Thoughts: Makina needs to let go of Keisei
Overall Rating: 7
I didn’t like the pace of this episode very much. However, it did give necessary buildup. We see that Makina and Oori are still adjusting to their new roles as partners. Makina must go into this special cave to get rid of her old rune from Keisei. She heads places her hand on the stone and the ritual begins. However, Makina’s constant thoughts of Keisei took form and kept her from finishing the ritual. She walked out and fought Saki in order to leave the cave after failing to remove the impurities from herself. She then heads to where Oori is.

Oori and the others relax at the hot springs. The girls talk about Sougi’s first meating with his shikabane hime. He didn’t even know what a shikabane hime was when he contracted her. Quite an odd turn of events there. Makina then shows up in front of Oori after Sougi leaves. She wants him to null the contract between them. Oori refuses to Makina’s request. Saki and her contracted priest show up to stop Makina’s obsession from controling her.

Overall, the episode was a bit slow. I’m hoping the next episode will be a little more interesting. Oori needs to still work on his training and learn some spells. It’d be nice if Makina could also accept Oori fully and get those remaining thoughts of Keisei out of her mind. We’ll be at the end of this series before we know it, and I’m worried we won’t get the character development that’s needed.

Thoughts: Natori and Natsume go to the hot springs together.
Overall Rating: 9
I really enjoyed watching Natori and Natsume meet again in this episode. First, we see Natsume meet a bunch of little spirits carrying something and unable to continue due to water blocking their path. Natsume places a piece of wood over the water, and they are able to pass and continue to their destination. When he returns home he finds a paper charm in his door, which captures and drags him to Natori. What a way to start a reunion after so long. Anyways, Natori wants Natsume to come along with him to the hot springs. Nyanko-Sensei happyily agrees after he learns pets are allowed. It was quite entertaining.

At the hot springs a vase happens to be making noises within their room. Natsume ends up seeing catching a glimpse of a woman stuck in the floorboards on the first floor. One night, the vase opens all of a sudden and the woman comes out of the floor. Her name is written in the Book of Friends and she has Natsume return it. However, she wasn’t planning on letting them live. It seems that it was previously sealed by someone, and Natori came to purify it. He informs Natsume that he used him by having him come to the hot springs to help rid the inn of the spirit. I’m glad Natsume took it rather well, and works together with him to catch the spirit, rather than turning angry and making the mood worse.

Remember the spirts that were carrying the skull in the beginning? Their lord comes and saves Natsume from the evil spirit, and thanks Natsume again for helping him cross the water. Just goes to show how the favor can be returned if you help someone. I liked that aspect of this episode. Natori and Natsume head back after the spirit was taken care of. Glad they stayed on good terms in the end.

Thoughts: It’s Trans-GrahAm!
Overall Rating: 8
This episode was less epic than episode 14. You can tell they’re building up for the next episode. Setsuna is still badly injured from the gunshot wound he received from Ali. He’s able to take refuge at a Katharon base, and Marina takes care of him. She explains about the singing in the previous episode and they deepen their relationship.

We also see that Louise is as angry as ever. Does that surprise anyone? Anyways, it also looks like Regene is now hanging around with Wang Liu Mei again. Maybe they’ll end up betraying Ribbons soon. I could see Regene doing that at least. I’m also hoping that slap Ribbons gave Wang Liu woke her up. Probably not though.

A-Laws decides to attack Celestial Being while they’re resting and Setsuna still hasn’t met up with the Ptolemaios. This shows how much the meisters do rely on 00 Gundam a bit. I’m hoping Tieria’s Seraphim mode at least helps out in the future more. The meisters look like they’re being overpowered, and that new model the Innovator is piloting packs a punch. However, it looks like a coup d’état is happening within the Federation. A-Laws is forced to retreat thanks to this development.

Setsuna leaves Marina’s side in order to search for his companions. He runs into Graham who recently got a new mobile suit. Graham boasts about having a new secret. It turns out he’s got Trans-Am now thanks to Billy. Though, I don’t understand how he can if his GN Particles are not green. So, I doubt he has a filter on it. Either way, it’s going to be interesting to see how Setsuna handles the fight with Graham in the next episode.

Thoughts: Nyanko-sensei can get pretty excited over a snowball fight!
Overall Rating: 9
This episode was probably one of my favorites so far in the whole series. Natsume and Nyanko-sensei head out and eventually have a snowball fight. The guardian statue near them housed a spirit that tries to posess Natsume, but it ends up going into a snowbunny instead. They learn the spirit’s name is Gen, and that he is trying to seal an evil spirit. Natsume let’s Gen stay at his house for the time being while they search for it.

When Natsume returns home, Gen is in his human form sweeping. Gen first tells Natsume that he’s searching for an evil tree, however Natsume researches that the tree has been cut down. They head to an abandoned house and end up finding the evil spirit Gen is looking for. However, the spirit is Sui, the other guardian statue that was destroyed long ago. Gen tells Natsume of the past and how Sui and himself were loved by the villagers. However, when they could not help the crops grow one year, they destroyed Sui’s statue. Sui then became an evil spirit out of her hatred for what the villagers had done.

Gen ends up finding Sui, but both of them lose what little energy they have left when Gen tries to save her. As Gen embraces her they both disappear. It was a pretty touching, and I was surprised they did so much in just one episode. The next episode will be about Natori and Natsume heading to the hot springs. I’m pretty interested in that.

Thoughts: Shichisei makes their move against Makina and Oori.
Overall Rating: 9
This episode had much more plot development than the previous one. I was getting a little scared that we might not see too much happen. I think the graphics slightly were improved too, as they had more depth. I do get a little tired of the quick Keisei flashbacks, since more important scenes could be inserted in their place.

Akasha transports the Shichisei members to Oori and Makina’s location. They get trapped in some kind of barrier that hides their presence.  Makina is battered around and Oori isn’t too skilled at the moment to do anything. I do hope he grows up to be a much stronger person that will be able to help in the battle. Makina is able to overcome their grip on her and unleashes her barrage of bullets. Hokuto approaches Makina and sees her as a mirror for a moment. I don’t really know what this means, but maybe they’re somehow related to each other.

The other contracted priests break through the barrier to help Oori and Makina. Shichisei decides to take their leave. A few other members of Shichisei were introduced, but we still know nothing of their abilities. I still wonder why Oori’s cat does not help him when he needs it, since he also was contracted. I have been really anticipating that cat having a huge impact on future episodes. Overall, it was a good episode, and I liked how Makina picked herself back up near the end. The next episode will probably contain less fighting and more conversations I assume.

Thoughts: Ian awakens from his beauty sleep.
Overall Rating: 10
This was the best episode of the second season on so many levels. The new OP song wasn’t the greatest, but the scenes in it were very nice. I would have rather the song been by the Brilliant Green, since Stereopony just doesn’t do it for me. However, the action and willpower Setsuna displays during this episode is pretty awesome.

The Ptolemaios lands on Earth to undergo repairs. It appears that they barely made it down to earth due to the heavy fire after taking down the Memento Mori. There was also a new mobile armor being tested by an Innovator in the assault. We see that Ian awakens and his injuries weren’t fatal. Setsuna still hasn’t returned since the last battle. Enemies appear and we see Allelujah and Tieria head out. Tieria unveals his Seraphim gundam mode during the battle. He also is able to kill one of the Innovators.

We see that Setsuna runs into Nena to find out the Ptolemaios went down to Earth. He ignores her and doesn’t stay to receive their coordinates. He runs into Ali on his search and follows him to Krugis. Both Ali and Setsuna land and Ribbons shows himself. Setsuna learns that it was in fact Ribbons who saved him that one day in 0 Gundam when he was running desperately to survive from terrorist attacks. That really surprised me, and the way Ribbons explained it made it even worse. Ribbons asks Setsuna to return 00 Gundam, since he believes that he is the rightful pilot. Setsuna ends up getting shot by Ali in the process of trying to shoot Ribbons.

Setsuna and Ali eventually return to their gundams and fight. Ali looks to have the advantage, but he doesn’t know about 00 Gundam’s Trans-Am. Setsuna destroys the Arche gundam and Ali uses his escape pod. If only Marina didn’t sing at that time, we’d be rid of Ali at this point. Setsuna was also able to battle well despite the gunshot wound. However, he’ll need quick medical attention next episode. The episode had a lot going on in it, which is why I rated it so highly.

Thoughts: Some in the cult want to get rid of Makina
Overall Rating: 8
Oori is training to become a contracted priest in order to save Makina. His training consists of catching a rabbit at this point. The purpose is to help him sense the bond he shares with his own shikabane hime. The thing I didn’t like was when he bumped into another shikabane hime and grabbed her boobs by accident. It appears that her contracted priest contracted her while she was on her way to Akihabara, which would explain her cosplay outfit.

I really am interested in what Hokuto actually is. She’s obviously not a normal corpse. I don’t know how she became so powerful and what keeps her around the other corpses. It could be that they messed with her originally or something after she turned into a corpse. Anyways, we learn what most of their goals are this episode at least. I just wonder why they chose Makina to turn into a corpse.

We later see that Makina is drawing evil spirits, since her rune is rotting after Keisei’s death. She didn’t want to forget about Keisei and kept his rune, instead of just accepting Oori’s rune. This episode was a bit of a disappointment since it was more slow than you’d expect. It was just getting viewers ready for the new season in a sense I guess.

Thoughts: Two Nyanko-senseis are double the trouble!
Overall Rating: 9
This series really turned out to be worth the wait. Many other series just do not make me laugh like this one does. The sequencing of the scenes in the opening song were well done. The music fit perfectly in with everything, and I asked myself if this was the same Natsume Yuujinchou I had watched before in the previous season.

We start off with Natsume getting hit in the head with a soccer ball while he’s laying on a wall. After falling over, a demon crawls out from the bushes and chases him. Natsume runs into a similar seal that unsealed Madara from his prison in season one. A black version of Nyanko-sensei pops out and follows Natsume home. Gotta love Nyanko-sensei laying right next to his counterpart. The black cat snatches the Book of Friends and Natsume and Nyanko-sensei chase after it. Natsume runs into a spirit named Beniya, and it turns out that she knew Madara. She helps disguise Natsume as a spirit to let him mingle with the demons in the festival in order to find out where the black cat went.

This episode stayed true to the first season, in that it had some comedy mixed in with the usual spirit and demon encounters. The pace of the episode went pretty fast considering it was just episode 1. It makes me wonder how much plot development we’ll see in the next couple episodes. I do hope that Natsume opens up about seeing spirits to a few of his classmates. It would make the story much more interesting.

Thoughts: A lot of emotion was in this episode.
Overall Rating: 9
I didn’t think that this would be such a serious series right off the bat. It was also nice seeing a lot of different side characters introduced in just one episode. It really helps keep you interested in what their connection was to the main character. I was stunned by the OP song. Nana Mizuki really did a great job on it. It’s my favorite opening of the season so far.

White Album starts off with the main character, Touya, having a dream about his close friend Yuki. In the dream, Yuki becomes an idol and won’t be able to stay with Touya any longer. By the looks of it, this will be an important plot device for future episodes. They’ll probably make Touya keep thinking of this dream in order for him to get more motivation to ask Yuki out seriously. The thing I didn’t like was that Touya was basically a lazy bum and spaced out quite a bit at times. His apartment was a mess, and he got fired from his part time job for being late. I understand it’s just the first episode, but I’m still tired of seeing lazy bum character meets pretty girl.

Eventually, Touya meets up with Yuki at the school and only gets a couple minutes to actually talk with her. It’s obvious he needs to be a little more assertive. He meets up with a few acquaintences and one helps him get a job at the store Echoes. It was pretty nice to see that his friend had a crush on Misaki and hasn’t asked her out for 5 years. I’m hoping we see more of them in the future.

Ogata Rina looks like a really interesting character. I’m curious to know how Yuki knows her so well. Maybe they grew up together or went to the same school. Yuki also needs to get some confidence in herself. Her character has potential, but I just hope she won’t be a useless character for the entire series. It’d be nice if Rina and Yuki were the ones who rang the doorbell at the end of the episode. I can see the second episode being possibly funny if Rina is introduced to Touya. Overall, the episode was really top-notch with great character designs. The music and vocal song Rina sang were very good. I can’t wait to see if Yuki sings in the later episodes.

テイルズ オブ ジ アビス

Alright! I’m going to start blogging this anime. I can say right away that this won’t be mere reports of what happened, because I have played the full game and remember most of it by heart (I’m a huge fan of it.)

I’m going to do my best to point out similarities and differences between the game and the anime, which hopefully will make this a bit more of an interesting read.

This post will be split up into two segments as it will contain two episodes. I haven’t seen episode 3 just yet (I’ll be quicker next week ^^; ) so it’ll be in a new post~

Episode 1

First of all, I have to comment on the Intro video:

I’m really glad they’re using Karma again because that song definitely can’t be played too much. It seems to me like they’re giving homage to a few too many big spoilers in it, but that might just be because I already know what’s going to happen. It definitely wouldn’t have hurt for them to use more of the Game OP for inspiration though. They even cut out the awesome bridge fight =<

Oh and the lyrics? They basically spoil the outcome of the entire game ^^ I advise you to not analyze them too deeply ;P

Moving on to the episode itself, I must say I’m happily surprised. My main gripe is the art-style, but that’s just because the game itself contained anime-cutscenes with a slimmer character-style. It feels kinda odd to see them like this (especially since Tear looks a bit more manly than I’m used to.)

Anyway, the episode itself is all great. They summarized the basics of Luke’s past and the Order of Lorelei pretty well, though it definitely appeared more awkward than the game. They had to squeeze in twenty minutes of explanation into a few minutes though, so I don’t blame them.

"We have all been aware of this for seven years, but I’m going to mention your kidnapping and lost memories one more time just in case anyone of us forget it. It’s not like we have been feeling bad about it for all these years or anything." - Uhh…Yeah. It could have been worse though. They could have used a narrator for it, thus leaving poor Luke in the dark~

The most notable change from the game’s turn of events is Luke’s trip into the forest on the mansion grounds. In the game that didn’t happen, Natalia wasn’t introduced and Luke’s headache came when he was going to leave his room in the morning. Guy showed up right after that too.

All in all though, I feel they managed to capture the game pretty well. It definitely made me anticipate the next episode.

What’s on my mind: I wonder if they’re going to do away with the scene in the game where Guy’s girl-phobia was revealed. I hope they don’t, because it’s a pretty cute scene :3

Episode 2

Moving on to episode two then. I must say I appreciate the way they transfer into the Opening. Those first few seconds of the game OP were almost annoyingly pointless xD

Ahem, time to talk about the episode then.

Again, they’re doing a good job of telling the story. Most notable is that they’re properly conveying the most important part: Luke is a spoiled asshole. You remember how he talked about getting his shoes dirty? He really meant it, ok? More on this in future episodes.

The biggest differences between the game and the anime are, well…It’s almost entirely the same. Sure, you walked around a bit in Engave and sure, Jade joined you in that fight utilizing his full arsenal of spells rather than using Indignation. Those are only really minor things though. I really hope many more episodes are going to be like this, because then this would easily get on my top list of anime (The game is competing for the title of my favorite game after all.)

I only wonder why they had to give Mieu those eyes. God, those horrible eyes. THEY HAUNT MY NIGHTMARES AT NIGHT! (Because yes, one clearly does not dream nightmares during the day. That would be a daymare or something…I wonder if that would be a good word to describe 4-hour classes?)

We got to see a little bit more of the action here too and it’s looking good. I’m very glad they kept in the over-the-top jumping ability and power that Luke possess. They had better include the meaning of birth fight in this game and it better cover the entire song ;P More on that sometime around episode 22 or 23.

What’s on my mind: OH GOD, THE EYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!

 …At least the "mieu mieu!"-spam was in there…