I am starting to like Aswald more and more. At least they have something real to fight for, namely to get rid of the effects of the weapon of mass destruction that wiped out the Black Valley. I really liked the twist that the planet they are living on was apparently green and beautiful once but now is full of deserts due to the usage of some awful weapons. And only Garderobe technology can cure the disease caused by one of these weapons many years ago. Plus, whatever they do it’s difficult to be annoyed by an organization that features Midori (my favourite Mai-HiME character) and a cyborg voiced by Seki Toshihiko who seems to be the best seiyuu for evil or as in this case, not strictly evil, characters who are uber cool.

We have a Natsuki hitch-hiking scene. Does that ring a bell? Yes, exactly – episode nine of Mai-HiME. Sure, we have Nao’s personal touch, so to speak, which was hilarious but these endless HiME related hints and jokes are getting on my nerves. Can’t Sunrise come up with some new jokes? The good news is that Nao and Natsuki are now going to meet Yukino and Haruka in the next episode and maybe Natsuki and Haruka will actually, gasp, do something. I don’t know if I can handle the sudden excitement if that happens. I have to mention that Nao is pretty much the only character that is just as cool and interesting in Otome as in HiME (unless we count Sergei for a Tate’s reincarnation). Too bad that for some reason she is on friendly terms with morons like Arika and Nina, they don’t deserve a sempai like her.

Nagi is trying to create a new breed of Otomes which I would assume would obey only him. Too bad, someone is bound to stop his plans for conquering the world, sooner or later…I mean in episode 26. And Sergei volunteers to look for Mashiro. Can anyone tell me why exactly Nagi lets a traitor be in charge of that all-important search? He is practically begging for Sergei to just find Arika and Mashiro and stay with them. I hope that’s some cunnning plan, not a bout of the dangerous sickness known as plot induced stupidity. I know it’s hard not to get infected by it when so many character seem to suffer from its horrible consequences.

Tomoe is trying to rescue Shizuru, though, thankfully nothing actually happens. One would thing that an obsessed Shizuru fangirl like her would much rather try to rape her when she is hapless than help her escape. Sure, that would be a rather disgusting scene (not because I have anything against leasbian but we are talking about Shizuru here) but it would have the hidden benefit of a bunch ShizNat fanatics almost choking to death, due to the shock caused by it and as a result thinking a bit before spamming all the forums in the known universe with their fanboyish crap.

I am starting to like Aswald more and more. At least they have something real to fight for, namely to get rid of the effects of the weapon of mass destruction that wiped out the Black Valley. I really liked the twist that the planet they are living on was apparently green and beautiful once but now is full of deserts due to the usage of some awful weapons. And only Garderobe technology can cure the disease caused by one of these weapons many years ago. Plus, whatever they do it’s difficult to be annoyed by an organization that features Midori (my favourite Mai-HiME character) and a cyborg voiced by Seki Toshihiko who seems to be the best seiyuu for evil or as in this case, not strictly evil, characters who are uber cool.

We have a Natsuki hitch-hiking scene. Does that ring a bell? Yes, exactly – episode nine of Mai-HiME. Sure, we have Nao’s personal touch, so to speak, which was hilarious but these endless HiME related hints and jokes are getting on my nerves. Can’t Sunrise come up with some new jokes? The good news is that Nao and Natsuki are now going to meet Yukino and Haruka in the next episode and maybe Natsuki and Haruka will actually, gasp, do something. I don’t know if I can handle the sudden excitement if that happens. I have to mention that Nao is pretty much the only character that is just as cool and interesting in Otome as in HiME (unless we count Sergei for a Tate’s reincarnation). Too bad that for some reason she is on friendly terms with morons like Arika and Nina, they don’t deserve a sempai like her.

Nagi is trying to create a new breed of Otomes which I would assume would obey only him. Too bad, someone is bound to stop his plans for conquering the world, sooner or later…I mean in episode 26. And Sergei volunteers to look for Mashiro. Can anyone tell me why exactly Nagi lets a traitor be in charge of that all-important search? He is practically begging for Sergei to just find Arika and Mashiro and stay with them. I hope that’s some cunnning plan, not a bout of the dangerous sickness known as plot induced stupidity. I know it’s hard not to get infected by it when so many character seem to suffer from its horrible consequences.

Tomoe is trying to rescue Shizuru, though, thankfully nothing actually happens. One would thing that an obsessed Shizuru fangirl like her would much rather try to rape her when she is hapless than help her escape. Sure, that would be a rather disgusting scene (not because I have anything against leasbian but we are talking about Shizuru here) but it would have the hidden benefit of a bunch ShizNat fanatics almost choking to death, due to the shock caused by it and as a result thinking a bit before spamming all the forums in the known universe with their fanboyish crap.

Arika learns that technology can be a very bad thing while listening about Aswald’s history and suddenly get into a denial phase which ends with her and Mashiro being eaten alive by some giant desert monster. Yes, I am not kidding about that last one but if I hadn’t been told in advance I would have been quite shocked that such a stupid twist can actually happen. A giant monster eating alive people who then escape (we all know Arika and Mashiro will not die, right?) isn’t exactly a original or interesting story ever since the days of the Old Testament and the story of Jona. So first we had Arika who was like Moses now another biblical story. I wonder if Aswald’s demise hinted to the Sodom and Gomorrah story from the bible. We need a godlike character – is that going to be Mai? And where the hell is Noah’s Ark? Maybe it sunk due to the weight of all the huge monsters it had to carry so God just used a reset ending to make things right.
All in all, this episode rekindled the ashes of my dashed hopes. It’s a small chance but maybe this series won’t be a complete failure.

Mashiro is obviously trying to escape from the Forces of Evil ™. Conveniently, nobody bothers to look at her face beyond the hood and try to see who is she, even the soldiers who come to the camp looking for her. Anyway, the spoiled brat is supposed to have a world changing experience in this episodes and is obviously being prepared to be A Great and Smart Queen Who Looks After Her Subjects ™. And just as the development of more or less every character in Otome this attempt fails. Utterly. Why? Because Mashiro has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, that’s why. It’s unfathomable to me why anyone who has not suffered a lobotomy or has the mental capabilities of Arika would sacrifice his or her life for her. I am getting ahead of myself – but let’s just say it – in the end of the episode Aoi jumps from a high cliff (second time in this series the writers literary use the cliffhanger device in the sense of falling from a cliff followed by the end of the episode, it seems that originality is something Sunrise don’t like these days). Does she try to say that she does not know where Mashiro is or lie about it? No. It probably wouldn’t have worked but still, it’s better to try before you jump into a chasm. And we might have cared a lot more for Aoi had the writers actually bothered to develop this character. The million and one flashabacks included in this episode tried to portray the Mashiro-Aoi relationship as something deep and moving but failed. If they had tried to do the same with Chie and Aoi it might have actually worked although I doubt it, this series’ approach is just as subtle as a Microsoft advertising campaign. But I am asking for too much, who the hell needs development of such characters? The writers are too busy with the final touches of the amazing personalities of Arika, Nina and Mashiro, also known as Miss Stupidiy, Miss Jealousy and Miss Spoiled Bitch or The Awful Trio. All hail the scriptwriters’ genius! And Mashiro runs away following Aoi’s death which of course does not lead to the mob chasing her because I guess they were all stunned that Yuki Kajiura finally woke up and decided to include some brilliant music to make this series more bearable. We don’t see Aoi’s body so I fully expect her to be either saved or resurrected but since this is Mai Otome we are talking about probably even both.
Of course, the writers don’t bother explaining why Mashiro did not get hurt by the awful blast that took place at the end of episode 17 or how Arika managed to not find her. The latter is easily explainable by the fact that Arika is retarded but the survival of everyone after that blast is quite puzzling, no, not really puzzling the fact that they are alive after an exposition that did so much damage is just making fun of the viewers intellingence and basically says that characters die only when the circumstances are dramatic enough and to hell with logic and common sense.
The Windbloom army rallied behind Nagi – well, I would certainly pick Nagi if I had to choose between him and Mashiro but I wonder why no one has asked the key question, namely how in the name of Tokiha Mai did Artai’s army arrived just when the Slaves were attacking the city? Maybe they assume Nagi has invented teleportation or maybe they are just a bunch of morons. Personally I favour the latter theory, it seems that the Otome words has an unusually high level of retards. Maybe it’s due to infectious influence of Arika. Hey, I think came up with another explanations – maybe they are all gays and fell in love with Nagi. After all, why should we limit the stupid crushes only to female characters, males can be stupid, too. I think Nagi is secretly in love with Sergey, though, and all his evil plans are just his way to capture his beloved’s heart. In other news Nagi’s goal is to activate the Harmonium. That will apparently be achieved by using the song that only The Awful Trio knows. Talk about complete lack of surprise…
Nao, while hilarious as usual does virtually nothing and Natsuki should win the title of “Miss Useless Character”. Her most important deed in this episode is eating a snake which while more thrilling than most of the things she has done so far still leaves her firmly in the useless category.
Miyu is trying to win the award for most western cliches put into in a single character in a single scene. Sorry, you are out of luck, Miss, no Western character shoots with coins. And no Western character would shoot at a pretty lady like Nao. For some reason she is looking for Arika – that seems to be a popular leisure activity in this episode.
In the end, we see Arika, who unfortunately, if not really surprisingly, is still alive and full of joy. Sure, being away from a bitch like Mashiro is a good enough reason to celebrate but I just smell the new development – Arika will have an amnesia and will not remember anything from the last few days or maybe even more. After all, Sunrise are going for the world record in cliches, right?
Did I mention Haruka’s scene? Oh, the horror…I really don’t know why she is portrayed as some sort of retard who is always wrong and is basically a comic relief who since episode 10 has been just as funny as watching paint dry.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOWING!!!

I am not sure whether I like the ending that much or not. It just seemed that Grimmer’s death was the real climax leaving me a bit disappointed by the final confrontation between Tenma, Johan and Nina. But only compared to the previous events, mind you, it was a very strong scene in its own right. Since about episode 20 I have not been too fond of Runge but he really shone in the last arc. And you have to love his voice, so devoid of emotion that he really seemed like an embodiment of a great detective. I would have liked to know more about Nina and Johan’s journey from Prague to Germany but it wasn’t to be. I almost expected Eva and Tenma to be together in the end but I guess this development would have been too much of a cliche. Johan’s disappearance in the end made the ending too open for my taste but it looks there won’t be a sequel so I can tolerate such an ending more. But I guess the real evil mastermind was actually Bonaparta who got what he deserved in the end.

Favourite character has to be Nina although Tenma and Eva were arguably better developed. I guess choosing Nina has a lot to do with the fact that I love her seiyuu Mamiko Noto, I just can’t help it. Anyway, when it seemed that she killed some people in Prague I was quite surprised but I was even more surprised that this was actually Johan. My point is that at the time I couldn’t exclude the possibility that Nina is not totally nice and could actually kill people but I guess she was more like the God from that picture book while Johan was obviously the Devil. Nina and Tenma unwilligness to let the other one kill Johan was handled great, I am usually annoyed by characters who are always reluctant to kill anyone, despite how much the situation demands it, but this time it worked.
Tenma is marvellosuly developed. I simply loved the way his confidence grew over the course of the series. And he is one fo those rare characters who like to promote their ideals and stick to them all the time without getting annoying.

Eva probably changed the most and in such a great fashion that as far as character development goes I think she should be placed first among all the characters in “Monster”. For some reason I always liked her to an extent except in the first two episodes. It was very interesting to follow how the series of traumatic events changed her personality almost beyond recogntion but in a rather believable way, mind you. I just wish characters with such a sophisticated development were more common in anime.

Not much to say about Johan apart from repeating how awesome a villain he is. And unlike the cliched villains he doesn’t have a maniacal laughter, he does not scream all the time, nor does he want to conquer the world.

Another feature that I liked in Monster is the horror element. I have never been fan of horror but here we had some really chilling scenes. For some reason the story of “The Moster without a name” scared me quite a lot and in the same time it was so deceptively simple and done with simplistic animation. And the whole “I am home” and “Welcome back” series of flashback was absolutely brilliant. I also liked the way how often certain characters’ faces were not shown for a few minutes, keeping the viewers guessing who this character might be.

All in all, brilliant series. if someone bother to read that (which I doubt) and knows of a smiliar series, please let me know.

Still, I thought of that as Sunrise’s great letdown and hoped they’ll learn their lesson and make Mai-Otome a decent if not good series. However, I’d say that Sunrise actually succeeded in making the impossible possible (Mwu, please forgive me for using that one ) and went even deeper into ruining their creations. I’ll explain what I mean:

While Gundam SEED Destiny went from bad to worse throughout the course of the series, there was one little comfort for the fans of the original SEED series, and that was the presence of the 4 of leading cast, that survived the previous war – Kira-lovers had their Ultimate God, Athrun-fangirls had a boy to drool over (who cares that his character was butchered to that of a crying and indecisive spineless idiot, his design was perfect), and there were the pink-haired ‘I am always right, dare to cross me’ Goddess and the absolutely and utterly capable to always be wrong Cagalli. Plus, we had an endless amount of soap foam for all housewives to wash their laundry for the next decade and enough cheesiness to feed a whole kingdom of mice .

In Mai-Otome however, the only thing that would have made the series more bearable for a lot of the audience, namely Mai (it is Mai-Otome for shoujo-ai loli’s sake), is still missing form the grand picture. We have instead most of the other characters from the previous series in a screwed up fashion (someone see the resemblance with GSD?) and of course the ultimate yuri power in Shizuru and Natsuki. I won’t go there, ‘cause I hate that pairing. Then, as if the writers had to make things even ‘better’, they put in:
Mashiro – loli Maria-Antoinette – the princess that might not be a princess, but to compensate, she is a full blown brat;
Nina – I never thought I’d be presented with a complex to match Shinn‘s siscon, but Sunrise proved me wrong (yet again), Nina’s dadcon pulls it almost as well, and let’s face it we have 8 more eps that can prove her to be even worse than dear Shinn-chan;
And, of course, Moses, oh hell, I mean Arika, who is so annoying that one can die on the spot. She is an embodiment of every cliché possible and if that’s not enough she was also annoying to being with. Her voice should be arrested for repeated attempts of assault on the viewers mental health.

Wow, one starts to wonder if things can get any worse, but rest assured, this is Sunrise, we are talking about, of course they can. In the span of 16 eps (60% of the series) we’ve had some gradual character development for the new cast (there’s a surprise – in GSD, the new cast got close to none, which means the series served some purpose), though this time they went over board (and again are close to drowning, but there’s no Mai to save the day) and forgot the action. So we were left with the complete opposite of GSD till ep 36 (the approximate 70% line) – a lot of character development (for characters I don’t care at all about, mind you) and close to no action. Ok, we did get some comedy, so what?, it was not the comedy that made Mai-HiME the success it was, though it was a bonus.

I might end up looking like an idiot here but I would have rather preferred no character development (GSD style) in Otome than what we got so far. That’s not development, it’s just wasting two or three episodes for something that can be achieved in 10 minutes screen time (when you can write scripts well, that is) and doesn’t interest me at all anyway. Furthermore, the idea of subtlety is totally lost on the scriptwriters – if I count the times they tried to emphasize the conflict between love and duty I would probably lose count somewhere around episode 10. We had three annoying main characters in the start and by now the only result of their development is that they are even more annoying and not much different than what they used to be. Well done, Sunrise. And all that at the cost of making some of the HiME cast look like morons whenever they get one or two minutes of screen time – Midori and Haruka for instance. Well, that certainly reminds of the Cagalli syndrome in Otome (if we remove the limited screen time from the equation). You just cannot afford to waste so many episodes on the development of so few new characters, considering that the cast is huge, there are many events which have been set up to happen and I just don’t see how that will be achieved in the remaining eight episodes. Unless they kill half of the characters which would be great if they don’t resurrect them in the end yet again.

And I just have to bring up the topic of the God-awful robes of the Otomes. They were ridiculous in their maid outfits that made me think of old perverts with a kink for aprons, but the new robes, especially the eye-hurting pink of Arika’s new robe (now how that links up to the Sky Blue Sapphire would forever remain a mystery for me). Then there’s the almost as awful green dress that Nina wears and that is just as colourly connected to the Ultimate Black Diamond as is Arika’s to the Sky Blue Sapphire.

That is the part that is easier on the eyes, as one realizes once one notices the outfits of the Pillars. There we have – Spidergirl (Nao), Batgirl (yet to be seen), Storm (from X-men – also yet to be seen), the nice antenna that adorns Natsuki’s head (I’d bet she gets all satellite stations, both radio and TV, and thus can keep in touch with the latest news, no matter where she is – useful, huh?).

* Dante Alighieri – “Inferno”

The text in italics is by Matrim

I won’t bother with long descriptions of the events that took place in this episode, since whoever reads that is probably interested enough to have watched it already and if not should just do so rather than read spoilers. My goal is just to point out what I liked and what I didn’t like in this episode.

The good stuff: Important events actually happened, I had almost forgotten how that felt like because of all the filler episodes that preceded this one. We have Midori in action. Someone dies. Nagi is an amazing villain, I’d love to see him winning in the end, too bad this will happen when hell freezes over.

Everything else in the episode ranges from mediocre to totally stupid. Let us start with the plotholes, shall we? Natsuki got the permission from Mashiro to fight in Windbloom but did she and the other Otomes attack the Schwarz cannon? Of course not, they gave them all the time in the world to recharge and reload it. Then Robin Hood… I mean Midori comes, her gang of merry androids attacks Shizuru and Natsuki (and no, I won’t write ShizNat just to make the point that I am not a fanboy). So far so good, but here comes a plot twist which is so fitting for this series – when Natsuki’s and the Perfect Woman a.k.a. Shizuru’s powers disappear and they are helpless, Midori and co decide to leave them be and retreat. That’s funny because they were more than ready to kill Arika in episode 10 when she was helpless, so somehow I don’t see why they would have qualms about doing the same thing now, considering their obvious hatred for the Otome system. Sunrise probably got scared of the possible violent reactions of the thousands of ShizNat (man, you did write ShizNat) fans. Too bad, at that point I would consider the burning of the Sunrise’s headquarters done by a mob of ShizNat fans a good thing, if done for a stupid reason.
Jumping from one plothole to another, we have Smith, who despite seeing Arika being ready to materialise doesn’t bother to shoot her. OK, maybe he needs the annoying kid for some reason as indicated in the earlier episodes (maybe he has a thing for teenagers, just like the scriptwriters?) but he could have just shot her in the foot or something. Why wait for Erstin to fight with her? It would take time and Erstin might and did lose in the end. And who in his right mind would really trust someone like Erstin to win in a battle? Come on, John, chances to kill the main character are few and far between, you have to take advantage of them!
Then we have Sergey stopping Erstin’s Slave’s attack and the only result is his shirt being torn. Arnold Schwarzeneger is probably green with envy right now, even the Terminator would have a hard time to pull off this move. Actually, I am wrong, the other result is the usage of plot device number 143 in this series and the hankerchief revealing to Nina who pays Arika’s tuition. Is there anyone who did not see that coming a mile away, I wonder?

Then we have Nao and Natsuki getting so easily out of Garderobe, never mind that it was surrounded by the Schwartz forces. The Shizuru fanboys probably had a colective orgasm when she said “That’s my Natsuki” but the less said about that, the better.
The icing on the cake is Erstin’s death. I say death but she just “green-sparkled” and everyone who has watched Mai-HiME knows the implications of this, right? I am sure I am not the only one smelling a reset ending and/or resurrection of the dead characters. That would be the final nail in the coffin of this series but I would have cared a lot more had I actually liked it. The death itself might have moved me had I actually cared for any of the characters who were not in HiME but since the character development in this series is even worse than that in Gundam Seed Destiny I just winced when Erstin died in a such a cliched fashion. (Wow and there thought I was the only one, who remeined unphased by the ‘oh, so dramatic, yet not at all’ death of poor Ers-chan)

You know, it’s relaxing to have absolutely no expectations for the next episode. The only way is up for this series, right?

P.S. Please, Sunrsise change the bloody ending. Arika running is not my idea for good ending unless it ends with her being run over by a car, train or a stray meteor. Amen to this!

Note: The text in italics is added by Alexis.