Wrath explains the hostage situation to the Elric brothers and Ran Fan gets an update about Ling.

Impressions:

This episode can easily be described as aftermath. I mean they pretty much just dealt with what happened after such a major incident. As expected the main characters are in hell right now since they can’t really make any big moves. The homunculi have managed to take numerous hostages on them so any rash actions will mean their immediate deaths. Ed can’t even resign since Winry would be killed as the consequence. Mustang has Riza to worry about not to mention the rest of his men who are being split apart. Havoc on the other hand can’t go anywhere due to his situation and Armstrong will still be around so he still has limited allies. The main problem is Riza being so close to Wrath that he has to be extremely careful about what he does.

I was surprised but impressed with Armstrong in this one. I hadn’t considered that he had such suffering haunting him although he was part of the Ishbal extermination. You can’t blame the guy for just stepping away from the whole situation. Really he couldn’t fight against it and it has to be better than staying and taking part in a slaughter you don’t believe in. Still can understand his feelings and desire to not back away this time. People he cares about along with the people are in danger and he can hardly run away and hope for the best. Besides Mustang and the others will need all the help they can get and that guy is definitely help. Nice of Armstrong to take over for Riza so she could go to the bathroom. He was in there for a really long time and can imagine her not moving an inch until he came back out again.

Damn Wrath nearly had another body on his kill list. He just makes it a habit of stabbing Al doesn’t he? Good thing May Chang is small or she would have been killed as well. What an insane guy doing such things. While you knew it was probable it was still confirmed that May Chang is also royalty in Xing. I can’t believe the stupidity of her and Ran Fan, choosing to fight when their bodies are in such rough shape. That doctor is one frightening person though.

Think that Al will send Ran Fan over to Winry if only so she will have a little bit of protection. It was nice of Ed to make that call. It must have been a nice surprise for Winry to actually have him contact her for something that wasn’t him being in trouble. Of course it was about her being in danger, but I’m sure she appreciated it. Considering she recently figured out her feelings it meant even more for her. I’m really worried with her out there by herself although not being in Central is the best for now.

Ling proves that he really is still in there. Writing the message to Ran Fan and even taking over for an instant to yell at Wrath. He is without a doubt one amazing person. The fact that Ling is actually biding his time and waiting to take over just blows me away. I think Greed is impressed as well and doesn’t mind since he likes greed and wanting to take over that kind of body for his ambitions is one greedy thing to do.

I can understand Marcoh wanting to be killed so he wouldn’t cause any more deaths. The man has been haunted ever since for what he did. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind dying for just those sins, but also if they want him to commit even greater sins then he would obviously want death. Of course Scar probably doesn’t mind long as he gets his information. These events just get more complicated for him since he would never have considered so much being behind this.

For now it seems Ed has a path to follow. There is a chance to recover Al’s body and hopefully May Chang can teach him about Eastern Alchemy so he can still fight against that ‘father’ and the homunculi no matter what happens. These events have been amazing and it’s almost sad to compare this to the original series.

Ed, Ling, and Envy escape from Gluttony and land in the middle of enemy territory.

Impressions:

Well this situation was about as dramatic and unstable as I was expecting it to be. After all Ed and Ling did just pop out in the middle of the enemy stronghold. Though I suppose the start was a shock for everyone with that guy healing up Ed and Al. Plus his reaction really revealed his close connection to Hohenheim. At this point I suppose you could call him a twin or something like that. Either way they are both clearly not normal. From the reaction from Ling and May Chang he is pretty weird and there is something very strange about his body. Though I suppose that was obvious when he had a third eye that cried out a philosopher stone. Not to mention he’s the ‘father’ of beings that have been around for centuries. There are a lot of questions around that guy and Hohenheim. It makes sense the brothers would call themselves Elric since Ed doesn’t want anything to do with Hohenheim.

But things just got crazier as the episode went along. That guy somehow stopped Ed and Al from using alchemy. After that he turned Ling in to the new Greed. It seems he has the ability to control whether memories are transferred to the body or not. Makes sense since he recreated someone that he had destroyed earlier. On the positive Ling is still inside there somewhere. Although it would seem that only Ran Fan has any chance of getting through to him in there. I can understand him going so far and there wasn’t much of a choice anyways. I just hope that guy can be saved. The weird thing is I didn’t at all notice Ling standing with the homunculus in the new OP. Must have not been paying close enough attention.

Even Scar turned up on the scene and found out the truth about Ishbal. It kind of annoys me that he was any help to Ed and Al considering what he has done. Guess it’s a question of what he is going to do from this point on? Is he just going to keep working on killing the brothers and State Alchemists or focus on the homunculus? I guess he would go after those who started the whole thing first. Still I’m really hoping they don’t try and turn him into anything but another enemy. That Envy fired the first shot doesn’t change what he has done and continued to do since that horrible event.

It was a good thing that Scar and May Chang weren’t affected by whatever that guy did. I suppose it’s because May Chang uses eastern alchemy and Scar’s is unique as well. Whatever it was the guy did it was clearly focused on stopping the type that Ed and Al were using. Either way that guy is a major foe and is difficult to do anything against since he can just block and counter so easily.

Now I wonder what everyone will do next. Mustang has been completely blocked and against that power there isn’t much Ed or Al can do. They really could use some help here but I’m just not sure where it’s going to come from with another ally in Ling being lost. Not a great situation they are all in right now.

Kuroko and Uiharu have a fight which brings up a promise made in the past.

Impressions:

Well this was a fairly good episode. Really I didn’t end up having very strong feelings about it one way or the other. It was good for Uiharu and Kuroko character development and let us see just how they got to where they are now. It seems Kuroko was always the type that would jump into things and be reckless, whether it is about her affections toward Mikoto or dealing with crimes. It certainly didn’t go well for her in the past or in the present with her not taking consideration the fact there could be multiple criminals. Her usage of teleportation has gotten better but apparently she still makes the same mistakes. It was an unnecessary risk considering they were right outside Judgment and could have waited for some backup to arrive. Maybe that hit by the door she took will remind her to listen to Uiharu and not act so rashly. Well it is Kuroko so sadly can’t say there is much of a chance there.

Well on the positive this episode proved there might be guys in Judgment. Honestly I was wondering since pretty much every single member we’ve seen so far has been a girl. Though of course this is a series where nearly every character period has been a girl except for the villains which have been predominantly male. That first crook will really have to live in shame getting owned by a really small girl. Kuroko obviously has skills, but no one wants to get beaten by a kid. That one crook had a pretty good ability and was smart about how he acted. He didn’t make his presence known until his partner was down and could even escape if necessary. Of course he didn’t expect a certain railgun to come to the rescue.

The series continues to show off some interesting abilities. First we had the x-ray vision which found the gun in the first place and then the Equal Speed ability which while not that fast was pretty efficient. If you couldn’t destroy them they would keep moving and could probably penetrate just about anything. It would seriously be bad to get hit by that.

So it wasn’t a bad episode though didn’t have much Mikoto in it. At the very least it seems next episode will focus more on the present than the past.

I’m not even sure what to say after the conclusion of this round. I feel so manipulated….This is definitely the best of all the rounds so far considering the depth and what went on outside of the game board. While I may not like everything that went down there is no doubt it was really well done. At least for now I’ll be certain not to trust anyone ever again, haha.

Impressions:

But really I was completely owned here. You can’t just do that to people! Pulling the whole sympathetic thing, making us feel bad for Beatrice, having a last stand battle, and then revealing it was all a trick. Curse you Beatrice! Thought it was going down my normal path of liking characters that initially I hated once I could understand them better. Instead it was just a gigantic lie to trick Battler into giving up. If she couldn’t just use the murders to convince him then she would use this new technique. Just really frustrates me that I couldn’t see through it. There is only one way to deal with this situation. Have to barricade the defences and completely refuse to believe anything that comes out of Beatrice’s mouth. Gah, just sucks when you get trolled like that. I’ve never been the type to take being tricked lightly so won’t lower my dislike of Beatrice ever again.

While I don’t think Battler would have signed especially after their behaviour got suspicious it was still a good save by Ange. Bernkastel really brought in a powerful piece here. Besides she needs a chance above 0% to create her miracle. This gives a chance that wouldn’t be possible with Battler fighting alone there. I somewhat expected this with Ange’s appearance in the last episode and the OP. Beatrice has supreme control over that island but she doesn’t have control outside it. Bernkastel clearly isn’t limited by location or time so she could go and bring Ange into this.

Ange is a pretty interesting character though we’ve only seen her for a short time. You can only imagine what she had gone through over the years with her parents and brother having died during that incident. Probably the only thing that kept her alive was waiting for Eva to die and wanting the truth. Eva took the truth to the grave and so Ange could never have it. Not surprised she would feel like dying so at least she could go and see them. Some nice kicks she delivered to those goats and Virgilia. The only thing that bothers me is Bernkastel being a bit vague on what beating Beatrice would get Ange. Hopefully that miracle will allow her to bring her family back and change the tragic result. Anyways it seems that the whole pointing while saying “it’s no good” is a genetic thing. Well either that or Battler did it so much at home that Ange made it a habit.

Of course it just brings more questions about the truth of events. The cigarettes really helped to cut up the alibi that Eva might have had in regards to Maria and Rosa’s deaths. Very well could have just stepped out of the room using some excuse or Hideyoshi wanted to smoke so she left to give him room. Either way it was shown earlier she doesn’t like smoking so no way it would have been done by her husband while she was in there. She might not have been able to sneak out the gun so had to kill those two using more hands on methods. Could have snuck up on them or been non-threatening before killing Rosa and then grabbing a fleeing Maria and choking her to death. Eva also left to rest while the three went out to get supplies. Would be possible to sneak out and kill them all before coming back to her room. While I’d hate to think she could callously kill her husband and child anything is possible. Could have been so angry about George being willing to involve himself with someone of Shannon’s standing that she would rather get rid of him. After all being the head was the most important thing to her.

On the other hand there is the Nanjo problem. It was pretty tightly tied up with the red words. Of course I’m leaning toward something like multiple personalities. Then she could go on a killing spree without actively knowing about it. The damage to Jessica’s eyes could have been intentional. She did look very disturbed when pulling the gun on Battler like that. But the red seemed to make it so Eva wouldn’t have time being with Battler. Maybe she knocked him out, but it said she was under Battler’s constant surveillance….Figuring out the truth is a pain to be sure. At the very least seems clear she killed Battler and is probable for Rosa, Maria, Kyrie, Rudolf, and Hideyoshi. Not going to examine each death but she does seem pretty likely for being responsible. The fact she was alive in 1998 is enough to make her the prime suspect.

A less serious topic is the motivations of Lambdadelta. It seems this whole affair might have been her doing. It might be possible that she pulled Beatrice into the whole affair to lure Bernkastel in. Bern made it clear she was bored and looking for entertainment. Lambdadelta could have had Beatrice set up this game for the sake of getting Bernkastel to participate. Clearly she has feelings toward Bernkastel. She was probably quite upset that Bern won the last game and thus didn’t have to pay attention to her any longer. The way she was talking to Beatrice seems to hint at it. She wants Beatrice to keep winning indefinitely and thus having Bernkastel struggle indefinitely. You can tell the type of person Bernkastel is in that she won’t quit until victory. Thus if she can never win she will keep on fighting and Lambdadelta can continue to enjoy it.

This was a huge round and I’m impressed how good a job was done in tricking people. I will put full support behind Battler and Ange. They have been dragged into this situation and will have to fight with everything they have to get out of it.

Mikoto meets an urban legend and has a showdown against Touma.

Impressions:

This is why Mikoto is such a great character. She doesn’t use something lame like a knife, axe, or anything mundane. She uses chainswords and chainwhips. I mean turning iron into a flexible blade that will easily cut whatever it touches is just a great ability. Just as a sword it’s bad enough but can also turn into a whip which means you’re not getting away without at least losing a limb or two.

Anyways it was definitely an entertaining fight to watch. Of course it was pretty one sided since Touma couldn’t actually attack. Probably one of the best moments was once he had an opening and just couldn’t do anything since Mikoto looked so scared. That was probably her most effective move against him. Since really with her unable to use electricity it would be like picking on a helpless girl. It was pretty comical how he followed it up with pretending to be taken out. He probably hoped she would let it be, but she was probably upset he wasn’t going at her seriously. So really there is no winning and just running for his life was all Touma could do there.

I think the most telling thing was the peaceful smile she had while sleeping. Probably not often she can just cut loose and completely exhaust herself. Since Touma can take anything she dishes out there is no reason to feel bad for not going easy.

Really this episode was just the best so far in the series and had great moments from start to finish. I like the first meeting between Mikoto and Touma since it is so fitting for them. She was probably bothered that no one would step forward to deal with those guys. Just because she can handle herself doesn’t mean people shouldn’t do anything. Touma was the idiot who stepped in to try and help. I can’t believe she ruined his brilliant strategy, haha. Overall it worked well since she took out the goons and he didn’t get beaten up by them. Now that was a fated meeting.

We got to meet the weird scientist who clearly doesn’t get any sleep. Clearly she has some interest in Mikoto and it’s hard to say what kind of person she is. Except the fact she clearly has no inhibitions and will just take off her clothes if she wants to. She did a great job getting Mikoto embarrassed and calling her a tsun, tsun, tsunjire. Guess someone who works off logic can analyze her pretty well.

Kuroko was done well in this episode with her limited insanity. In moderation she’s a pretty funny character though nearly gave herself a concussion. Guess she doesn’t like the idea that Mikoto would take off her clothes for anyone else but Kuroko.

Top notch episode overall. I also feel we should mourn the loss of Touma’s eggs. Truly tragic to wait in line for the special and then have them ruined.

I really think this continuation is surpassing the first season in terms of the emotions and just how exciting the each episode is. With Kyomu Satomi out to get Kagakagari it meant a lot of trouble was going to result. I just didn’t expect events to get this serious this quickly.

Impressions:

I can understand why Tomoharu has been trying so hard to avoid using Kurogane. Really if Kanade wanted Tomo to stop using it so much all she had to do was tell him what would happen to Misao. After that it’s been pretty impossible for him to use it. Just knowing that fighting would drain away her soul pretty much stopped him from doing anything. The downside is without Kurogane he can’t do anything. Kanade has tried to pick up the slack but she just doesn’t have the strength to keep it up. Even worse the contract that seemed possible for the future has proved to have its own downsides. Like the Asura Machina draining away the burial doll’s existence the compensation for the contract is feelings of love. So if Tomo actually made the contract eventually his feelings would fade toward Kanade and he’d probably end up using her like Kagakagari did with Christina. In the end Tomo used Kurogane but the main problem still remains. Fighting has too high a price and yet there doesn’t seem to be any immediate solution to his problems.

Kagakagari really did develop into an anti-hero by the end here. He wasn’t such a bad guy, but simply put saving those he cared about above everyone else. It was that desire to free Kotori from being a burial doll that fueled his actions. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Christina either but the more he used the contract the less feelings of love for her affected his decisions. In the ideal he would have freed Kotori and they all would have left the stage to live in peace. But things didn’t work out like that and now Kagakagari is alone. I’m not sure what he is going to do at this point. He put everything on the line including becoming Asura Cryin and yet it didn’t work. That gamble failed and he lost both of the people he cared about. It’s sad to imagine what he will do at this point. I wouldn’t be surprised if he just ended his life since he’s lost it all and given up on the future. Losing the two most important people to him at once like would be difficult to deal with. Maybe we will see him later but it doesn’t seem that likely.

It really amazes me how worthless Kyomu Satomi is. Of course he’s not important enough to be final villain level, just a really evil guy. He doesn’t care at all about anyone except himself. Those he works with don’t matter, the lives of innocents don’t matter, and even his burial doll doesn’t matter. As long as he is living that’s all that matters for him. To be honest I thought that ice woman should have just stabbed him through the chest instead of Bismuth. He used Nina as a hostage which actually stopped Kagakagari and was the reason Christina and Kotori were lost. Not to mention he had no issues with killing Tomo and the others to hide the evidence and take that trunk as a trophy. Hopefully we don’t see him again. It’s probably wrong but I was pretty satisfied when he was in agony after Bismuth was impaled. He’s the type you can feel no sympathy for.

Anyways I wonder where Tomoharu goes from here? He still needs to find a way to free Misao from Kurogane before it’s too late. Not to mention we have the mysterious influence of his brother who showed up only to vanish again. Time is running out and a solution has to be found quickly.

Saten and Uihara visit the Gardens of Education and get involved in an incident.

Impressions:

Well I think this episode has some important points that they can run with moving forward. The key part is a girl who was clearly using her abilities at a level above what she was supposed to be capable of. Considering there was a recent system scan, I find it hard to believe she just managed to improve her ability that much. At the very least it’s something unusual and something to keep an eye on as the series moves forward.

The disappointing part was how weak a villain Miho turned out to be. I mean going around and messing up people’s eyebrows was silly enough. But doing it just because a girl from Tokiwadai ended up going out with her boyfriend who dumped her was a bit much. Not that I’m saying she should have done this but it would have made more sense to focus on her ex-boyfriend and the girl in particular. Instead she went around attacking people just because they went to the school. It was pretty silly but could actually have been more serious. Knocking people out with stun guns could have caused them to hit their heads and get injured. They actually lucked out with just the silly eyebrows.

I’m just hoping the situations they get into further in the show will be more serious. At least this one was more serious than the Kuroko obsessed one from last week. Hopefully Touma comes back into the picture since he does have the ability to get Mikoto riled up. Considering the person was attacking with a stun gun it wasn’t exactly a tense situation for Mikoto. All she had to do was stand there and be unimpressed.

Not a bad start to the series really. They managed to get two of the lead characters introduced and started to delve into the world for this series a little bit. Really was just an episode to show what those two could do and the place of magic. Definitely some contrasting abilities with Natsu’s dragon slayer magic and Lucy’s type of summoning.

Impressions:

I suppose one thing that might be a concern is the intensity of the facial expressions. For some of the serious scenes they didn’t seem to go as far as they could have. The character designs especially for Natsu do have a resemblance for One Piece so maybe they didn’t want to show extremely serious faces which would increase the comparison. But they are different series so I hope the animators do put in a serious effort in terms of helping the characters express themselves. The voice actors do a great job here but they can only do so much. It’s the combination of the art and the voices that really bring the characters to life. I’m also wondering how Natsu’s fighting style will work when it comes to some of the major battles? They seemed to go with a style of focusing on the character then pulling back for the explosions. Hopefully they can tone down the effects to just get to the action between the characters fighting.

Besides a few complaints it was a pretty good opening episode. They did what you need to do in terms of showing what kinds of people we are dealing with and the basis for the world. I’m pretty interested in a world that has magic integrated in this way. It can be used as a career like any skill and the guild system shows that. It’s just that we will see some magical situations surrounding the characters. Of course we should also see some crazy levels of destruction since Natsu can make a mess as showed in this episode. Of course part of the damage came from Aquarius who has quite the attitude. Actually aiming to wash her summoner to the shore and then rubbing in the fact she has a boyfriend while Lucy clearly doesn’t.

Here’s hoping this will just be a fun series to follow. There promises to be action and some comical moments along the way. At the very least we can enjoy watching the members of Fairy Tail destroy the area they happen to be fighting in and get chased out of town by soldiers.

I thought this episode was a pretty good start to the season. I don’t really have many hopes or delusions of this season being that much different from the first one, but I think as long as you don’t expect it to be something grand its fun enough to watch. What this episode kind of showed, and what the whole series seems to be best at, are the characters. There are some interesting fights but mostly the plot is really basic. The best parts of the show come from just the character interactions and as long as they have plenty of that I don’t’ really care what else the show does as long as it doesn’t impact that part of it. The show seems far more humor then action anyways.

This episode was a good reminder of how damn confusing the name thing was in the first season. The way they used it and the amount it seemed to change confused the hell out of me. Hopefully this episode will help alleviate some of that for this season. I’ll try, from now on, to just use everyone’s given names.

Koga searches for his ancestor’s legendary weapon and Inuyasha confronts Kikyo.

Impressions:

I’m impressed with how fast things are moving in this series so far. In this episode again we have some pretty big events happening. I thought for sure that Kagura would be in the series a little bit longer. She seemed like such an important and vital character. No one else was effectively one of Naraku’s henchmen who then turned “good”. She could offer some information or power that no one else had; she could perhaps se this connection with him to help to defeat him. It seemed like she had a lot to offer, plus her character itself as interesting too. She didn’t care at all about her life so long as she had freedom. In that manner it was a nice way that she died, but I still figured a character like her would be along a bit more.

The big guy that fought with Sesshomaru, Gory or Mory something (I don’t know, it’s confusing) seems to be a big pain in the ass right now. He just goes around to these different mega powerful demons, absorbs them, and becomes super strong. Although he didn’t exactly defeat Seshomaru, he managed to break his sword which I remember was kind of a pain to get. That coupled with the fact he can just disappear into plain air when he is about to be defeated kind of lends itself to being unfair. He’s definitely a bad guy that seems, right now, the most threatening. Of course Naraku’s there too, but he’s the one we see actually doing stuff, at least right now that is.

Finally, the bit with Kikyo looks like it will be leading somewhere too. There are quite a lot of different things going on that have yet to combine so there looks to be some promise there. Her absorbing the other person’s soul was kind of odd. I’m not really sure if she’s fully Kikyo or if she’ll come to be effectively posses by the other priestess/goddess she absorbed. Not to mention she seems to be making these barriers whenever the hell she wants, drawing in Kohaku to kill him effectively. It looks like it could definitely lead to complications.