So a couple of months back, I had a visitor to my site who was nice enough to provide me with the Hishoku no Sora piano version that he produced from a transcribed MIDI source. And it sounds pretty accurate to the one played on the anime. Enjoy.

(Sorry, comments have been disabled on this post as comments have become pushy, violent, and aggressive, which I have duly deleted. Thanks for ruining it for everyone else.)

This episode continues off from the previous episode with the new transfer student who looks like Hecate. Shana quickly summons forth a Fuzetsu to freeze up the area to get a better look at this look-a-like that goes by the name of Konoe. Though the real Hecate would not have been frozen in the Fuzetsu, Konoe actually is frozen. Shana pulls her sword out and is not ready to let her guard down. Konoe is assigned a seat in the back, but stops at the desk next to Yuji. The more you look at it, the more it would appear that this girl is more than meets the eye. Her unfamiliarity with public school life gives Yuji no choice but to help her out, which churns the wheels of jealousy with Shana.

At Margery Daw’s place, she detects a Tomogara nearby. She’s not worried though as she points out there are three Flame Hazes in town. Even Yuji is able to detect the Tomogara, but Shana’s not worried either. She’s more concerned with the apparent Hecate doppelganger. Yuji decides to get help from Margery to see what she thinks about Konoe. Margery gets to the campus and casts a spell at her, but it goes unnoticed by Konoe. That’s good enough for Margery to assume that Konoe is human.

After school, Shana and Yuji are still discussing what to do. Yuji also notices that Shana is radiating a lot of her power and he fears the Tomogara will notice it. Shana suddenly tells Yuji to go home as she heads off elsewhere. We find that Shana is off to meet up with Konoe in an isolated area. She casts another Fuzetsu and the Tomogara appears immediately.

Turns out this Tomogara is new and rather weak. He’s no match for Shana. To heal his injuries, he targets the frozen Konoe for energy. Yuji catches up with Shana and tries to save Konoe before her existence is eaten up. Shana blocks him to see how Konoe would react. She doesn’t do anything and Shana kills the Tomogara. This was to test whether or not this Hecate look-a-like is really human, which in the end, shown that she is indeed human. Back at Bal Masque, they hint that something shady was done.

I don’t even know what to make of this episode. My only comment is that if it were up to me, I would have just obliterated the look-a-like. End of all the speculations and the unknown factors. But since it’s a show and one can’t just go and kill those not proven to be guilty, by default they have to wait until they know for sure what’s going on. There’s obviously a reason for all of this happening. If I were to guess, I’d say this Konoe is some kind of instrument to get close to Shana and others before finally making an attack. That’s how I see it. Otherwise, it would be a pretty weak attempt at making this “action” anime into nothing but a harem romance show. >_<

These new black and white PS3 commercials are kick-ass. Makes me proud to be an owner of the PS3. I read one comment where it was good enough to make the commenter go buy another PS3, though I’m sure he was just kidding and just making a point.

Well, here are the commercials that have been airing during the month of November:
(BTW, if you’re wondering, the song’s called “Ladies and Gentlemen” by Saliva)

The episode starts out with Shana trying to learn how to prepare lunch for Yuji via Yuji’s mom because she’s jealous at Yoshida bringing food for Yuji. Here we find out Wilhelmina can’t cook if her life depended on it. Meanwhile, Wilhelmina helps Yuji in his training to better use his powers. She’s distracted that Shana doesn’t want her help in learning how to cook and she her distraction is taken out on Yuji. From that, Yuji is able to demonstrate that he has much more power than before (namely, last season). And from last season, his temporary synchronization with Hecate helped to expand his energy/power capacity. At least they’re making it so that he can defend himself instead of just being a liability. Over at the bad guys’ headquarters, Bal Masque is rebuilding their floating castle. Metamorphosis heads out on an undisclosed mission.

At lunch, Shana stuffs a bento in front of Yuji to counter Yoshida’s bento. Although I was expecting to see some kind of lunch that she failed to make for him, it turned out to be a bunch of melon breads jam packed into the box that uncompresses themselves after Yuji opens the box. Forced to eat both lunches, Yuji passes out during class. The comic relief and the love triangle themes so far in this series are here, but not so much in regards to what the real plot of this season will be. The show needs more Flame Haze ass-kicking and less slice of life drama.

While the two girls argue over what’s best for Yuji at the nurse’s office, the enemy from the previous episode takes the opportunity to put Shana, Yuji, and Yoshida into a dream state. Yuji remembers what’s going on. His realization doesn’t break the fake reality. He pinches Shana’s face to make sure, resulting in a counter punch to the gut and a possible sword slash from Shana. Anyway, Yuji deduces that Yoshida needs to realize it’s a dream as well. They get back to her, but she’s unconscious and the Tomogara, named Mare, is there waiting for them. Of course, cocky bad guys always say stuff like “she’ll never wake up”. Though, you know that’s not true at all. Anyway, Shana in the meantime is busy fighting the memory of one of the Bal Masque personnel and not doing very well. Though these people are supposed to be quite tough, one would think that Shana be a lot stronger than this.

While standing around being useless, Yuji takes note that Shana’s attacks have no effect against Mare. He also takes note that Mare inhabits the bodies of Mystes to do battle. From that, he determines that Mare is inside him, as he’s a Mystes. Mare goes after the Reiji Maigo inside Yuji, but upon contact, she is ejected out of Yuji, fatally wounded. She references that there is a “Keeper” attached to the Reiji Maigo before she dies. Yoshida wakes up right before Mare dies and all three are returned to their reality. Upon hearing about this Keeper, there are rumblings from Alastor all the way to Margery Daw. And as a final shocker, the end of the episode introduces a new transfer student who bears a striking resemblance to Hecate. Obviously, this is going to be the driving force for the next several episodes before anyone finds out what’s really going on. On a personal note, I don’t see the resemblance. Not without that oversized hat that she’s always wearing. I guess I’ll just have follow along with the story.