Random Curiosity

Short Summary:
Tamotsu gives Tatsumi an assignment in which he ends up researching Yoshida Shoin, a pre-Meiji era scholar and revolutionary. While Tatsumi works hard looking up information on the internet, Sayaka is cornered into taking her friends from school to her home. Her friends’ amazement at her room and their talk about being grown up gives Sayaka an idea. Back at Tamotsu’s home, Tatsumi presents Tamotsu which his research and printouts, but Tamotsu violently rejects it. The next day, as Tatsumi is running off to work, Ureshiko stops him and hints that he should visit the Shoka Sonjuku school (which was Yoshida Shoin’s academy). Tatsumi then runs into Sayaka, whom he asks for directions. At school, Sayaka feigns illness then transforms into an older version of herself. She tracks Tatsumi down at the academy and the two talk for a while about Yoshida Shouin. Ureshiko, on patrol, spots Tatsumi with Sayaka sitting then walking together. She gets a little upset and flies off. Tatsumi eventually returns to Tamotsu, relaying what he learned, and Asaba-san finds his information acceptable. In her room, Sayaka snuggles a stuff animal, happy to have spent time with Tatsumi. When he gets home, Tatsumi make Ureshiko happy by worrying about her smile.

In writing this entry, I had to look up who Yoshida Shoin was and what Shoka Sonjuku was, so I actually got to learn some Japanese history. I also came across this page which has a picture of the town of Hagi. It looks quite a bit like the setting of this show, which would make sense, since Shoka Sonjuku doesn’t seem that far away from their home.
I originally found this episode a tad bit on the boring side, but Sayaka’s adult transformation made it all better. I suspect part of the reason I like her adult form so much is because Shimizu Ai doesn’t use her child voice and manages to come off relatively mature. From the preview, it looks like she’ll be in next episode too.

Summary:
Aisia is still getting used to doing her maid duties, including cooking breakfast, and going to school. One afternoon, she watches a magical girl program with Junichi and it motivates her to pursue Junichi again to teach her magic. He shows her his conjure trick, but she doesn’t believe that that’s all he can do. A talk with Suginami motivates her to follow Junichi around and spy on him. However, she’s not very good at spying and he spots her every time. He once again sits her down and shows her his only trick. Of course, she’s still not convinced. At school, Aisia accidentally reads some of Nanako’s manga, envisions Junichi as the main character, and gets all sorts of ideas in her head. She decides to get him to reveal his magic by putting him in some dire situations, including dousing him with hot food, hitting a volleyball towards his head, and accidentally triggering a nest of wasps. Junichi really can’t use any magic and gets through all the situations like a normal person would. While on trash duty, Junichi realizes what Aisia has been doing all day. She tries to run away, but falls in the back of a garbage truck. When Junichi goes in to save her, they both fall further in. The driver returns and starts to drive off, prompting Junichi to yell, but only Suginami, Kotori, and Mako hear. They take various routes and chase the truck to the disposal center. Meanwhile, inside the back of the truck, Junichi finally convinces Aisia that she’s been misunderstanding the entire time and that he can only perform his one parlor trick. They get dumped into a pit and start to climb out as the room starts to compact. Aisia loses her balance and falls, but Junichi catches her. He struggles to pull her up as the room closes in on them, but they are saved when Kotori presses the emergency off switch. On their way home, Aishia calls Junichi by his first name instead of master.

There were a lot of funny moments this week, especially during the manga scene and when Aisia imagines Junichi summoning his power. Aisia’s spying on Junichi at home also had me laughing, as did all of Suginami in general. I don’t really mind more Aisia airheaded behavior this time, since the episode was funny, and since it moved us past the calling Junichi “master” phase. I was really afraid that they’d give Junichi real powers in time of need, like during the trash compaction, because then Aisa would continue to badger Junichi about teaching her magic.
Now that the Aisia stuff is more or less out of the way, maybe we can finally get some KotorixJunichi episodes.

Short Summary:
Recap episode. There was a good bit of SEED recap too, during the end. Kira and Athrun did have a semi-dialogue where Kira says that he fights because Lacus and Cagalli can have an impact on the future. They fight to build a free future. During the second half, they played both Fields of Hope and vestige as insert songs.

Winners of the Zaku Coloring Contest (ED Sequence):

Apologies to entry number 37 that I couldn’t show a cap. If you were wondering, here’s the image. Entries 31 and 32 were pretty good. A lot of them are blue with random highlights, and several are rainbow colored.
I do find it worthwhile to mention that the OP sequence has also been slightly changed this episode, during the shots of the main characters in the foreground and their mobile suits in the background (updated with their latest suits). The shots of Freedom were also updated to Strike Freedom (gold joints and all).

Next Episode Preview:

Since this was a recap episode, the most important part ends up being the next episode preview. We get a shot of Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice holding hands on re-entry. Talia and Murrue get to square off again in their respective battleships, while Shinn beats up on Cagalli a bit. There’s also a shot of Mwu/Neo in a pilot’s helmet, followed by a shot of him watching the ArchAngel fly off while he stands by a Sky Grasper. The DOMs make their entrance, and the final shot is of Infinite Justice joining the battle. I’m definitely looking forward to next episode.

Short Summary:
Ayumu has a flashback of when he was little, playing hide and seek with Wakkun. He also remembers that day when his parents forced him to leave with his mother after he had already made a play date with Wakkun. Ayumu apologizes to Wakkun again, then suggests that they go to the festival together. Wakkun is hesitant, but goes along with him. As they approach the entrance of the forest, they run into Ryousuke, who came because of Miku. Ryousuke can barely see an outline of Wakkun, and when he tries to touch him, Ayumu tells him to stop. They arrive at the festival and go by the 金魚救い (Kingyo Sukui, goldfish catching) booth that Ryousuke was working at earlier. At the landfill, a couple and their baby dumping stuff are amazed and frightened by all the glowing lights that have begun to take off. Wakkun senses something is happening and starts to wander off. In town, Heigorou-san is walking Roku when a parade of cats, led by Okakababa, run by. After Roku gets all excited, Heigorou-san releases him from his leash and watches as he chases after them. The cats run onto the festival grounds just as all the fairies are flying overhead. Okakababa runs by Ryousuke’s stall and stops, staring at him for a second, then continues on. Ryousuke sees him and follows, calling to Takuma along the way. Ayumu and Wakkun, who have joined with the Miyama sisters, peer out from behind the stage to find the place deserted. On the mountain, the ground shakes and starts to move.

Add the fact that Takuma rejected Shione yet again and this was a pretty good episode. They’re really setting up to finish the arc now, though I have no idea how this’ll turn out. I don’t quite see the love quadrangle storyline and the Wakkun storyline converging quite yet, and maybe they won’t. Though it would be interesting if they did.
I found it pretty amusing that since Mika can’t see Wakkun, she finds Ayumu a bit wierd (and initially calls Wakkun Miku’s hallucination). Not much else to say except that I thought the animation was pretty good this episode, especially the use of light and shadow when Ayumu and Wakkun were by Ryousuke’s stall.

Short Summary:
During the school festival, Chitose’s class and Sakura’s class are competing in their respective food businesses. Both sides don revealing uniforms, but Sakura’s draw more attention because it exposes more. Sakura encounters a guy she knows from the internet trying to take a picture of her. They end up spending the better part of the day together, going around to the various school festival events. She returns to their class’s food stand to find that Chitose’s class is hand feeding their customers. In a ploy to draw them away, Sakura starts using her powers for love fortunetelling. By the end of the day, Sakura’s class is cheering because they beat the other classes. Sakura meets with the guy from before on top of the school, and they gaze at the stars. He turns out to be a spirit and fades away as she holds his hand.

So the story here wasn’t horrible, just very cliché and somewhat boring. Animation quality is my big gripe this week. There was a ton of fanservice (making up for last week), but I swear that Chitose’s breast size changed no less than four times through the episode. The general animation style was across the board too. Just compare screenshot number 03 with screenshot 14 with screenshot 45. Oh, and the repeating chomping noise whenever Sakura ate something got annoying too.
Next week we get Haruka and Chitose sentai action.

Short Summary:
It turns that that Saori’s friend Sawazaki Kaho really doesn’t recognize Tsuyoshi. The dinner goes decently well, despite some meddling by Kaho. Tsuyoshi ends up calling Saori afterwords and they set another date, this time to go to the ocean. He’s estatic until Saori’s text message reminds him that he told her that he liked to surf. After a lot of mock practicing, he finally recruits a coworker to teach him. Unfortunately his is a lost cause. On their trip to the ocean, Tsuyoshi is heading out to the water when it starts to rain. Saori calls for him to come back, but he starts to cry, collapsing on the sand. He eventually tells her the truth about surfing, that he really meant net surfing, and apologizes. She walks out in the rain, realizing that he did all this because of her mistake, and apologizes back. The two later share a boxed lunch that she prepared while watching the fireworks. The next day, while working, Tsuyoshi is confronted by Misuzu, who has accidentally found out about his posting on the message board.

I apologize beforehand for skipping over all the parts with Kazuya-san as they were really hard to understand.
There was a lot of humor in this episode coupled with the seriousness of Saori’s past and the end of the episode. Tsuyoshi trying to learn to surf (and the resulting mishaps) created some good laughs, as did the scene where Tsuyoshi’s friend meets his little sister. I was also laughing pretty hard at Tsuyoshi trying to learn to surf through playing a video game while trying to balance on a surfboard.
The end of this week’s episode had Misuzu calling for Tsuyoshi while the Imperial March played in the background (boy they really like using that song) after having stumbled upon his posts and realized what was going on. The preview hints that Saori might also learn about the message board. Plus Tsuyoshi seems to be going on a triple date with his friends and Saori’s friends, which I’m sure will make for a hilarious scene.

Honey & Clover ED2: Track 5 – Mistake by THE BAND HAS NO NAME
I’m glad to have finally found this song, considering the single was out last week. It’s a good song, but I feel that it really lacks the punch that Waltz had. I like the full version a bit more than the TV edit, but I’m not a huge fan of the band to begin with (having heard some of their other songs too).

Short Summary:
Rin and Nerine are cleaning the classroom together, which leads them to a blush moment after Rin shows her how to clap some erasers. When they take out the trash, they run into a couple of guys badmouthing Rin and company. Nerine gets pissed off and blows them up with her magic, doing damage to the school and getting her in trouble. The next day, over lunch, the group decides to hold a picnic after discussing how fun it is to make boxed lunches. Unfortunately, Nerine doesn’t know how to cook, so she ends up taking lessons from Asa-sempai. Her mind on cooking, she starts to worry everyone, including Rin. She eventually confesses to him that she’s not that good a cook. Talking with Rin gives Nerine enough confidence that she’s able to cook the food without screwing up. At the picnic, she is very happy when Rin finds her omelette so delicious that he tries to horde it for himself.

I didn’t like this Nerine episode nearly as much as last week’s Sia episode. It wasn’t as interesting, and I’m not a big Nerine fan to begin with. The only thing I really did enjoy was the the strings-heavy BGM that played during the picnic scene. Pretty sure it’s been played before, though I can’t quite put my finger on what it reminds me so much of, but I really like the tune.
During the brief flashback scene in the beginning, they show Rin fishing a cat doll out of a machine for Nerine, which looks oddly like the one that Primula currently carries. I wonder if those are related since Nerine was the first one to recognize Primula back in episode two.
Dunno if it’s just me, but Rin felt really playboyish this episode. Maybe it’s because he had so many blush moments with Nerine right after having all those moments with Sia last week. I hope they’ll do better next week. The preview seems to show Rin having to take care of a sick Kaede, so I guess we’re getting a Kaede episode.

I said I wouldn’t try any longer to find these insert songs, but I guess that was a lie. This is a really really good song by Spitz called Yoru wo Kakeru (夜を駆ける) from their 2002 album, 三日月ロック. They even played a good 2 and a half minutes of it on today’s episode. This doesn’t mean I’m blogging H&C today, I’m just a fanatic about music somethings >_<

Short Summary:
During gym class, Yamato, Yasunobu, Honoka, and Suzuka are measuring how high they can jump. Yamato is proud that he can jump 72.5 cm, but that record and pride is quickly shattered by Suzuka and Yasunobu, both of whom can jump 84 cm. Yamato stays depressed until he decides to put his all into running a sprint. His energy and spirit impresses Suzuka so much that she’s reminded of the sempai she has a photo of. He ends up clocking an amazing 5.93 seconds and gets his confidence back. Unfortunately for him, Suzuka doesn’t act very impressed. However, that night over dinner, Suzuka can’t stop staring at Yamato.
On another day after school, it is raining outside. Yamato spots Suzuka’s umbrella and wants to go home with her, but she gets called away for club activities. Honoka approches him instead and offers her umbrella, but Yasunobu quickly takes her away. Yamato ends up moping alone in the classroom until he gets worked up and decides not to wait any longer. Just as he’s taking out his shoes, Suzuka appears and offers to go home together after noticing he doesn’t have an umbrella. As they walk down the street, a car drives by creating a splash that pushes Suzuka into Yamato. After embracing for a bit, Suzuka finally stops holding onto Yamato, picks up her bag, and walks off alone.

This episode (and next episode) centers around Suzuka getting closer physically and emotionally to Yamato. We see her comparing Yamato to her sempai, then later ends up in his arms. Ultimately, this is setting us up for the climax of the second volume which will probably occur in episode 6.
The big difference in this episode from the manga that bothers me is during the embrace in the rain. In the manga, Yamato apologizes immediately and almost pushes her away, but she holds on tight to him, which makes her feelings seem rather strong. In the animated version, he only says her name in a surprised way. I really feel that takes a bit away from Suzuka’s feelings. Also, to make it slightly more dramatic, they could have left it as a cliffhanger as they embraced, like the manga chapter did.
I agree with Mentar when he said that the preview spoiled a bit too much. Either way, next episode looks to include the blackout scene.

Edit: Out of complete boredom, I transcribed all the kanji and kana from this week’s chapter (70) of Suzuka. Just thought I’d mention it, since it’s a good chapter (if not a bit predicatable).

Short Summary:
Sousuke is called to base while he’s at school. Apparently Gates and company have kidnapped some people in Nanjing, China and escaped with the help of his ASs. Sousuke arrives at a briefing by Kalinin and Tessa who explain that the prisoners are being held in an underground facility. Arriving there, Sousuke, Kurz, and Melissa are first briefed by a Vincent Blueno before they are deployed along with some foot troops. They dispatch the enemies that they find, not knowing that Gates and company are hiding in the shadows. The ground troops break into the compound and free the prisoners, with Mao following them in. Just as Kurz is noticing that something is wrong, communications go out. Mao tries to get him back on the line, but soon has her own problems to deal with. It seems that one of the prisoners was really Xia Yu Lan. She quickly dispatches the troops and shoots Melissa. Elsewhere, it seems that Sousuke has been surrounded by ASs, including Gate’s own Venom.

I’m not sure I’d call TSR based on the novels anymore. I finally managed to read The End of Day by Day and A Dancing Very Merry Christmas over the weekend, so that I’d know what to expect. In actuality, I think TSR is more of an alternate adaptation of the novels, using most of the same characters, except Gates (someone correct me if I’m wrong). Key character example is Vincent Blueno. In the novels, he’s responsible for putting Dannigan and Gwen onto the TDD, and later escapes, requiring Mao, Kurz, and Sousuke to chase him through Sicily. Here, he still works with MITHRIL, but he’s not revealed to be a bad guy yet (though it’s pretty obvious). I hope that maybe they’ll still put in the Sicily part after this arc is done. On a similar vein, I also hope that this season has the same impact on Sousuke’s character that the events of The End of Day by Day did.
I enjoy a lot of the little things in this episode. There was the Ren cameo at the beginning. There was the fact that Kurz still has a female voiced AI. The samurai drama spider man at the beginning was also pretty funny.
More bloody violence this week (the throat cutting made me cringe), but only toward the very end, courtesy of Xia Yu Lan. Still, this was a lot more of setting up for what I expect to be an action packed, and probably bloody, episode next week. The animation in the preview looks wonderful (the animation for this episode was excellent too), and I really want to see the Arbalest vs. Venom fight.

Short Summary:
Mayama has a dream about Rika faintly calling his name. His coworkers tell him that it must mean that she wants to see him a thought which he brushes off. After his firm lands a major contract, he and his coworkers go out to have a drink, passing by a fountain. Mayama later realizes that Rika was standing on the other side and rushes back, but she’s gone. Later, as everyone is talking about Rika’s husband, Mayama feels left out as the only one who didn’t know him when he was alive. His boss, Nomiya-san, wants Mayama to introduce him to Yamada, but Mayama excuses his way out of it, mentioning that he’ll be with his friends at an upcoming festival. Lo and behold, his coworkers show up at the festival. Nomiya starts to win prizes for Yamada causing Mayama to grow protective, but he realizes that he just wants her to have a happy life. The next day, he finds Nomiya working on pottery with Yamada. The two start fighting but Yamada smacks them both in the head.

I feel pretty neutral about this episode, didn’t really like or dislike it. Since our comedy in the form of Morita is gone, we’re getting quite a bit of drama with Mayama. Which is fine, I think I just prefer if it’s drama where Mayama is with someone, rather than it just being about him.
I was hesitant at first when Mayama started being protective of Yamada. He really needed to be more like a brother to her than a jealous lover type. This settles it more so that he can pursue his relationship with Rika, which is what next episode seems to be about.
Insert song this episode was was Spitz – Y from their ハチミツ album from 1995 (the same one episode one’s insert song was from). Another nice slow song, though they did play it rather softly.

Summary:
Renji’s Zabimaru wakes him from his rest and tells him that they’re ready to fight again, especially against Zangetsu. Renji says that Ichigo isn’t the enemy anymore, prompting Zabimaru to ask who is. On the bridge, Yoruichi has arrived to save Ichigo from Byakuya’s Senbonzakura. Byakuya immediately recognizes and identifies Shihouin Yoruichi as a famous ex-commander of Soul Society. Ichigo asks Yoruichi to move aside so that he can beat Byakuya, but Yoruichi immediatly stabs Ichigo in the gut with her hand, knocking him out with a tranquilizer. Byakuya closes in threateningly, so she performs several moves to evade him, but Byakuya manages to get a hit in anyway. It barely fazes her and she ends up on the rooftop, promising to make Ichigo stronger in three days. As she jumps away, Byakuya also leaves the bridge, saying that he has lost interest. Ukitake and his number three seats are left to clean up. After telling his subordinates to contact the fourth squad for medical help, Ukitake tells Hanatarou that he helped them because they tried to save a member of his squad. Meanwhile, Ishida and Inoue have donned Shinigami garb and are now masquerading as Shinigami to avoid being caught. Inoue is worried about Ichigo, and the two of them decide to keep moving. In the shadows, Captain Kurotsuchi Mayuri emerges from spying on them. Back at her hideout, Yoruichi keeps watch over a recovering Ichigo. When he wakes up, Ichigo immediately grabs Yoruichi and asks why she only brought him back, saying that his friends could be dead already. Yoruichi tells him that he can’t defeat Byakuya in his current state, but promises to make Ichigo strong enough in three days time so that he can go back and rescue everyone. She brings Ichigo to a training field below Soul Society and tells him that there are two levels of release for a zanpaktou: shi-kai and ban-kai. Every captain is able to do ban-kai with one exception, Zaraki Kenpachi, who relied on his own strength. However, learning ban-kai usually takes ten years, so Yoruichi has decided to take a riskier method so that she can teach it to Ichigo in three days.

They covered a bit more than I thought they would, going from chapter 118 to midway through chapter 120. The rest of the chapter (and the volume for the matter) covers the Ishida vs Capt. Kurotsuchi fight. This episode concluded the bridges scene, then started the Ishida/Inoue arc and the Ichigo training arc. But we really don’t go back to the Ichigo training stuff until the Ishida stuff is done.
I really enjoyed the Byakuya vs. Yoruichi fight (if you could call it a fight), probably because Yoruichi just kicks so much ass. And to think, just a few episodes ago, she was just the cat.
The Orihime and Ishida scenes were funny, with Inoue as her usual airheaded self. Unfortunately this is the most we’ll see of her for quite a while, though from the look of the preview, they might expand on her story/training a bit.
I had forgotten that Yoruichi introduced the idea of ban-kai so early, but it fits considering where we’re at in the story. She mentions Zaraki as the only captain to have never achieved ban-kai, which makes sense since a) he doesn’t know the name of his sword and b) he didn’t use it. I really can’t wait until we get to see Ichigo’s ban-kai, but that is soooo far off.
Next episode will cover to at least chapter 122, when Kurotsuchi pulls out his zanpaktou (which was shown in the preview). I rather liked the Ishida fight in the manga, so I have high hopes for the animated version.

Short Summary:
Because they feel like they’re getting fat, the girls (Reika, Tsugumi, and Silvia) go on a diet. One night, while they’re all dreaming of food, one of the shadow angels unleashes some food-devouring microbes into the DEAVA base. With no food, everyone gets pretty desperate and the girls volunteer to go out in the Aquarion to combat the enemy. Unfortunately, they’re too starved to do anything productive. Apollo jumps into Aquarion with them and sniffs out the enemy microbes. The hungry girls perform the “Hungry Bomber” attack, but this only succeeds at scattering the microbes, which in turn attack the Aquarion. As they devour it, all seems lost until Rena saves them. Her singing starts the growth of several plants, which absorb the microbes and repair Aquarion. The resulting tree also bears lots of fresh fruit, which the Aquarion crew get to eat.

This week’s GI Joe Aquarion Public Service Announcement is to exercise regularly and eat a balanced diet that singing vampire girls can save the day. Seriously, it just seemed to come out of nowhere that Rena gets up and saves the day. Maybe it’s repayment for Apollo’s help last week.
Silvia had all the good scenes this episode. For one, fat Silvia crying because Sirius rejects her is pretty funny. Then we find out that Silvia has a Sirius plushie (refer to image nine above). It’s even got a bow in it’s hair and a heart on his clothes!
The animation this week was a bit like last week’s in the sense that it didn’t look like normal (the faces mainly). Some faces were too oblong and a lot of the cheeks looked odd. The musical score was pretty good though, despite the lack of an insert song. I rather enjoyed the epic feeling music that played when Rena was reviving the Aquarion.
Next week looks to be the Sirius and Silvia episode that I’ve been waiting for (ever since episode 14). At least I hope it is…

Has anyone else looked at the offical Aquarion site lately? I noticed the character page has been replaced with Rena drawings a la last week’s ending. The Reika picture in particular is pretty funny and cute.

Short Summary:
Syaoran and company arrive in the middle of a colosseum during a fight. They learn that there is a tournament going on with a sacred treasure as the prize. Mokona senses a great power from the chest, so Kurogane, Fye, and Syaoran decide to compete. Sakura and Mokona wander around the countryside and find a hut where a young man and woman live. We learn that the young woman is frail because of a curse that was put on her a year ago. The young man, named Keefer, really wants to compete in the tournament so he can win the treasure and use it to remove the curse. Syaoran ends up winning up the tournament, but Keefer shows up and challenges him for the artifact. They fight, but Syaoran stops midway and hands it over after seeing Keefer’s tears and determination. Keefer removes the curse from the girl and two leave, promising to get married.

This was the first episode so far that was entirely original material. I didn’t really like or dislike it; it was pretty average Tsubasa Chronicle, if not a bit predictable. There was no way they were going to insert a feather into this world since the production crew probably wants to stick with the manga in terms of feather count.
Next episode will be the start of Outo country (or Sakura World as they call it in the anime), which is probably the best arc so far. It’s decently long and will most likely take us all the way to the end of this season. Then we can wait till next April for Season two. Yay! (/end sarcasm)
Parting thought: Mokona’s konnichipuu was just too cute.