Airi tells Yuuna and Mamoru about a contest, which Yuuna decides to enter. Tsubaki and Yamame (in a very poor disguise) are participating to. Tsubaki is up first and she makes a fool out of herself due to miscommunications and almost commits ritual suicide. Yamame then does a dance with kage buushin. Yuuna’s up next and sings a song called “Banana Banana.” Later, the producer takes Yuuna aside, hoping that she’ll have sex with him, but she thinks he’s just giving her a bed to sleep in. Mamoru goes after the guy anyway. Because of Yuuna’s successful act, she’s given the opportunity to become an idol. Mamoru is upset about this, but because Yuuna’s not abe to socialize with Mamoru and because she’d rather be a normal student, she turns down the offer and shows up at school the next day.

This was probably the best episode so far. It had a lot of the silliness of previous episodes (the part with Tsubaki particularly made me laugh) but it also had some serious bits here. It’s near obvious that Mamoru is going to wind up with Yuuna and this episode gave a bit of development for the pairing. Also, we finally got to see Yuuna use her brain. I’m surprised that she has one, but it is a good thing. At least we know she’s not entirely useless. Her banana song made me realize something I probably should’ve seen earlier. She’s quite similar to Miharu from Girls Bravo. They’re both pink haired and clueless yet cute. Plus they both like bananas. I think I like Yuuna a lot more than I used to now.

Yuuichi is just fine and things get back to normal until one of Yuuichi’s friends finds out about his porn magazines. Rika catches the two looking through one (called Moeloli ^_-) and casually leaves. When Yuuichi goes to apologize, she’s set a trap in her room so he gets hit with a book and trips over a rope when he walks in the door. Rika’s pretty pissed off. Yuuichi waits on the roof for Rika to come up so he can apologize, but when she does she merely locks him up there. He’s left staring at the half moon (hence the title?) until he gets sick and someone finds him. Later, he speaks to a doctor named Natsume. This guy, it turns out is staying with Rika now. He later gives Yuuichi another porn magazine when he knows Rika is coming up so she can catch him with it. Anyway, he eventually gets a nice kick from Akiko for messing with Yuuichi and Rika’s relationship for the fun of it. Rika later comes up again and starts casually speaking about the weather. Yuuichi eventually joins in the conversation but they start another fight (some of which is muted out) and Rika throws her father’s book at Yuuichi. However, it winds up falling onto a ledge below them.

You would not believe the difficulty I had acquiring this episode. I put the raw up for download on Friday and it didn’t finish until yesterday, after the sub was out. I figured that I’d watch the sub since it was well… there. However, now it’s Sunday and that still hasn’t finished. Therefore, I just watched the raw. I make my life far more difficult than it already is. -_-; Now anyway, Natsume got me really mad here. Seeing the ED and the preview though, I have some beliefs that maybe he’s more than he seems. Either way, he was still mean and I was very happy when Akiko kicked him. It’s rather sad to see Rika hating Yuuichi now. Hopefully next week she’ll get over it because it looks like Yuuichi’s going to go through the trouble of getting the book. Wow, there’s only four episodes left of this. How are they going to make this all work? I know it’s a simple story, but 6 episodes is pretty short for a series. I question just how this is going to turn out.

Summary: Saber gets creamed by Berserker, so Shirou tries to save her and almost gets himself killed… again. Saber and Shirou work out their problems while Shirou’s harem grows.

The verdict: Some cute things here, especially Illya’s voice. The episode itself was alright, but not the best. No Archer is disappointing. By the way, I’m rooting for Shirou x Saber and Archer x Rin. Sorry Sakura.

Next Week: I don’t have a clue what will happen since there’s no dialogue in the preview, but Archer had better show up!

Summary: Chibi Train and Eve meet with a kid named Jim who’s trying to avenge the death of his and other kids parents, causing Train to remember how the person who trained him killed his parents. With Train and Eve’s help, Jim stops his enemies and Train later turns back after a shower.

The verdict: This was kinda different from in the manga, but perfectly acceptable. It’s nice to hear about the death of Train’s parents, besides the quick thing they showed in episode one. Eve’s reactions regarding Leon were pretty interesting. She’s definitely got a crush on him and I think they’d be quite cute together.

Next Week: Looks cool. The moron black cat impersonator is back.

I know these entries are kind of pathetic. I’ll be back to my normal format soon enough.

Shinku and Sugintou start to fight, but Sugintou is more concerned about Meg. Because of this, Barasuishou easily kills her. Barasuishou receives Souseiseki’s Rosa Mystica and Shinku receives Sugintou’s. Shinku then understands why Sugintou was trying so hard to gather all the Rosa Mysticas. She’s ticked off and starts to fight Barasuishou. When she almost makes the kill, Jun and Enju show up. Jun tells Shinku to stop, but she’s too angry about all her friends dying. Barasuishou takes this opportunity to stab Shinku with a crystal, killing her and gaining the remaining Rosa Mysticas. Enju congratulates her for winning, but something’s wrong. It turns out that Enju is not really Rozen. He was Rozen’s apprentice and made these dolls to be better than Rozen’s. Obviously he failed, because Barasuishou is unable to hold all the Rosa Mysticas and crumbles. Shinku and the others are still dead though, so Jun is miserable. He wants to see the real Father, and so Father shows up. Shinku, Canaria, Sugintou and Suiseiseki are returned to life. However, Souseiseki and Hinaichigo are still dead, because they lost their Rosa Mystica’s due to the actual Alice Game. There’s a real Barasuishou out there, and she’s fighting the rabbit. Canaria returns to Micchan and Sugintou returns to Megu. At Jun’s house, Nori and Suiseiseki watch over Souseiseki and Hina. Shinku tells Jun to hurry home because Kun-kun is about to start. They walk through an N-field.

This wasn’t at all what I expected, it was better. Admittedly the thing I wanted most now was for Sugintou to have a happy ending. While technically Megu is still dying, Sugintou does get to stay with her. I’m also pleased that while some characters got revived, not everyone did. I’m not at all a fan of character revivals with no explanation, but the fact that only some returned made it more believable. Of course Hina had to stay with the dead ones, but I can’t have everything. :( There were some things that bothered me about the ending though. The whole last minute plot twist with the fake Barasuishou seemed sort of like a quick excuse to solve everything. I would’ve preferred if it were the real one, because that would’ve made things a whole lot more interesting. This also makes me realize that we really didn’t get to see much of Barasuishou at all. In respects, I kind of feel like I was cheated out of a character that I thought I’d known about. I wonder if the real Barasuishou is so evil and insane. Other bloggers have talked about the possibility of a third season. While I suppose the ending was open enough for one, I don’t think I’d like one. While there’s a chance that it could be really good, there’s also a chance that the creators could be out of ideas and it could be really bad. I son’t know what they would cover now that the Alice Games are seemingly through with (or are they?) but I don’t want it to go down hill from here.

Summary: Erstin finds out about what Tomoe’s been doing and saves Arika from one of her assaults. Arika and Nina win the tournament and are about to have the final round but Smith attacks with weird looking bugs.

The verdict: Great episode with an even greater new OP. I‘ve watched the OP several times and will soon watch it again. The only thing that bothers me is that Erstin wasn’t there, so I doubt we’ll be seeing her anymore. I was (probably) wrong about her getting killed off but not about her getting written off.

Next Week: The preview told hardly anything, but I’m betting it’ll be good.

OP caps

Also known as the other reason why I’m busy this week. I made this AMV for the fun of it with one of my current favorite anime. It’s hosted on You Send It, so it’ll only be there for a short time. As of right now, I seriously need to stop wasting time looking for Xellos/Fillia shrines and watch some more Slayers Try.

Summary: Akane is an Anderson Historian (as opposed to an Alice Historian) who is trying to destroy all the Alice’s pages. It turns out that her hate for Alices has something to do with her memories of being abandoned by her parents, but this doesn’t largely matter since she has serious memory issues.

The verdict: Does anyone but me wonder what the point of the loli twins are? The animation was off at points here, but otherwise the episode was interesting. It gets extra points for Kisa being the one to defeat Akane.

Next Week: Seems like there might be some character development for Kiraha. Awesome!

Because I have a boatload of DVDs to watch, I have to slack in other fields, including here. For this week, I’ll be doing something similar to my “Two run-on sentences or less” post. However, this time it’s a bit different. Each entry will get it’s own stupid little post. Rozen Maiden Traumend will probably be exempt from this just because this week’s episode is the last.

Summary: A twin at a circus is abused, so obviously she uses the Jigoku Tsuushin on her sister. Tsugumi meets with Hone-Onna and irks her by calling her “Oba-san.” ^_^

The verdict: Darned Futago! They confuse me to no end because I can’t tell them apart. Thankfully, other things about this episode redeemed it.

Next Week: Wow, looks like it’ll be especially good!

Arika is hoping Sergey will show up so sure enough, he does. He scares Miya’s creeps away and Nao works on their disposal. Back at the school, it’s learned that Miya took full responsibility for all the things Tomoe had her do and plans to resign. Arika, Nina and Erstin are questioned the next day as to whether she should be kicked out. Nina doesn’t respond. But the other two say that she can stay. However, it seems that she’s already put in a letter of resignation, so that doesn’t matter. Nina and Erstin go to see her off and Arika goes to see Mashiro. She discusses how she likes Sergey even after some of the cruel things he said. Mashiro has been locked up n her room because she’s fallen in love with Takumi and also because she’s not a good queen. Arika and Mashiro decide to compete to see whether Arika can become a Meister first or if Mashiro can become a queen that the people like first. Now it’s time for the finals to begin, and they’re going to be a tournament. It’s also revealed that Sergei is trying to get Arika to be Nagi’s pawn.

That was really good. I’m not sure whether I’m madder at Tomoe or Sergey. Probably Tomoe. I just can’t believe that she doesn’t even care that Miya’s leaving. Even if she has no personal concern for Miya, now it’s unlikely that she’ll be accused for what happened, as the school officials think Miya was responsible. She should at least be grateful for that reason. Sergey’s doing a pretty awful thing now. Not only is his relationship with Arika pedophilic, but he’s working for Nagi and trying to get Arika to their side. I’m sure this will be horrifying to Arika when she finds out. She should seriously realize that it’s wrong to love your friend’s adoptive father and get over Sergey now. Oh, and I feel bad for Mashiro because it’s obvious that Takumi and Akira already have a relationship.