Holy mackerel, this episode was practically overloading with plot and character development. The prediction I made about Hiromi being Shinichirou’s half-sister did get unveiled this episode although I am of the opinion that it was either a lie, especially if you consider Hiromi’s final line in this episode, or that it isn’t actually true. Also, something of this calibre just isn’t supposed to pop up in the middle of the show. :P We still have seven more episodes here!

I know Noe didn’t really have much of a role in this episode but I wanted to compliment her voice actress, Ayahi Takagaki, for what a great job she did this episode. In particular, I wanted to bring up the second time she articulated Shinichirou’s name when they were by the steps at school and the final line at the end of the previews, those lines were simply beautiful.

Will true tears be able to keep up with itself? I’m a little concerned about the future episodes given the recent developments. Can they keep pulling off these awesome cliffhangers every episode from now until the end? We can only hope.

We had some very interesting developments in this episode in my opinion. As I predicted, they didn’t go into the details regarding Hiromi’s parents at all. But look at that, there are hints about it in this episode’s preview. Will we finally get some answers in episode 6?

We certainly got quite a few misunderstandings that scars different people’s relationship that is typical of these shows in this episode. They usually end up getting resolved properly at the end of the series so I still am hoping for a Shinichiro x Hiromi pairing at the end of the series.

These writers really know how to pull off these cliffhangers with the way this episode ended. I really don’t know what to expect in the next episode. I mean, what’s going to happen to Miyokichi? How is Aiko going to explain herself out of that awkward outburst? It just seems way too out of place, surely she has to be honest with herself this time around.

Things were moving along pretty slowly in this episode although one can’t expect too much given how much has happened in the past couple of episodes. We also got a new opening and ending theme for this episode. They both sound quite good but I’m more partial to the opening myself. I’ve heard some talk about the ending being more suitable as the opening and vice versa although I’m not so sure about that myself.

There was some decent “tragedy” setup work with the hougu that Pheles gave Yoshida in this episode. She hasn’t used the hougu yet in the novels, but I imagine that she will at some point in the future. It just seems a little useless otherwise as it doesn’t really advance the plot. Maybe she’ll die and Yuji and Shana will survive at the end, but given the circumstances, they can’t bring themselves together because of the sacrifice that Yoshida made? This kind of setup gives me a little bit of School Days and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon vibe.

I’m very excited about seeing Yuji train and am hoping to see him do some hard core fighting later in the series. From my research, we should be able to see something around episode 19 or 20. We’ll be in the 14th novel at that point.

My eyes welled up this time around.

I was surfing around just now and one thing lead to the next and I decided to listen to Saeko Chiba’s 「さよならソリティア」 from 「クロノクルセイド」 through good ol’ YouTube. Needless to say, that prompted me to check out the ending again for the third time, and…yeah…

I choked a couple of times and then before I knew it, my eyes had started to well up. And then the tears came. They filled my eyes and stayed there, they didn’t fall down my cheeks or anything. The perimeter of my vision blurred slightly as I continued to watch the video. It was depressing, very depressing.

It seems like I get a bigger reaction every time I watch this scene. I wonder if I’m going to have a break down the next time I watch this.

This episode seemed a little slow compared to the past two episodes. Nothing of grave importance really happened though we did get a glimpse of how deep Shinichirou’s mother’s hatred for Hiromi went. Well, it’s hard to say whether ‘hate’ is really the right word, but we can all see that it’s pretty obvious that she doesn’t like Hiromi. The preview for the next episode did hint at potentially explaining it all, but I don’t know, you know how tricky these writers are, right?

This episode seemed to somewhat imply to the viewer that Noe doesn’t exactly like Shinichirou but is interested in him as a person. Of course, this feeling of concern could easily sprout into love, which is probably why her brother made that move at the end of the episode.

I noticed a few minor problems with the art in this episode and although they did bother me, they weren’t really all over the place so it wasn’t like they were making an entire scene look ridiculous. But, it does prove that it’s quite possibly impossible to have a perfect “art run”.

Oh my goodness, that was one hell of an amazing episode! The music and fight scenes intertwining together presented a superbly fulfilling experience. Beyond the fighting, we also had some great scenes of Shana screaming and charging towards Yuji out of desperation. Of course, one can’t forget about the hug, ah, that was a nice touch and gave me a very fuzzy feeling inside. ;)

This episode has managed to force me to eat my words since Konoe Fumina really did end up being aligned with the bad guys. It just seemed way too obvious to be true (kind of like what they were saying in episode 12 of 「さよなら絶望先生」, when I think about it). Oh well, you win some, you lose some, right?

We’ll be shifting back into low gears for the next couple of episodes but I’m still expecting some good plot advancement since we only have so many episodes left on our hands. Perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves is when is the 17th light novel going to be released? And, are we going to get a season III?

Yoshida was pretty damn lame in this episode with all that chit-chat about time and love. It’s weird that Pheles even bothered to play along. I mean, what did she gain from walking around with them all day? Was her speech at the end of the episode just an attempt to put everyone’s guard down?

The art quality dropped quite a bit in this episode but I’m going to let it slide given what happened last episode and what’s going to happen in the coming episodes. They’ll probably fix up most of the crap for the DVD releases anyway, so I’m not all that concerned at the end of the day.

Episode 15 should be one awesome ride since there’s probably going to be a fair bit of fighting and plot advancement. It really should be all uphill from here. And when you consider that they only have ten more episodes left starting with the next, they really don’t have any time to screw around with things that don’t actually advance the plot.

I’m sure you can all tell that this episode pretty much drove me nuts since I actually went out of my way to create a separate blog post just for nothing that fact. I don’t see how this series will have any time for any kind of a “filler” episode in the midst of what happened in this episode. I know that there’s nothing groundbreaking about the current plot with these “misunderstandings”, but I don’t know, it’s still managed to get me extremely agitated over wanting to know what’s going to happen next.

Whatever happens, I just hope that Shinichirou doesn’t end up with Ai at the end of the season (for whatever reasons). It seems highly unlikely at the moment, but hey, you never know. I’d just really prefer not having another Shuffle! experience, you know? That’s fair, right? I don’t personally think that Hiromi has a chance here, but let’s just not do anything too far out, eh?

In any case, the previews have only hinted at more anti-Hiromi progression with the comment by Noe’s brother. What exactly is Noe’s true motive? How will Hiromi dig herself out of the hole she just dug? What role will Tomoyo play in all of this (I think she’s a cool character)? And why does Shinichirou’s mother despise Hiromi so much? One possible theory I came up with recently on the last question I posed just now could be because Hiromi is actually Shinichirou’s dad’s illegitimate daughter (oh, please don’t be true), or he might have been having an affair with Hiromi’s mother or something. I really don’t know. I know it’s odd that I’d come up with such a repulsive theory when I actually want Shinichirou and Hiromi together, but well, it’s just what came into my head.

I don’t like where this plot is heading. It’s clearly steering away from my preferred pairing. Admittedly, it’s only on its third episode, so I guess it could all change…but still, it bothers me. I’ll have a full review of episode 3 by Tuesday night at the latest. In any case, this show totally has me hooked. The ending of this episode was very clichéd but it did serve as an awesome cliffhanger and the previews only hinted at more interesting things to come.

I present to you an edited conversation I had with Jacky from a couple of days ago.

Hiromi Yuasa: No wonder this show looks good.
Jacky: http://truetears.jp/ ok la
Hiromi Yuasa: ^lol, the official site’s first pic is pos
Hiromi Yuasa: I will NOT argue with you for that. In fact, I will AGREE.
Jacky: lol kk

The picture on the official website at the time looked like this…

…I suppose calling it a “piece of shit” is a little harsh, but when you compare it with stuff from the actual show, it really pales in comparison. Thankfully, they had the sense to change it about recently…

…ah, that’s looking much better. Now all I need is for them to release wallpapers for download or something. They probably won’t fit though, unfortunately, since my resolution of 1920×1200 is pretty high. ;)