First Impressions / Mai-Otome

Summary:
Sergay, on Nagi’s suggestion, is searching for Arika by boat, and happens to see her fall off the cliff. The masked man above spots Sergay, and summons a fish-like Slave in response. It destroys the boat, but Sergay somehow makes it out alive with Arika in his arms. After their aggressor reports back to Midori, she decides to assign the bulkiest of her companions to guard duty. Meanwhile, Yukariko has saved Erstin, and everyone now knows that Arika is missing. Nina is especially concerned for Sergay, but Shizuru stops her from going after him.
After taking her into an abandoned building by the beach, Sergay sees that Arika is lying on the floor shivering from cold. On top of that, she’s crying and begging in her sleep not to be left alone, and so Sergay feels that he has no choice but to warm her up with his own body. Back on the cliffs, Akane and Chie spot the guard Midori left, and report back to base about the cyborg. Mashiro wants to move out, but Yukino explains that Garderobe cannot intervene into the affairs of the Airies Republic without permission from the council. However, if you can obtain the approval of three council members, then it’s ok. Mashiro quickly figures out that she, Yukino, and Nagi make up those three members. While they are discussing, Midori’s group makes their way through the ruins inside the cave, eventually finding their target: a small capsule device.
When Arika wakes up in the morning, she finds herself naked lying against Sergay. She panics and starts hitting him until she notices that he’s injured his arm. After they get dressed and start making their way back, Sergay asks Arika to address him by his given name, instead of Won-san. Walking through the forest, the two happen to see Midori and her force gathered on the cliffs above them. In the bushes behind them, John Smith uses his gun to alert Midori to the position of Sergay and Arika. Fortunately, their Otome friends arrive in time to save our heroes. In the chaos, John Smith steals the capsule device and escapes. Midori summons Gakutenou to fight Shizuru, but the Meister Otome has no problem going head to head with it. The wrist gem Midori is using soon shatters, forcing her to retreat. In the aftermath, Arika was reunited with her classmates, and Midori’s forces never recovered the device from John Smith. Yohko, who recognized Midori, stares at a photo from her youth that includes Midori, Rado without his mask, and her. That night, when Sergay questions what Nagi’s planning with the Schwarz organization, Nagi warns that Sergay not to betray him.

Mai-Otome continues to impress me with its level of action and character relations. After their experience this episode, Arika and Sergay are quite a bit closer with Arika even calling him by his first name towards the end, in front of Nina (who must be so jealous/pissed). And that’s despite the fact that Arika warned him earlier against being over-familiar with her just because he’s seen her naked. 🙂
Midori gets center-stage during the fight scene, and I honestly didn’t know who to root for. I haven’t seen Gakutenou for a long while, so I was very happy when Midori summoned her former Child and now her Slave. Interestingly enough, Midori’s wrist gem says “R.E.M System/Don’t Forget Our Motherland.” There’s also the photo of Midori and Yohko together when they were young (along with Reito/Rado), so I suspect that Yohko might have split loyalties. Or maybe they just simply share a common origin from wherever the Motherland is (the Black Valley?).
Next episode looks like filler-ish stuff and I wouldn’t be looking forward to it if it didn’t feature Takumi and the three flame symbol on his shirt. That doesn’t leave that many more original Mai-HiME characters left that they haven’t introduced yet, meaning that Mai can’t be too far off (or so I hope).

Closing Thought: For all the talk about this having nothing to do with the original Mai-HiME series, having seen that makes everything here all that much more enjoyable.

39 Comments

  12. Yay for this ep! I liked the battle and all the scenes with Sergay and Arika. but Nina looked really shocked when she heard Arika call her otou-sama “Sergay” heh

    next ep. chibi Nina, return of Takumi, and it looks like the art is gonna be really good next time 😀

    flou
    Reply

  15. yeah but keep in mind that the manga is on a different level than the anime cause they got mashiro as a man in the manga but the director said mashiro is 100% girl in the anime, and then mashiro as a deceased sister in the manga and story is just different.

    Fury
    Reply

  30. Raw is the untranslated/unsubbed version of in this case anime video. ‘Nuff said.

    I still cant take my mind of Arika in the nudes. Expect repeated blood loss from nosebleeding when watching the raw this evening (or subbed version whichever the fast).

    avex mode
    Reply

  33. well mai hime is good too ( i suggest u watch it since most of the charactes in otome are from hime, eventhough they story is different) and the “child” are animals that the characters in mai hime can summon or materialize

    JT
    Reply

  34. I just noticed that each of the members of Aswald (excluding Midori) have card symbols on their outfits.
    Rado has a spade
    The short one has a diamond
    The one that attacked Arika on the cliff has a heart
    And the big guy has a club.

    Interesting…

    flou
    Reply

  35. 7 more minutes until this ep is done downloading.. tra la la..

    I honestly don’t know how I feel about Mai Otome yet. It has its moments and all of that, but I struggle really really hard with comparing it to Mai Hime, and I just don’t think that it’s as good. However, I will do my best to reserve my judgments until the very end.

    Ren
    Reply

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