is called Erde. It seems that Cendrillion has escaped from her seal, and now wants to do something bad to Fandabere. I think it has something to do with conquering it. In any case, Souta is the key to reuiniting the magic from Fandabere with the technology from Erde. If she combines these, Cendrillion will probably gain huge strenght, just like the young man in the story in the first episode.

To Akazukin’s surprise, Souta doesn’t get shocked at all, he rather gets enthusiastic. What follows is an extremely hilarious scene, in which a couple of schoolgirls find Baru, and all get incredibly giddy over him. They all want to take his picture, and it doesn’t take long before he loses his temper and begins shouting. I laughed really hard when I saw how he tried to get himself out of that situation. ^_^

What follows is one of Hansel’s henchmen. This time, he comes in the form of a bat. He soon gets joined by another of his companions. Akazukin gets really annoyed when Shirayuki appears. She seems to have used the excuse that Erde was supposed to be a great shopping-opportunity to tranfer worlds. Akazukin and Shirayuki when work together to beat the two bats. (I also loved it when Akazuking declared Ringo as their personal cook on her own).

Overall, the characters in Otogi Juushi Akazukin surely are the elements that make this anime awesome. Especially each of the antics of the characters. Especially Akazukin and Baru are amazing.

Memorable moment: “…wan”

.Hack//Roots – 14 – Rather Dull This Time

by psgels, posted in .Hack//Roots



After what happened the previous episode, Haseo needs some time to be able to process what happened in the previous episode. He’s not very good in this, as he keeps getting gloomier as the episode progresses. His main support is Phyllo. The latter also goes to the place in which Shino and Ovan met for the first time, after which Tri-Edge ambushes him. For some strange reason, Phyllo is spared. You’d wonder why Tri-Edge took the time to visit him in the first place. In any case, when Haseo found out about this, he went berserk. He ran to the church and kept beating up the chains on the table. I think that he really snapped when he found out that each of Tri-Edge’s attacks have got something to do with Shino.

While that may have been too bad for Haseo, that part of the episode was just boring. Haseo was a bit too gloomy in my opinion. The good stuff came from the former TaN. It seems that Ender and Naobi not only swapped PC’s, they also swapped usernames. Naobi now is known as Yata, and Ender is Pai. A thing that really shocked me is that Ovan appears to be perfectly fine. After his arm exploded in episode twelve, he managed to escape, and now roams around The World. Either data-drained or just perfectly fine. Still, there has to be some kind of reason why he hasn’t contacted Haseo or Tabby yet.

In any case, Yata and Pai are up to something else, after their failure. They are probably busy analyzing what caused Ovan to escape. They’ve also run into some problems when they try to analyze the waterfall-field. It appears to be a dump for save-data. Much like the Net-Slum from .Hack//Sign. In any case, something is providing an error when they try to analyze it. It’s good to see that things aren’t going perfectly for Yata and Pai as well. I’m still wondering whether these hackers will be responsible for the greatest threat in the game.

Pai also talks about something called an SF. No idea what that means, though. Later in the episode, Pai makes contact with a new character, a former TaN-member: Savurou. It seems that the two of them knew each other, though it isn’t clear from where they do. In any case, she managed to swap PC’s as well. (On a side-note: I sortof like Pai’s character design. It’s a lot better than her Ender-version, in any case).

Overall, this episode was kindof boring. Haseo needs to accept that Shino’s gone. Still, TaN brought some nice material.

Some quick first impressions: Otogi Juushi Akazukin, Demashitaa! Power Puff Girls Z and Muteki Kanbanmusume

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Okay, and we now turn to the first batch of the summer-season. The first patch is very a very light-hearted one. The comedies work at certain times, though Akazukin is amazing.

Otogi Juushi Akazukin

First of all: OMG CUTE!!! Second of all: I really enjoyed the first episode. It’s got a very light feeling, and the character design is amazing. The story’s got a good base, though it remains incredibly simple. It’s a kid’s show, after all. I have to admit, though, the first episode of the OVA was better than the first episode of the anime. Overall, I certainly recommend this if you’re looking for a light-hearted fairy-tale story.

Demashitaa! Power Puff Girls Z

This show, is just stupid. It’s incredibly low-budget as well. Except for the transformation sequences, the major part of the budget seems to have been put in these transformation sequences. There have also been a lot of changes made to the original cartoon. The main characters weren’t made, they just were normal girls who were exposed to Chemical Z (a stronger version of Chemical X). Professor Utonium seems to have a son (who’s the mother?), and both he and his son have the ugliest character designs ever. His son also attempts to use the humour of repeated scenes, but he fails miserably. The major also isn’t the incredibly stupid guy he used to be before. The girl also seem to be 2-D stereotypes with just one personality. Still, there is one character which manages to save this show: Mojo Jojo. He actually was quite funny to watch and really brightens up the show.

Muteki Kanbanmusume

What we have here is a pure non-ecchi slapstick comedy. Characters try to act as outrageous as possible, mostly this goes along with lots of screaming. It was pretty funny at times, though I think this is missing something. This show feels like it’s Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu, without its brilliance. It’s a fine attempt at comedy, but it could have been so much better.

Popolocrois story 1998 – 19 – Narcia vs Hyuu, take 2

by psgels, posted in Popolocrois Story 1998



Another Hyuu/Narcia episode. This time, it’s a bit different from the previous one. In the first one, Narcia wanted to check out Hyuu’s intentions. This time, the two of them just run into each other.

Narcia starts out incredibly naive. She believes that Hilda sent her out only to do a particular errand, while in fact, she should be looking for Pietoro. Hyuu also sees this and she can’t understand Narcia at this point. She begins yelling at her, and she calls her a witch who hides her own feelings deep inside of her. She even goes as far as lying to Narcia that Pietoro has confessed to her. Narcia’s a bit startled with this, though she is the one who wants to be with Hyuu.

Eventually, the two make up. Most of these thanks go to the wind-kind, who continues to try and kidnap Hyuu. The creators did a very good jop of putting tension in these scenes. Especially the climax was great. The two of them also got to experience what happens when you lose all of your powers (wind-kind’s work, again). It was really cute to se them like that.

Anyway, about the other characters. Gamigami still hasn’t found Hyuu, though his determination hasn’t faded yet. Ston, meanwhile, shows signs that he actually cares about Hyuu and it becomes clear that Pietoro likes to talk to himself.

The Wind-kind also will be interesting. He clearly has been sent to retrieve Hyuu, though she doesn’t want to go along with him. He can’t see that. He only wants Hyuu to come back, and he can’t see that she wants to stay. He also gets enraged when he finds out that Hyuu made friends with a human-kind. Hyuu also makes a nice statement. The Wind-kind always live alone. It’s the fate of every creature, even human-kinds, though teh human-kinds are too scared, so they flock together. If you combine this with what Hyuu said at the beginning of the series, in which she claimed that she wanted to search for other wind-kinds, it really becomes clear that she’s just plain lonely.

Overall, this has been a great episode. The tension it created was perfect, although Gamigami needed a bigger role.

Memorable moment: Pietoro getting surprised by the rain. Not nessecarily his reaction, but the way the rain introduced itself.

Saiunkoku Monogatari – 13 – Sake, Anyone?

by psgels, posted in Saiunkoku Monogatari



The Eigetsu-arc is probably the best arc of Seiunkoku Monogatari yet. Not nessecarily because of Eigetsu, but all kinds of things are happening at once. The setting also is a very original one, and Shiurei continues to be awesome. Not to mention the original humor that the creators posess. ^^

I had a few troubles with the first arc of the show. After all, Shiurei only managed to get in the castle because of the high status of her father. If she would have been just a commoner, she would never have been able to accomplish that. She did show her strong character, but in the end she did end up as the damsel in distress, only to be saved by Ryuuki. Then the second arc started, and this element was immediately gone. Shiurei now advances because of her own hard work. Starting from the second arc, we really get to see what kind of an amazing person Shiurei is.

We start at Kougarou. Shiurei wonders what Ryuuki’s up to. He answers that he was here to see Eigetsu. Kouchou reveals that Shiuei was indeed the one who left her in the middle of the night and dropped Eigetsu off. Shiuei also is surprised when he sees Eigetsu with such a different personality. We then see a flashback of the previous night, in which Eigetsu beat up a couple of punks with a very evil look on his face. This suggests that the guy must have some kind of dual personality. In any case, Eigetsu doesn’t seem to remember what happened back then.

He also reveals that he lost his official wood token. Later in the episode, the importance of this token gets explained, and why Eigetsu was in such panic when he realized he lost it. Kouyuu and Ryuuki seemed to be shocked when they find out that the Seikintou have been collecting these official wood tokens.

Afterwards, Keichou seems to have arrived in Kougarou. When Shiurei finds out about the fac that he’s joined the Seikintou, she begins to yell at him. ^^; It seems he did it in order to be able to boast about something to the girl he loved. While Shiurei continues to unleash her anger upon him, Seiran reveals that Keichou used to often hit upon her when the two of them small. This even got so far that Keichou ended up in a river in the winter. ^^

Keichou then reveals that the Seigintou will be invading Kougarou that evening. What follows is a very enjoyable scene in which the Seigintou get ambushed by an army of crime-bosses. Kouchou happens to be the leader of the crime-bosses. ^^ Things start very nicely when the leader of the Seigintou gets bombarded with a giant ice-ball (nice haircut, by the way). Shiurei, Keichou, Seigintou and Kouyuu are hiding in a shack somewhere, as all of them can’t really fight. Eigetsu then decides to head out after all, as his token is very important to him. Kouyuu sends Shiurei along with him. Keichou follows them, though Kouyuu doesn’t really care about him.

The leader of the Seigintou meanwhile managed to escape the ambush, and he managed to invade the building of Kougarou. He then runs into Eigetsu, Shiurei and Keichou, searching unconcious bodies for the tags. He then manages to take Shiurei as hostage. Even though the two of them know they aren’t strong at all, they still try to attack the guy. Only to end up on the floor, knocked out in Keichou’s case, and in a barrel full of sake in Eigetsu’s case.

Then the mystery behind Eigetsu’s second personality becomes clear. It seems that whenever he drinks alcohol, he turns into Yougetsu, his total opposite: violent, strong, confident. Kouyuu meanwhile manages to free Shiurei by dropping a huge flower pot on the guy’s head. Shiurei also acts as a perfect hostage, as she just doesn’t want to stay still. the leader of the Seigintou has huge troubles to prevent her from checking whether Eigetsu is allright. Kouyuu managed to finish this in a nice anti-climax.

It seems that the creators were really enthusiastic in giving the leader of the Seigintou a couple of fun haircuts, as the guy now walks around with an afro full of flowers. ^^ Then, Yougetsu woke up, and kicks the guy’s ass. These fighting scenes looked very amazing. Shiurei also manages to find out the purpose of the wooden tags the Seigintou have been stealing. They’re indeed passes which permit a person to take the national exam. For a lot of people, these tags are worth more than their life, and so the Seigintou have found a nice way to blackmail persons.

At the same time, this explains the importance of Eigetsu in this story. Both Shiurei as Eigetsu will be taking the national exam. This means that they both will become government officials at the same time, they’ll be advancing together. Eigetsu will probably also end up living with Shiurei, Seiran and Shouka, so the two of them will be spending a lot of time together.

Eigetsu also seems to be the one youngest person to pass the local exams at the top of his year (therefore, beating Kouyuu). It also seems that his tag was not among the ones the Seigintou have been stealing. Then it appears that Yougetsu was responsible for the disappearing tag. He saw the danger of the ruckus he caused, so he gave his tag to a third party (Keichou’s father. Apparently, the two know each other). He also ordered a bottle of high-quality sake, which would explain Eigetsu’s empty pocket at that time.

Now that everything has been solved, the show still has enough time left to wrap up a couple of things. First of all, Shiurei’s last day. In the previous episode, Kochou promised Shiurei a surprise for her last day at work. It appears to be a make-up kit. (Shiurei looks beautiful with make-up, by the way) Kochou also reveals that both Shouka as Seiran knew about the fact that Shiurei was working at a brothel. They both came to her, begging to take care of Shiurei. It was quite funny that both of them said the exact same thing.

After that, we see Shiurei and Eigetsu heading to the palace, in order to take their national exams. In the palace, they run into a Ryuuren again, as weird as ever. (I loved it when he used his flute to talk ^^) The results are also announced afterwards. Eigetsu really is a genius, despite his shyness, when it seems that he managed to get the best results. Ryuuren managed to come in second and Shiurei third. Eigetsu and Shiurei will be working in the palace afterwards, though I think that Ryuuren will continue roaming around.

One more thing… what kind of “job” did Shiuei have to do at the beginning of the previous episode? He couldn’t have known about Eigetsu, could he? (*wink wink*)

Overall, this arc was great. Saiunkoku Monogatari really gets just better and better. I’d love to see the reactions of the ones who follow the subs. If they already thought that the first arc was awesome, I can’t wait till they find out about the second and the third arc. 🙂

Memorable moments: The leader of the Seigintou getting bombarded by a giant iceball, and Shiurei seeing herself with make-up for the first time.

Spirited Away Review – 90/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews



Gin-Iro no Kami no Agito almost made me lose faith in original anime movies. I decided to check out Spirited Away, just in case (yeah, I know. Late). And thank goodness it showed that you can have incredibly bad movies, and incredibly good movies. Spirited Away definately belongs in the latter category.

What we have here is a beautiful piece of art, in which a young girl, along with her parents, ends up carelessly in another world. In this world, humans are extremely rare. Every citizen is some kind of animal and the humans that do arrive get turned into animals by the ruler of the world. The girl(Chihiro)’s parents get turned to pigs this way and she barely manages to escape this fate herself because of a boy she runs into (Haku). To be able to survive in that world, the only chance the girl has is to work for the ruler, in a very popular bathing resort.

The element which turns this movie into an astonishing one is definately the character development. The fact remains that Chihiro remains a little girl. She’s extremely scared, and this anime portrays this magnificently. Then, as the anime progresses, you’ll see that she’s an amazing person. She has to do the most terrible jobs. She is a clutz, but she puts hard work into it. Because of that, she managed to grow tremendously. The real highlight of the show lies in the middle of the movie, in which Chihiro showed that she isn’t afraid to do the most terrible jobs.

After these scenes, the movie decides to develop Chihiro’s and Haku’s relationship. While not as totally incredible as the previous scenes, the second half of the movie remains enjoyable. It’s so brilliantly written. The ending, even though rather cheesy, manages to be portrayed in a really enjoyable way.

The art also is top notch, but what really excels is the animation. At countless of times, this movie’s animation can even make Gin-Iro no Kami no Agito drool. The scenes really looked stunning at these moments. This effect only gets strenghtened by an amazing soundtrack included.

Overall, if you have yet to see this movie: Watch it! The first half is absolutely stunning, while the anime concludes with a very nice second half. It’s definately a must see.

Simoun – 11 – From Legends to Humans

by psgels, posted in Simoun



I LOVE the direction in which tis anime is going. At the beginning of the first episode, the Chor Tempest had an incredibly high status. They were seen as the best of the best, most people probably thought that they were above humans. After the fiasco at the end of the first episode, the Chor Tempest began to collide. Slowly but surely, they lost their status. They weren’t the top Chor anymore. They were inches away from being disbanded. They had to move to a small, second-rate ship. And now, they have to share their ship with about one hundred common soldiers. If this line keeps going down, it’ll have some amazing results for the second half of the series.

She show is patially about the reactions of members of the Chor Tempest to these events. Both the ones who were in the original Chor Tempest (Neviriru, Paraietta, Kaimu, Aruti, Furoe, Rödoreamon) and the new ones (Aaeru, Limone, Morinasu, Yun, Mamiina, Dominüra). The old ones have to say goodbye to their lifestyle of luxury. The new ones have to get used to the fact that they won’t be flying for the best team anymore. It’s great that everyone seems so have a different reaction in this.

This episode was once again a great one. A bunch of soldiers has joined the Messis because of the plans of Dominüra. Now the Sybilla have to live with the soldiers, and the soldiers have to live with the Simoun. Dominüra seems to have taken command over the Messis, to the displeasurement of Neviriru, and decided that the Simoun were to be used as transport carriers, in order to help the soldiers win a town back which has been occupied by the enemy. Once again, it shows that the enemies aren’t just a bunch of pigs, as they have been planning for this to happen all along. Because of this, the Simoun are forced to aid the soldiers.

The character who gets the attention in this episode is Furoe. She’s fallen in love with one of the soldiers. A young man, he probably went to the spring not too long ago. This man will be the first outsider to see what the Sybilla are in reality. At first, he’s freaked out by Furoe and her cheerfulness, though I think they both felt a bit for each other. When Furoe gets scolded for the things she’s doing, she even goes as far as saying that she’ll go to the spring.

The town to be won back is the hometown of this particular man. During the operation, he managed to see the Simoun perform their Ri Maajons, and destroy half of the town, along with the enemies who had the bad luck to be in their range. This was the first time in which we see a citizen of Simulacrum freaked out by the Ri Maajons. He’s the first one to see what kind of killing machines the Simoun he always looked up to are. More people will probably follow him soon. I can’t wait for it. 🙂

There were two Sybilla who weren’t able to kill the enemy soldiers: Furoe and Kaimu. The former was too busy searching for the man she loved. She indeed was one of the Simoun who didn’t take her job too seriously, and doesn’t put flying the Simoun above everything. In Kaimu’s case, she just was scared. She saw the faces of the soldiers, and she wasn’t able to kill them. Much like Neviriru in the first episode.

Another thing I realized during this episode is the use of the background music. It may be more than just a tune to strenghten the overall atmosphere and tension. At the beginning of the mission, Neviriru had forbidden the use of Ri Maajons. This results in hte soldiers fighting the enemy, with the Simoun assisting them with the help of their guns. The background tune which plays is heavily tension-based. It just builds up and up. Then at a certain point (as there are only four Simoun who can actually do something) Aaeru convinces Neviriru to do a Ri Maajon. Right after the Ri Maajon hits, the tune switches to the standard accordeon-music that’s played every time during these scenes. The point is, that there’s no tension in this tune AT ALL. In fact, I think it’s meant to be some kind of symbol, to the devastating power of the Simoun.

I just can’t seem to figure out what’s up with Dominüra. Especially because of the way she talked to Limone. I think that Limone’s the only one who Dominüra treats kindly. It also seems that she was pretty enthusiastic with both the fact that she had to play as carrier and Limone’s steering. You’d think that, as a Simoun Sybilla, she’d want to do a job which doesn’t dirten the name of the Simoun. She’s clearly up to something, but what?

Rödoreamon and Mamiina have become a lot closer since the previous episode. Rödoreamon is still shy (heck, she got really scared when the soldiers arrived) and spoiled, Mamiina is still cold, though you can see that they really have become friends now. Paraietta also was interesting during this episode. It seems that she doesn’t have the perfect qualities of a leader, as she started yelling once the soldiers arrived. Neviriru and Yun were the ones to recover her mistakes.

Overall, if you ignore the little inconsistencies, you have to admit that the soldiers and the Sybilla delivered some effective teamwork. All of the grudges which were displayed at the beginning of the episode were gone at the end of it. I really like the way this is going. The Chor Tempest will be losing their status more and more. The episode was great as well. This show just gets better and better.

Memorable moment: The commander of the soldiers motivating the others by telling them that it’s their war, not the Sybilla’s.