Hajime continues his investigation and wishes to speak to Chie, but her mother refuses. He sees that Chie was watching him through a window, but she closes the blinds and Hajime gets a work related phone call anyway. At a bakery, a girl named Yuuka has gotten a chef names Morisaki to sample some dessert that her sister made. To Yuuka’s delight, Morisaki liked it. Her sister, Hiromi, and father have always dreamed of opening a cake shop, so it’s good news that a famous chef found their food delicious. Yuuka tells Hiromi, who’s equally pleased. They know that if their father was still alive he’d be happy too. They remember their past when he helped teach them how to bake. Yuuka then says she has more good news; they’re going to be on one of Morisaki’s cooking shows. Hiromi seems a bit worried. One morning, Tsugumi turns on the show that the sisters are appearing on. Behind the stage, Hiromi is still worried, but Yuuka tells her that it will be fine. Meanwhile, Morisaki announces his latest creation, the item that Yuuka let him sample. The sisters are called on to stage and the audience is shocked when they show off the same cake that Morisaki displayed. Morisaki grins evilly and they stop airing the show. Yuuka is angered when she and Hiromi are yelled at for stealing Morisaki’s idea. Unfortunately for Yuuka, she can’t really do anything because Hiromi apologizes. The next day, Yuuka hears two girls discussing the Jigoku Tsuushin (so they’ve started that silly plot device again) After hearing people who refuse to buy from their shop and being told by her sister not to do anything, she of course has to enter Morisaki’s name. Yuuka can’t access the site, however. She quickly realizes though that it isn’t exactly midnight. Once the clock changes, the site appears for her. Ai comes and does her usual thing. Yuuka then gets sent back to her room with the doll. Morisaki’s still up to no good. He sends someone from the bank who tells Hiromi to pay or else the shop will be closed. They can’t pay so the shop is destroyed and Yuuka enters angst-mode for getting them both involved in this. Hiromi says that it’s partially her fault. She turned down Morisaki’s love so he planned to ruin their lives. Yuuka finally goes to confront Morisaki, but winds up getting mocked. Angrily, she pulls the string. Morisaki heads to a nice, formal party only to get various cakes thrown at him. Tsugumi somehow sees this. She calls her father to tell what she saw. Meanwhile, Morisaki continues being tortured. Of course Ai’s associate’s fun has to come to an end when Ai arrives to take Morisaki to hell. While on the boat, he still gets to be haunted by a fake Hiromi/skeleton. Back on Earth, Hajime makes it to the party a bit too late. Hiromi’s back at work and Yuuka is pleased by her sisters success.

Wow, I wrote entirely more then I probably should have. Anyway, this one wasn’t as good as last week’s episode. Hajime and Tsugumi are quite interesting, but they hardly got any screen time. It looks like Tsugumi has the ability to see what Ai sees. There’s still no details on the connection between the two though. Hajime’s still having no luck getting his information. I wonder why he wants to learn about the Jigoku Tsuushin so badly anyway. Darn it, those two need to be on more. Also, I wonder if it’s a law that every so often two random girls have to be chatting about the Jigoku Tsuushin. It’s getting pretty ridiculous. This won’t make sense to those who haven’t watched the episode, but I’m overly amused by the line “Please eat me!”

Amano once again proves to be a big baby, as she needs to go to the hospital after falling down the stairs. After she’s done being treated by Miku, she sees a boy in a wheelchair putting on a magic show. He messes up and drops the ball he was using so his audience ditches him. Amano goes up to him and they introduce eachother. His name is Kouji and he goes to the same school as her, or he would if he wasn’t in the hospital. Amano encourages him and says that she’ll introduce him to her friends. She takes the Happy Seven to see Kouji the next day. In the lobby, Mina and Nami randomly faint as they often do and for once they receive medical attention for it. They’re soon fine though and the Happy Seven decide to help Kouji with his magic shows. They put on quite a spectacular performance. Kouji’s mother is pleased to see her son so happy and takes a picture of the event. However, she cries while she’s doing this. Later, Amano, Okiku and Mahiru take Kouji out for more practice, but Kouji’s sensei shows up. It turns out that he has a magatsugami inside him (and this one’s kinda cute.) Mahiru and Okiku transform to fight it. Kouji’s surprised by this, but Amano assures him that it’ll be fine. The magatsugami summons little monsters to attack the two members of the Happy Seven while he goes for Kouji. Amano stands in front of him but Kouji pushes her away and the magatsugami possesses him. He attacks Amano but Amano uses her powers to send the magatsugami out. Okiku and Mahiru have finished with their opponents and they defeat the magatsugami too. Kouji tells Amano that he’s feeling better and he’s going to start going to school. The next day, Amano goes to the Happy Seven with the good news, but they’ve got some bad news for her. Kouji knows their secret so they have to erase his memory. Kikunosuke gives Amano the object that he used on her in the first episode. Amano refuses to do it though and runs off to the hospital. She wants to see Kouji, but learns that she’s dead. Miku suspected this would happen and so the Happy Seven is their to meet her. Amano is angry and runs out into the rain. Kikunosuke tries to give her an umbrella, but she still steps away angrily. Then Kouji’s mother shpws up. She gives Amano the picture and is very glad about all they did for her son. Amano cries and runs up to Kikunosuke, who holds her.

This was too sad. While I suspected that Kouji was going to die as soon as I saw his mother cry, this was still painful to watch. Amano seemed to really like Kouji. While I don’t think there was anything romantic between them, it was still a close friendship that was shattered before it really got a chance to develop. Amano also proved useful in this episode by helping Kouji, a rare thing. It’s interesting to see that Amano was willing to go against the Happy Seven if it meant letting Kouji know the secret. It is kind of silly that people with magical powers always have to hide their secrets. While theirs some people that it would be dangerous to tell, I don’ think there would really be any harm if Kouji knew. Next week it looks like this will be explored some more as Mimi and Nene get involved in the secret. We got a new ending theme this week, though I doubt it will remain. It was a really pretty song though. Unfortunately there was no Happy Special. I guess the happiness of it though would’ve distracted from the solemn tone of the episode, so I’m okay with that fact. Now that Happy Seven has shown that it can be truly serious, I can’t wait to see what happens next week.

December 22- Hayate is still in the hospital. Signum works on gathering more pages for the book of darkness.
December 23-Fate has dinner at Nanoha’s house and Nanoha’s family plans to invite everyone over for Christmas. Suzuka calls up all of her friends to plan a surprise visit to Hayate. They arrive with Christmas gifts for her. She’s pleased, but most everyone else is uneasy because the Kishidan (minus Zafira) happens to be there too. Shamal and Signum acts calmly, but Viita is openly angry. Shamal, Signum, Nanoha and Fate go up to the roof when Suzuka and Arisa leave. Viita arrives, attacking Nanoha. The other’s then begin to battle. Their fights are distracted though when not one mask man, but two appear and trap everyone in energy bonds. They trap Nanoha and Fate in a crystal and take Viita, Shamal and Signum’s cores to use for the book of darkness. Then they make Shamal and Signum disappear. Zafira arrives but they take his core and knock him out. They then transform into Nanoha and Fate and transport Hayate to the roof. They taunt Hayate and then finish off Zafira and Viita. When Nanoha and Fate escape, they discover Hayate having a psychotic breakdown. She transforms into a white-haired, winged being and summons the power of the book of darkness to create a huge ball of energy.

This was a total shocker episode. I didn’t expect the Kishidan to go so soon. I hope they’ll be back. I feel pretty bad for Hayate. She had to witness Viita getting killed by people that she thought were friends. Now she looks pretty creepy. Her design kind of reminds me of Sugintou. Some Christmas she’s having. I hope Nanoha and Fate will somehow be able to turn her back. Maybe they’ll have to kill her. I hope not, but there’s still a good chance that Hayate won’t live until the end. Now there’s two mask men. That’s pretty crazy. I’m not sure who the second one is, but I have a pretty big suspicion that one of them is Chrono’s father. On the preview, Chrono seemed surprised seeing one of them de-masked, so they probably have some connection to him.

A girl named Meg is in the hospital. She wishes to die and prays for it. What she believes to be an angel that was sent down turns out to be Sugintou. Meg kisses Sugintou’s ring, creating a contract with her. It’s then learned that this was all Shinku’s dream, or was it? This girl really is in the hospital and as soon as the doctor leaves the room she calls for her angel. Sugintou states that she isn’t in angel, but Meg says that she’s more like a dark angel but will call her Sugintou. Meg and Sugintou discuss the Alice games and Sugintou says that she doesn’t need a medium’s help to defeat Shinku. Meg wants Sugintou to use all of her energy though so she’ll die. Sugintou flies off to Shinku’s town, but being there gives her haunting memories of her past. To make things worse, she’s attacked by Barasuishou. She uses Meg’s energy to defend herself, but is reminded of when she was defeated by Shinku. She goes into a bit of a breakdown after Barasuishou mentions Father. After returning to Meg’s window, she decides that Barasuishou was right and Father may have fixed her. Meg thanks her for using her energy. She tells that she was supposed to die when she was five but kept living. She knows that she’ll die soon enough though because she’s “broken.” Sugintou isn’t “junk” though, in fact Meg sees her as perfect. Sugintou agrees, saying that she’ll be Alice, but she still seems unsure. She then heads back to Shinku’s town, this time actually meeting with her enemy. Shinku thinks this Sugintou is just another dream, but it attacks so Shinku realizes that she’s real. She’s glad that father repaired Sugintou. Sugintou threatens to destroy Shinku the next time they meet, but Shinku first apologizes for calling her junk and says that all the rozen maidens always had a fair chance of becoming Alice. Sugintou disappears and returns to Meg, who’s singing. Sugintou wants Meg to continue singing but she declines, saying that she’s junk. Sugintou disagrees and doesn’t think she should call herself that word so lightly. Meg continues singing for Sugintou. Meanwhile, Barasuishou reports to Father’s assistant that everything is going according to plan.

Wow, the subs came out fast for this one. I actually didn’t really need them though. My Japanese is getting better! Enough gloating though, I’d rather talk about this brilliant episode. I don’t think I could really say anything negative about it. I’ll admit that I was never much of a Sugintou fan until today. I think my dislike for her attitude last season distracted me from seeing that her character has a lot of depth. The fact that they waited for the last episode to really reveal that she was anything more then a psychotic though played a big part in my not realizing her awesomeness. Due to the circumstances of her creation, Sugintou’s a very angsty being. She always had an inferiority complex because she thought she was “junk.” Now she’s been given a second chance to live though and the first person she meets is someone with the same complex as her. Meg, however, saw Sugintou as perfect. This, in combination with Sugintou’s obvious problems really made her change the way she looked at certain things. Also, her talk with Shinku helped. I was somewhat surprised that Shinku had forgiven Sugintou and actually believed she was the one who was wrong. I’m starting to rant too much, but I’m just such a sap! I loved this! The ending where Sugintou helped Meg was just sweet. This was so touching. I hope the rest of the season can live up to the greatness of this week’s episode.

Arika and Mashiro are trying to hide the fact that they made a contract while Arika researches how to end it. However, Natsuki and Shizuru have figured it out. Sergei suspects it and informs Nina. Arika’s acquaintance Miyu has come to town (with her bird Alyssa) so Arika and Mashiro go to her for help. She removes their gems but doesn’t know how to break the contract. Arika hasn’t told Irina and Erstin about what happened, but instead told them that she wants to learn about the Otomes. Nina decides to help them break into the forbidden library to try and confirm her suspicions about Arika’s contract. Her plan was to make use of Nao’s key, which happens to be identical to the key Midori used in HiME. They manage to get into the library, but don’t get to do their research because they’re discovered by the old lady whose name I never bothered to remember. She tells them that the pillars of information there are actually graves and one of them is of the girl she was helper underclassmen of, Monica Julien. Monica died in a battle where she faced her best friend. Many otomes were involved in this but their devotion to their masters were stronger then their friendships so they fought their hardest and killed each other. Old lady also sees that Arika lost her gem and replaces it. She punishes them all by making them scrub the walls. Meanwhile, the last descendants of the black valley prepare for an attack.

A pretty interesting episode. I’m quite surprised to see that Miyu isn’t evil this time around. Instead, she’s actually a friend of Arika. Still, seeing how she acted toward Mashiro, I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side. Miyu’s still very protective, but this time of Arika rather then Alyssa. Alyssa, like Mikoto has become an animal. She’s not particularly cute though like the adorable Mikoto cat. A suppose a bird is fitting of her though. She can still be spiky and yellow. ^_^ The Otome battle royale thing was pretty intriguing. It reminded me of what happened with the HiMEs toward the end of the first series. I wonder if another of these will occur. Arika’s been told once again that the otomes aren’t supposed to be friends with each other. In that battle they were forced to kill their friends and it’s possible that the same thing could happen again. While Nina seems to have no problem with this, Arika certainly doesn’t want to hurt her friends. Next week we get a beach episode. Come on, we just had a pool episode a few weeks ago. I hope there’s some plot development here, because while the pool episode was fun, it wasn’t really necessary.

Train is now working as a Sweeper with Sven and Eve. Their current target is a man named Igor Planter, who’s broken out of jail along with others. Rins is continuing her investigation from last week, but she’s distracted a bit when a drunkard confesses his love for her. She’s then confronted by Janus, Chronos member Seen, who knows her identity immediately. She learns a bit about Taoists from him but is then attacked. She’s able to escape though and coincidentally meets up with the Sweepers at a restaurant, where Train is making a pig of himself. Meanwhile, it’s learned that Igor Planter is ironically enough, a gardener. He seems to be pretty content working at his garden and living with a little girl (his daughter?) However, two Taoists, the fire-breathing Kyoko and this other guy whom I’ll just call Tall Hat Man for now show up wanting to recruit him. Soon, Sven realizes that Eve is missing. He, Rins and Train rush out to search for her. Train heads off on his own though. It turns out that Eve has located Planter. When she reveals that she’s searching for him and uses her “I am a demon” line, Planter snaps and drinks this strange thing. He mutates and is able to control his plants, using them to trap Eve. Rins and Sven wind up terribly lost, running into an aquarium and an art museum. Train, however, locates Eve. He frees her but winds up trapped. Then the plants grab Eve again. Soon enough, the others arrive. They start firing at the plants but it’s Train who saves them by destroying a gem that Planter was wearing. Before they leave to go back to eating, Rins notices the bottle on the floor.

Good stuff! This episode certainly had its “Huh?” moments, but it set up a promise for even better future episodes. It’s pretty obvious that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Janus. Now we’ve also got these two new taoists. From the little I’ve read of the manga, I remember their existence. I don’t know much about them though except that Kyoko has fire abilities, but that’s obvious from the OP. Next week it seems we’ll learn more about her though. It looks like she develops a crush on Train. That could be dangerous for him. She may be cute, but she’s still evil. Speaking of Train, I’m not too pleased at the fact that he became so cheerful, so fast. Obviously his time with Saya changed him, but I can’t see how he could recover from her death this quickly. I suppose he has to act differently around Eve though. His interactions with her are very cute.

Yukari goes to her photo shoot and though nervous, lets Mikako’s assistants prepare her makeup and everything. While there, her flashbacks explain a bit of her family’s history. Her brother was everything that her mother wanted while she wasn’t. The only thing that gave her any hope was that she got into a prestigious school. Of course, everyone she met at the Atelier made her feel like she was a part of something. Now that she was chosen by someone like Mikako to be a model for a magazine, she feels even better. After the shoot, which turns out well, she’s invited to eat dinner with the others and George takes her “home,” which is currently Arashi’s house. Yukari invites George to stay for coffee, but that eventually leads to a night of sex and Yukari losing her virginity. Meanwhile, Arashi meets up with Hiroyuki, who wants information on Yukari. He goes to see her but Miwako stops him. While they talk, she’s unable to explain but Hiroyuki figures out that Yukari ran away from home.

I’d probably call this the best episode yet. Unfortunately, things don’t stay this way forever. Since it’s been a really long time since I read the manga, I’d forgotten about Yukari’s past. I feel terrible for the fact that she couldn’t live up to her mother’s expectations. The way she’s been acting now makes a whole lot more sense to me, because this is the first time she’s really been accepted. Even Hiroyuki, who seems to like her seems to like Miwako more. I wonder if Yukari had grown up under more normal circumstances if she would have been willing to do something as extreme as giving up her virginity the first chance she got. George can be nice, but he’s not really a prized guy. There’s a lot about him Yukari doesn’t know, but she has it in her head that they’re similar and so… well it resulted in sex. Analyzing hurts. On a lighter note, I find it insane that Mikako’s 36. She doesn’t really look that much older then her sister, who doesn’t look like a college student. Now that she’s changed her hair, Mikako looks even younger then she did last week. I don’t blame Yukari for being unable to tell the two apart.

A little girl named Tsugumi watches Ai, but after a train goes by, Ai disappears. This girl lives with her father, who after reading an article about the Jigoku Tsuushin has been trying to access the site. He wonders if the reason he can’t access it, even at midnight is because he should be the target of vengeance. Another girl, Chie, does use the site. She seeks vengeance on the man who hurt her friend Yuuko. Later, At Tsugumi’s home, her father, Hajime, asks her if she’s heard of the Jigoku Tsuushin. She says she has, but doesn’t want her father to write an article about it. Then she goes into a weird trance and uses Ai’s signature line, “Ippen shinde miru.” The next day, Hajime continues his search for information and finds on a search “GBC39.” This turns out to be the address of a hamburger shop. Chie’s still angsting over Yuuko, who it turns out was pushed off a balcony by her boyfriend. She gets on a train but when it lets off, she’s in the place where Ai usually gives her spiel and doll. This of course happens and then some lava beasts drag Chie onto a bench, where she wakes up with her Wanyuudo straw doll. Ai is watching her. Back at Tsugumi and Hajime’s house, Tsugumi is about to have some milk when she enters trance-mode again and asks to go to the hamburger shop. Her father takes her and at that time Chie is at the shop as well. She goes to face her boyfriend who works there. She mentikons the fact that she used the Jigoku Tsuushin, but doesn’t want to pull the string. The guy mocks her, so she takes out the doll. He starts acting nice to her, but Chie’s too angry to listen so he attacks her. When Hajime and Tsugumi arrive, she pulls the string. The guy receives his haunting and as he falls off a building, Ai gets him with a reverse ippen shinde miru and sends him to hell. Later, Chie visits Yuuko in the hospital. She revelas her mark and tells that she really liked the man at the hamburger shop. She just didn’t want the same thing to happen to her.

Finally another episode that really varies from the usual pattern. While last week’s gave us some unfulfilled questions, this one actually gave true variations from the usual part. One particularly interesting scene was when Ai was talking to her grandma, saying that Tsugumi bought back memories. Tsugumi obviously has some connection to AI, because she did the ippen shinde miru and sent her father to the hamburger shop. What exactly is the cause of her weird trances though? Another interesting point bought up is what Hajime said about people who should be the target of vengeance being unable to be sent to hell. While this was just a guess he made, it certainly was true in his case. Now I’m wondering what he did though that he’s so regretful of. There doesn’t seem to be a mother in the picture, so that may have something to do with it. Hopefully we’ll see more of Hajime and Tsugumi, because their presence makes this show a whole lot more interesting. With Hajime’s obsession with the Jigoku Tsuushin and Tsugumi’s connection to Ai, they may be the keys to answering all the questions posed.

I’m sick as a dog but back and as expected, missed a whole lot. My goal is to summarize each of the series I missed in 2 sentences or less. This could get silly (and will more then likely have run on sentences) but here we go!

Okusama wa Joshikousei 11- In the first half a random stranger proposes to Asami but without revealing their secret, Ichimaru and Asami tell him that Asami already loves someone else. Next, on a class trip, Satomi and Kasumi somehow manage to save the day because their presence stops Iwasaki-sensei from practically raping Ichimaru.

Paradise Kiss 05- Yukari stubbornly decides to ignore the advice of everyone around her and is convinced that she can live on her own. She quits school, runs away for home, and gets a temporary modeling job from Mikako.

Mai Otome 07- So Mashiro’s super-sensitive about not being the real princess, who is obviously Arika, eh? What in the world was the point of that human Mikoto-looking shadow that cat Mikoto found, how is Miyu involved in this, and why does this show pose so many stupid questions?

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A’s 08- Hayate’s doom is becoming more and more likely, meaning Viita, Signum, Shamal and Zafira may have a very sad Christmas. There’s no new info on the masked man, but it’s now known that Graham and the catgirls are after the book of darkness.

Black Cat 07- Eve leads Sven to Train and the two rescue him and the kids but rather then being grateful, Train is rather hostile toward Eve. Eve leaves and gets attacked by Chronos number seven but Train (adorned in the ridiculous looking cat bell collar) shows up to help her.

Happy Seven 08- Amano has to sing for school, but considering that her voice breaks glass, the Happy Seven have to train her. Mostly due to Kikunosuke’s moral boosting she’s eventually able to succeed, though things don’t go exactly right. :P

Rozen Maiden Traumend 05- A fun but pointless episode centered on Hina’s attempts to face the scary mailbox and deliver a letter to Jun. Hina also gets to see Tomoe again and Canaria’s crazy master is introduced.

Okay, I’m aware that I just took the lazy way out, but I defeated my backlog so yay!

This weekend I’ll be in Virginia enjoying a con and being that I don’t have a laptop, I won’t be able to update. I’m not sure what I’ll do about the episodes I’ll miss. Maybe I’ll post them eventually as quickies and maybe not. It really depends. For the time being, if anyone’s going to be there, look for me. On Saturday I’ll even be wearing my costume of Miharu from Girls Bravo.