Ran tries to convince the animals that humanity is worth saving.

Impressions:

I thought this episode was great as just a stand alone episode, or more precisely, as an episode of the three episode arc. However it still really failed to do a lot for a series ender except a small unimportant epilogue at the end. The episode didn’t even seem to really make use of the teacher character. They brought her back yet she did next to nothing. The only thing that happened with her was that she saw her grandmother again and effectively became more evil, but I would have thought hat something like that could have been handled at another time because it really had nothing to do with the other bigger story going on.

Still, as I said above this episode and the arc it just finished was very good. It was one of the best the show has had, as it touché don some pretty serious stuff. People seemed as if they almost died because of the animals, and if they hadn’t already the animals’ plan was to kill them. It was effectively an apocalypse that was about to happen if Ran didn’t stop it, as opposed to the other stories they’ve done where if they didn’t do anything some random person from the past will have had broken a promise. It was nice to see them get serious like this, as when the show did it became so much better.

Final Words:

Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed with this series. Not necessarily because it was bad, as it didn’t really try and do anything great, it just stud with some basics. However I’m disappointed just because this series had so much potential to be much more then it was, yet didn’t. The first couple of episodes opened up with this big event that made a big deal on the girls’ powers, an interesting psychological issue on what having he powers made someone, and how society treated them. Then they introduce Rui who has a mysterious power that is quite different then the others, something very unique and potentially very powerful. Then…..NOTHING. They have over 20 episodes of not even beginning to hint at the fact that Rui has any power whatsoever, and they almost completely drop the issue of how serious this could be. They just treat the powers like nothing and barely use them. They really only used the powers to find out what the mystery was, and then solved it using normal means. It’s not that it was necessarily bad, as it was kind of charming and cute to see them solve some of these mysteries, but it was disappointed in that it could have been so much more, very easily, yet it wasn’t

In the end this series boiled down to some random episodic mystery after another. They were completely isolated mysteries take five in a row out in the middle and show the episodes left you wouldn’t even begin to be able to tell there was something missing. Still, if you don’t expect the show to be what it had the potential to be and just look at it for what it is, it’s not horrible. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it has a small amount of charm, but not enough to make this series really great, it was ok. And that’s saying a lot as I rarely don’t praise a show.

Ran, Midori, and Rui try to find the cause of the quake and the mystery of the sudden appearance of animals.

Impressions:

I was very impressed with this episode. I didn’t quite think that the story, from what they revealed in the last episode, was going to be as interesting as it seems like its going to be. I thought the whole animal thing might just end up being some metaphor for someone’s more primal emotions but, although it may sound stupid in summation, the animals planning on taking over the world, taking back the world, and killing all humans is pretty big. At least it’s serious, even if not the most elegant problem. I’m still waiting for the teacher telepath to do something, as although she revealed herself to the others here, she’s done nothing but kind of help describe how they seemed to be screwed.

There still doesn’t really seem to be much hope for Rui getting any attention. Even if he does something in the last episode and helps to save the day, it still leaves absolutely no room for them to actually discuss it and delve into it. They still have the animal mystery to solve, as right now they’ve only revealed more and more about what the problem is. It just seems a shame, as Rui could have been so much more but this episode pretty much cinches it that they won’t develop him even in the last arc.

When a mysterious earthquake occurs at night, it spurs several things in motion.

Impressions:

I was pretty impressed with this episode. I have been pretty disappointed with a lot of the episodes lately, however this episode seems to be staring a short arc that will be much more interesting. It seems a bit darker then what they normally have, as all sorts of things are going awry in the tow, that one boy seems to becoming animal like, AND at the end we see the teacher reappear, one of the most important characters in any actual plot this series has had. I hope they really use her, as without her this is still nothing more then an isolated incident.

There were several things that were promising for this story arc to be much more interesting then previous ones. For one, the fact it’s likely to be the last of the series. However I still doubt that Rui is going to get as big of a role as he should get. They haven’t forgotten that Rui has powers. When Midori and Ran where holding hands and sensed they were being watched, Rui touching them caused for their connection to be broken. He seems to have some kind of negation power and from what I remembered, he can also amplify things yet I can easily see this story, as great as it seems to be, it’s not going to give Rui as much as he should get.

Ran hears the voice of someone in distress and tires to help him fulfill a thousand year old promise.

Impressions:

For a usual episode, this was pretty good, of course it didn’t’ have anything that is that critical and important, it was just a normal episode for this series dealing with a random mystery. Really, there’s not much else to say. It was average, like the other episodes and this series in general.

I’ve pretty much given up on hoping that they will have some encompassing plot event in this show. Despite several options they have for some real plot, they aren’t even beginning to use them like they could. At this point even if they were to do a quick thing at the end of the series and bring in some of those elements, it won’t be very good just because they’ve gone so long without addressing the issue. Really this show is nothing more then episodic mysteries.

Ran and the others look for a mysterious snow woman when they are skiing.

Impressions:

This episode was alright, but again as most other episodes of this series it seems to fall into the same pattern of some random mostly unimportant mystery that they solve. Although this particular mystery wasn’t really any worse then any of the others, I am getting increasingly disappointed that they don’t have anything more serious and less episodic going on, as they have the potential for it. I’ve effectively given up hope of there being anything too grand, but it doesn’t mean the series isn’t bad for just doing the episodic ones, I just wish it did more and think it would be better for it.

I was surprised with how emotional I found this episode to be. Although it wasn’t as emotional as several other shows, for this series this episode was more emotional then others. Maybe there is just something about abandoning foxes that I find sad, as I got emotional over Makoto in Kanon and I did find it kind of funny how this is almost the exact same story, but still, this episode impressed me.

Midori starts to spend more and more time with an old woman that she happened to meet and learns there is more to her then she thought.

Impressions:

I found this episode very interesting. I’m glad they focused on some more serious stuff this episode, such as the people with powers being viewed as monsters or the rather big one of Midori’s past with her grandmother being similar to the situation with her parents. In fact it was much more serious with her grandmother since she’s dead and she can’t resolve the problems they had like she seemed to do with her parents.

I found one of the most interesting parts of this episode was finding out that the old woman’s granddaughter was obviously the teacher from the first couple of episodes. I was really hoping they would somehow include her in the series again. She seemed so damn important in the very beginning, she seemed to be the main antagonist and had powers that were the same as the girls’ plus she had a troubled past, that we see here, like Midori, so she could connect with her. They brought her back seemingly randomly and unimportantly in one random episode, and since then nothing. I’m just hoping for her and Rui to have a bigger part near the end of this series.

When Rin gets a love letter before a match and then looses it, Ran and Midori help him find out what happened to it.

Impressions:

I wasn’t too impressed with this episode. Although it somewhat followed the last episode’s example of nothing having some bad guy and a real mystery to solve and so on, it wasn’t anywhere near as interesting. It was a lot less focused and serious then the previous episode. It was effectively fluff, an a lot more fluff then the normal two episode arc of some random mystery. Not only is Rin not a very interesting or important character, his problem seemed rather…stupid. I’m a huge romance fan in anime, I want it everywhere and to be focused on more seriously, but even I have no hope of anything serious ever happening between Rin and Midori, nor do I really wan tit. Therefore any more of showing Midori infatuated with him is just reusing a stale joke now that she’s obsessed with him.

I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again because it’s all the more important: This series needs more heavy focus on Rui. They need to do several episodes or at least just one episode on Rui. Hell, even forgetting his supposed powers for a second Rui is such an important character. He seems to be the only one there with a working mind, he’s the main character’s childhood friend and supposed love interesting, yet he is just taken for granted. Then factoring in the fact that this series opened with Rui having some strange powers, even more rare and powerful then Ran, Midori, and the teacher’s, then BOOM they never even hinted at the thought that that scene ever occurred. He has never shown any special abilities since then, even if just magnifying or stopping other’s powers. Really, this series has grown stale but it will be helped by this, and this alone.

Midori is bothered by her family history when she sees Ran getting along so well with her parents.

Impressions:

I was really surprised with this episode. It was nowhere near the way most episodes go. Midori has always had an interesting back-story that until now they didn’t ever touch on except for when Midori first met Ran. This episode was so much better then a majority of this series that I was actually a bit disappointed that it didn’t go further. The topic of someone being feared and hated, even by their parents, for having these powers is a very real and understandable point. I can easily imagine the case being that someone would think Midori was a freak. Not only was it understandable but it’s a heavy topic to deal with someone being hated by their parents as a child. It was a big topic and just touching on it made this a great episode though.

I really hope they keep up this line of episodes. It really broke away from the usual pattern of some bad guy doing something, using their powers to discover the problem but mostly using normal means to stop or resolve this. However there was really bad guy in this episode at all. Partially because it was different, it stood out, but I also think that is its plain better for this show right now and they really need to do more of it.

The group tries to uncover what the secret to the island is and why Ran is being called by its power.

Impressions:

This episode was alright. Overall I think the arc was pretty good and interesting, it wasn’t quite the problem or situation that I thought it would be, but overall it was still nothing too special and suffered form some of the same faults that the other episodes in this series have. Still, the individual story of this arc, these past two episodes, was quite interesting.

The episode did seem to get a bit too preachy at the end there. Even though this show has always had messages like be kind, don’t be evil, and so on, I felt everyone saying how you shouldn’t kill and so on was just a bit too much, especially as it was more then this series already had, which was substantial. Also, I felt that that wanna-be idol character had no real place in this episode or arc at all. Hell, she was just some random person trying to get a wish in and didn’t actually contribute to any part of this arcs story. I think they could have done without her.

Ran and everyone win a vacation trip to a secluded island.

Impressions:

This episode was alright. For the most part this series is being…well, like itself. There isn’t anything extraordinary about it and it’s not really changing much form episode to episode except that they deal with different events, that take two episodes, and have nothing to do with overall plot. I am getting a bit frustrated with this show for that, only because I can see this show being much more, yet its not.

It’s likely, like most of this series’s episodes have gone, that although there is a strong supernatural component such as Ran hearing these voices calling for help and so on that a large chunk of what’s going on, be it about the history of the island or the snake, or whatever treasure, it’s not supernatural. Like that guy’s grandfather having killed people to get treasure from the island or something like that. It actually has surprised me in the past how the show can go from a high component of supernatural focus to resolving the situation to be caused by normal events; still, I am interested in how that ratio plays out here.