□■どこよりも早い!! 6月の新刊予定(2008年6月10日発売)■□

◇灼眼のｼｬﾅSII
著/高橋弥七郎
絵//いとうのいぢ
ｺﾐｯｸ/笹倉綾人

Nope, we ain’t getting a XVII just yet.

I officially acknowledge here that my predictions did not come true.

Nothing of grave importance really happened in this episode. I guess that sounds a little scary since it’s the second last episode of the series but really, we pretty much just got a whole bunch of setup work going on in this episode. It’s certainly no real loss if you missed this episode.

Despite its “uselessness”, I think they paced this episode very well. While everything was just a “setup” for the finale, no frames were wasted in this one. Things happened for a reason, there was a purpose behind everything. I also commend the production team on managing to tie in the two season’s original material into this ending.

The previews hinted at something Shana fans have been clamouring forever although it’s likely just a curveball to throw all of us off. The only way this is going to happen properly is if Yuji does make his transformation next episode. I’d like to think that it’s going to happen but I really don’t know…

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.

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.

This was one hell of an exciting episode. There was action going on throughout the whole episode leaving you with very little room to breath. It’s amazing how Wilhelmina was able to keep up with Sabrac’s attacks. She certainly is one experienced flame haze.

This fight has probably been the best fight so far across both seasons in my opinion. I really enjoyed the different forms of attacks that Wilhelmina pulled out of her hat to try to defeat Sabrac, very creative indeed. One minor complaint I had with this fight was that Wilhelmina wasn’t fighting with her mask on. Yes, I know she put it on when she threw that giant ball of energy at Sabrac, but I was hoping to see her with the mask on throughout the whole fight, ah well.

The next episode is likely going to remain on high gears like this one. On one hand, I have a feeling that Sabrac might live to see another episode but on the other hand, since episode 22 is named 「クリスマス・イヴ」, I’d like to kind of think otherwise. But since these episode names are rarely what you actually think they are, it’s really all up in the air. ;)

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.

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. ;)

I have to say that I’m really quite pleased with this episode. We got some pretty good character developments as well as advancement of plot. I was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of Sydonay in the beginning. It really has been a while since we last saw that fellow.

It’s too bad we won’t be seeing much of Tanaka anymore as the series moves forward. I always got a kick out of the scenes that he and Satou are in. I can’t blame him though considering what happened to Ogata during Pheles’ first appearance.

Since Zarovee is going to show up in the next episode, it seems that we really will be seeing more action very soon. On another note, I have a feeling that Yuji’s change in attitude is probably going to be tied in with the Reiji Maigo somehow.

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.