Well, this was quite an episode to behold. The pacing was very good in my opinion and we had some very excellent scenes. One scene I particularly liked was Tanaka’s struggle with himself and his resolve to report what he saw to Satou and Margery. I guess this might really be the last time we’ll be seeing him for a while.

It was very exciting to see Yuji kicking major ass in this episode. This is undeniable proof that all those training sessions was not a horrible waste of time. We’ll be seeing some tough enemies in the coming episodes, so it’s hard to say as to whether we’ll see him kicking ass again, but at least we got our money’s worth this time around.

Well, at this point of the series, there really is no more time left for hitting the slow gears. It’s probably going to get pretty intense all the way through to the end of March. At least, that’s what they’d like you to think. Since episode 22 is called 「クリスマス・イヴ」, I guess we might get a little break there.

I already talked about this episode for a little bit a couple of days ago when I checked out the raw and I have to state once again that I still believe in the Shinichirou x Hiromi pairing. They will not rob me of this I say!

I was a little surprised that Noe’s brother actually tried to blackmail Shinichirou into going out with Noe by saying that he was going to stop going out with Hiromi himself. I don’t know, it’s just that it seemed to me as though he was just going to have one date with her and that was going to be it. I mean, we all know full well that Hiromi doesn’t actually like him anyway, so how long does she intend on keeping this charade going?

From the previews, we just might finally get some information about Hiromi’s past and the story of her mother…or we might not and it’d just end with Hiromi confronting Shinichirou’s mother as another cliffhanger episode. Speaking of which, we also had one of those this time around with Ai’s confession to Shinichirou. It’s a cruel world we live in.

This episode was alright. While it had more to do with the main plot than then the last one, I preferred that one over this one. While things did move along in this episode, I found it kind of lacking in the character development side of things.

This episode did make up for its setbacks by having excellent artwork along with a very moé Shana. The scene of her talking with Chigusa was simply an overload of moé. Speaking of Chigusa, I still can’t get over the fact that Shana calls her by her first name.

Things are starting to heat up once again. We’ll definitely be getting more setup work and plot advancement in the next episode but I don’t think we’ll be getting any action. With any luck, Yuji might draw out the Blutsauger, but that’s probably exactly where the episode is going to end. ;)

Region locks are quite possibly one of the stupidest things known to mankind since voltage and prong differences in adapters.

As you can see, Marta is not amused.

I just came to the realization that Rie Kugimiya is going to be voicing Marta in the sequel to Tales of Symphonia and thanks to region locks, I will be unable to play the Japanese version of the game on my North American Wii.

I deeply regret not purchasing a Wii when I was last in Hong Kong in December of 2006.

絶望した!!!

After gaming for over forty hours, I have finally completed Final Fantasy XII. Now I can finally report back to my regular duties (like Eclipse, schoolwork, and watching anime).

I’m planning to go home on Friday morning which effectively leaves me with two more days left to beat Final Fantasy XII. Can I do it? This game is taking forever, seriously.

It seems that I have been mistaken as the story did not conclude with this episode. I don’t know how long they plan to drag this on for as there isn’t going to be a lot of time to talk about the aftermath of all of these incidents. Or do they actually not care about this at all?

It’s hard to believe that the Yamainu were defeated so easily by our young protagonists. I know they have a home court advantage and all, but you can’t seriously tell me that they are capable of outwitting trained professionals, right? I mean, shouldn’t these guys be familiar with the terrain as well?

I was surprised to find out that Satoshi was not actually dead. I would’ve thought that he had been dissected for research purposes or something or another. I’m sure they have sufficient funding to keep him alive, but what purpose does this act serve?

This episode started off quite nicely with Irie and Akasaka on the run. Although, I think we can all agree that it’s kind of hard to believe that that Yamainu operative was able to hit Irie’s car’s tire with one shot. I mean, he was using a handgun (which obviously has no scope) on a moving “platform” (the car) and he somehow managed to hit the tire of another moving car. Absolutely ridiculous. Is this the power to change fate at work?

Things got a little weird during the second half of the show after Shion and Kasai got caught. I swear, how many times do they need to mention the fact that fate can be changed or that miracles are real? I love how Rika tried to sic the blame on Hanyuu and subsequently got slapped for it. Things did get better at the end when we saw Akasaka kick some Yamainu ass.

I’m guessing that things will wrap up by the end of the next episode with some kind of an epilogue for the final episode. Whatever their battle plans may be, it surely can’t take two episodes to execute, right?

Well, contrary to what I had in mind, Takano and her men were pretty much getting destroyed in this episode. Everything has proceeded with what our protagonists had foreseen, leaving the Yamainu in complete disarray.

Thankfully, they did leave some room for humour in this episode despite its seriousness. Ooishi’s confrontation with Ootaka was particularly hilarious. With the important role that Ooishi has been playing, I couldn’t help but think how funny it would be if Ooishi was actually a bad person in this arc and how all this goodness is going to be for naught when the tables get turned around. :P

With three episodes to go, we still have a lot of time left for even more interesting developments. Besides Takano’s side, I’m curious as to whether our young heroes are going to be doing anything. Have they just been sitting at Mion’s house this whole time? Are all their screen time going to be cut short since it’s the last arc and all? Also, why isn’t Shion with them? I mean, she showed up in the last episode and all, but is she not going to partake in this charade?

It looks like everyone has started to make precautions against the coming crisis. Takano’s a smart person, so I’m hoping that we’ll actually see an interesting battle of wits in the coming episodes. It’ll be a bit of a drag if she just lost without doing anything really substantial.

And besides, everything is going way too perfectly for our young protagonists. Our writers have crafted an amazingly original story thus far, surely they can’t just suddenly fail us with some lackluster conclusion, right?

While we all know that Takano’s going to lose at the end, what exactly is going to happen to her? We can see her motive behind doing what she’s doing, so will she be spared in some way? Will she get her way, per se, with the help of Irie and other people and reveal to the world that parasites really can control the human mind?