Short Summary:
By accident, Arika learns of Nina’s weakness: she’s ticklish. The news spreads around school, and eventually gets to Shiho’s ears. Shiho uses the opportunity to raise some havoc to get back at Nina. Using her signature “Maki Maki”, Shiho summons several small eel like monsters into the school pool, where Nina and the Coral class are practicing. They take hold of Nina while she’s swimming and she goes under. Arika and Erstin save her, and she wakes up in the infirmary with everyone, including her father, watching over her. After Nao comes in and welcomes Sergay to the flower garden of virgins (lol), Yohko kicks them all out. Nina, who wants to reclaim her pride, does some research and finds out that the creatures that attacked her were called Zereangil, and so she gets permission to dump salt into the pool. However, someone had switched the salt and sugar labels, so Arika gets bags of sugar instead. The result is a very large monster that captures Shiho and Erstin in its tentacles. The girls try to fight it, but their efforts are futile and Nina gets captured too. To their surprise, a purple flash of light blows a giant hole in the monster, and Nao scoops up Erstin and Nina. She makes Shiho beg to be saved before she slices the monster into pieces. That night, Arika finishes a letter back to her anonymous benefactor, and falls asleep at her desk. Nina wakes up later to cover Arika in a blanket.

I had heard several good things about this episode, and so I started watching it with pretty high expectations. And I gotta say that it didn’t disappoint. From the comedic villainy of Shiho to the comedic value of Nina’s weakness (and all of the fanservice) to the action scene with Nao as the star, I’d rate this as one of the best episodes yet, probably tied with first episode. In a similar parallel, Nao is as badass as Shizuru from that first episode, and maybe even more so because of her attitude (“Welcome to the flower garden of virgins”) and how she gets back at Shiho by making her beg to be saved.
Shiho really is a piece of work. Her “maki maki” this time summons a monster that had tentacles that looked oddly like Shiho’s hair from last season. And while we’re on the subject, this episode is ripe with fanservice and yuri implications. I mean, that was a tentacle monster, and Erstin seemed all too happy to moan for us. Nina also has her share of cute noises, and it must really suck for her weakness to be known by everyone. This episode really allows us to see a less serious side of Nina, even as she tries to regain her pride.
And if this episode didn’t get me excited enough about the series, next week features young Mashiro and young Nagi, and what looks to be Arika activating her special robe.

Closing Thought: Who was that switching the sugar and salt labels? It didn’t seem like Shiho’s movements, so perhaps it was Tomoe?

15 Comments

  1. okay on second viewing, I take back what I said prior. The female who switched the tags definitely had a red shelve and as others have said, probably was Tomoe. D’oh! Here I thought it was just Nao out to have some kicks and giggles.

    I didn’t notice on first viewing, but Shiho put her hair drills to “good” use while trying to escape the tentacle monster prior to Nao’s help. The staff must really be pushing the limit on Shiho’s many uses of her hair eh?

    Also thoroughly enjoyed re-seeing Nina in not so serious mode, especially during her “weak point” times 😉 One had got to love the scene where Nina was depressed on the sidelines when her plan to draw out the monster failed; reminded me of Kurumi & Mesousa from PPD. That was classic…

    Pretty interesting to see Nao in action, not only because Nao kicks arse on a general basis but to see how the other robes & weapons/elements work. Apparently the stick first year coral robe students use can also transform into a whip-like weapon too. All I’m waiting to see now is for the stick to go a-blastin’ ala Arika in the Mai-Otome promo!

    On the really really REALLY small hint of plot, looks like Nina may or may not have known Rena (or another Meister Otome) when she was younger. I wanna say the flashback scene Nina saw could have been her as a baby when Rena drifted her off to the river; that however, has obviously got to be Arika though, based on the baby’s hair color alone. Doesn’t mean that Nina couldn’t be related to Rena in some other way though… like say be the actual princess of WindBloom… of course, my random theory only works if the person Nina saw in her flashback was indeed Rena and not some other Otome. ^_^;;

    moyism
  2. Can anyone tell me why there’s a picture of shizuru in red (kinda creepy). Though i would get to see them in a few hours. 😛

    Also do u guys think that Erstin love Nina????

    fisherman horizon
  3. “Can anyone tell me why there’s a picture of shizuru in red (kinda creepy)”

    Guessing by the order of the caps (3rd column, 6th pic down), it probably goes along with whatever Nao and Arika are talking about.

    nooneofconsequence
  4. Erstin’s definitely gunning for Nina. ^^; Arika’s gonna pose a ‘problem’ though. *drama drama*

    And I wonder why I never thought that Nina couldn’t be the Princess. It would be like Sergey to ship that Jewel off somewhere to protect her better. Now that it’s come back, he probably wants it away from Nina for now so he’s keeping it with Arika. Man he has a devious streak. ^^

    Arakan7
  5. This is one of my favorite episodes. I felt sorry for Nina when she was drowned by Shiho’s trap. I’m surprised that Arika had saved her. This episode reminds me that Midori fought a stone Orphan alone on the same episode number. This time it was Juliet or Nao who fought that monster.

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