Ugh, this episode has made me feel very uneasy about the (unconfirmed) Shinichirou x Hiromi pairing. Why did Shinichirou have to keep thinking about Noe when he had that little date with Hiromi down by the beach? I know I got to see a kiss and all but it’s completely meaningless if Shinichirou ends up being with Noe at the end.

This episode wasn’t a complete disappointment though as it was nice to see Aiko and Miyokichi get back together. It was also a little reassuring to see that Hiromi’s line was for Jun and not Shinichirou. It’s still all very wobbly but I mustn’t give up hope!

The previews for the next episode didn’t really offer anything particularly enlightening but I suppose that might be because they want to try and keep things under wraps. The episode already ended off on a cliffhanger so they might have figured that there’s no need to make their audience feel any worse than they already feel.

This would’ve been an absolutely wonderful ending to the series if this was the last episode…but, for better or worse, we actually still have three more episodes to go. They’ll probably try to keep Noe in the running but I’m not sure as to how that’s going to happen since Shinichirou clearly likes Hiromi and not Noe.

I was so very frustrated when I saw this scene but the thought quickly dissipated as I soon remembered that Shinichirou was going to be riding on his bike from the previews. Still, the fact that I didn’t get to hear him say those important words to Hiromi ticks me off. I guess that’s what the ending is going to be for, right? Right?

Unfortunately, we also got to see a rather disturbing preview after that climactic ending because of what you hear Hiromi say. I don’t want to believe that she’s saying it to Shinichirou because these previews are always so misleading…but hey, you never know. :/

Every time I listen to a track from FFXII, I start wishing I was playing the game right then and there. :/

Wow, the art quality of this episode has made quite a dive. While things looked okay here and there, there were quite a few oddities and utter ridiculousness that slipped in here, particularly near the end of the episode when Yuji showed up, that was just plain awful.

If you forget ignore the problem with the art, you might actually enjoy the episode. I know I did. I think the screenplay of this episode was particularly well done and the music selection of the various scenes were very appropriate.

I don’t know how they plan on wrapping up up the series here given the current events. Will we get a third season or will it just be concluded with an OVA or something some time later? We’ll probably get a third season but I can’t imagine it lasting for 24 episodes again. I mean, surely the series just has to end.

I got back to my place at Waterloo at around 1800 yesterday. I’ll try to get some writing done later today or later in the week.

I’ll be making a little detour at Seattle tomorrow before going to Santa Clara on Sunday for EclipseCon to visit Jacky and Mark over at Microsoft. If anyone knows of any places I simply have to go, let me know! ;) We will be dropping by Kinokuniya, so you don’t have to tell me about that one.

While I told a few of my friends that I had been rejected by Google, I never publicly announced this fact. I think it’s a little unfair to my readers here, so, well, here you go, I got rejected. ;)

While this episode has a lot less action than the last episode, it was certainly no less impressive in terms of scale. I will admit that there were quite a few bad drawings in this episode. This is to be expected after what’s been happening recently. However, it still bothered me even though I had mentally prepared myself for this.

I read a lot of complaints about the usage of vocals during the insert song and I have to honestly disagree with those opinions. It didn’t even occur to me that it was even remotely out of place when I was watching the episode which made it even odder for me to read comments noting that the vocals should’ve been removed.

The series is very slowly beckoning towards its conclusion. There’s a lot of speculation about what’s going to happen at the end though I think that we can all agree that there’s pretty much no way they’re going to spin an anime original ending at this point given the events of the next episode.

I didn’t check their website in a long time so I was actually not aware of the fact that their new album, “LOCKS“, was going to be released today until Amazon.co.jp sent me a notice a couple of days ago. I guess those emails do come in handy once in a while.

Not counting the tracks that were released as singles (as I’m only evaluating the new tracks), I think my favourites so far are 「もう一度笑って」, 「ふたり」, and “Love is a Bird”. Of course, my opinion isn’t really worth much since I’m heavily biased towards them, having followed them since late 2003. Being in possession of every single, album, and DVD they have ever released doesn’t help either. ;)

This will be my second time going to EclipseCon and I’ll be setting new lows by staying for an even shorter amount of time than I did last year. I’ll be flying in to San Jose on Sunday afternoon and departing on Tuesday at 0620. Yeah, that’s right, I said 0620. The reason I have to do this is because I have other obligations that I need to fulfill. All this juggling of time is actually part of my master plan to achieve “work/life balance”. Though, of course, it’s not going very well right now (since I just sit on IRC all day long), but someday…

In any case, if you’re looking for me at EclipseCon, you’ll probably find me wherever the “IRC posse” (as Tod coined us) or Platform team is. I’ll also be at the SOC and ECF BOF sessions, so you can look for me there too.