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「暖炉のあかり」 (Danro no Akari)
“AKARI of fireplace”
As much as this episode was about Akari and giving her the Christmas with Santa Claus that she died waiting for, it tied in nicely to Maya’s own past with her father and how she misunderstood him.
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「はじめての忠」 (Hajimete no Chuu)
“First Kiss”
An early broadcast premiere of the anime adaptation of Hobby Japan‘s 40th anniversary original novel and figure series was aired on Tokyo MX almost a month before the actual start of the fall season. Much like their other work that ARMS studio animated, Queen’s Blade, I just know a lot of people are going to quickly write this series off, but I’m tempted to cover it to prevent that from happening. Ignorance is not bliss.
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「果ツル空」 (Hatsuru Sora)
“The Sky that Ends”
Oh my. I asked for some development on the Uzume/Chiho front, but I didn’t mean this drastic turn of events!
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「#23」
It’s about time the focus shifted to ETU’s offense, with Tsubaki showing everyone that he’s another player wearing the number seven that they should have their eyes on just as much as Kubota.
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「ⅹⅹⅹになる」 (xxx ni Naru)
“Become A ***”
Given how Mitsuba will lie out her ass like there’s no tomorrow just to save herself some embarrassment, the tool shed behind her house could probably be considered her second home. This time, it’s not about forgetting her underwear, but teaching naive first-graders that being a sex addict is a prestigious thing.
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「メイドは見た！お嬢様の淫らな(略)／俺にそんなキャラ設定はない／私でよければ付き合うが」
(Meido wa Mita! Ojou-sama no Midara na (Ryaku) / Ore ni Sonna Kyara Settei wa Nai / Watashi de Yokereba Tsukiau ga)
“The Maid’s Seen It! The Wealthy Daughter’s Dirty (Omit) / I Don’t Have Character Traits Like That / I’ll Accompany You If You’re Fine with Me”
Despite being mentioned in the preview last time, I completely forgot we were having a culture festival episode this week. All I remembered was Aria’s maid, Dejima Sayaka (Tamura Mutsumi), who turned out to be a little dirty-minded herself. It must be infectious in this world. Female perversion.
Nakagawa Shoko’s latest single “Flying Humanoid” was released back on August 18th, whereas the music video for it you see above was aired on TV prior to that. The PV itself is a surprisingly pretty good one as far as Japanese music videos go, and I particularly like the use of CG in addition to Shoko and her band changing into samurai outfits near the end. Is it relevant? Not really, but it’s good for variety sake given how animated she is singing this song. The clocks are a nice touch too, since they’re reminiscent of Occult Gakuin’s opening sequence. As for the song itself, it’s grown on me a fair bit in the past two months while watching the series. Fullmetal Alchemist’s fifth ending theme “RAY OF LIGHT” was a nice slow song, but Shoko’s more upbeat music is always a good listen too. While the TV size version of Flying Humanoid is a good cut that got me into song, I must say I really like the full version a lot more. The main reason being, the TV size kind of ends abruptly and always leaves me wanting to hear more. In her live performance a couple of weeks ago on Music Japan (not on the same one as May’n), Shoko performed this shorter version. It featured a longer instrumental outro, but was otherwise a prime example of me hinging on hearing the next verse of the song. See below.
* Music Japan live performance video after the jump.
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「閑話弐題（鶺鴒診断／鶺鴒余暇（りぞーと））」 (Kanwa Ni Dai (Sekirei Shindan / Sekirei Yoka (Rizooto)))
“Two Small Talks (Sekirei Diagnosis / Sekirei Leisure (Resort))”
In the first half of this mini prequel to the series, all the Sekirei get called in for a routine physical check-up where fighting is prohibited. All this really means though is that we get to see them strip down and get their measurements taken. Being a DVD/BD bonus episode, everything was completely uncensored as well.
WARNING: Nudity ahead. NSFW.
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「スイーツ大盛りメイドラテ」 (Suiitsu Oomori Meido Rate)
“Maid Latte with Lots of Sweets”
As luck would have it, Hinata’s not going down without a fight! Just when I thought he would get written off as a quick and ineffective stepping stone towards Misaki and Takumi’s relationship, he comes back with a strong showing of childhood proportions that even has Takumi pulling out the stops.
