Yes, I saw this about a month ago, but I’ve been lazy in blogging it. I really need to stop being so lazy. Anyway, let’s get on with the last episode.

It’s the obvious grand finale to this three-episode arc. At Bal Masque, Bel Peol talks about how their plan is going to change the laws of the universe, but also alluding that things may not go as they see it. Back at the incident at hand, Alastor calls out the mad scientist, Dantalion, for having lost his mind. Dantalion fires back saying he’s a pioneer and others would not understand. Shana and Wilhelmina regather and prepare to fight, while Hecate and Sydonay do the same, with Hecate opening the attacks.

Shana and Hecate go toe to toe, but Hecate has a few extra attacks and a lot more life energy and is able to keep Shana on the defense instead of on the attack. Wilhelmina isn’t enough for Sydonay either. Both are at a perpetual standstill, which gives “Team Bal Masque” the upper hand. Margery Daw is bloodied up and is still too incapacitated to help out. Outside, Yoshida ponders amongst herself to decide what to do with the Hougu she has as she goes over the facts about Yuji not being able to retain his power of existence at the moment and not really knowing what’s happening inside.

The opening few minutes are similar to the previous episode. It’s winding up the audience by stacking up the odds against the main characters and leaving the bad guys with the upper hand. I’m surprised, though, that Margery Daw would be knocked out of combat after taking only one hit. She recovered quite quickly during her flashback series, but this time she’s already done for.

Back inside, Shana and Wilhelmina are starting to show signs of injury as Hecate and Sydonay draw first blood. But just when Shana and Wilhelmina find themselves cornered inside the steel structure by Bal Masque, they end up holding back on their attack. Shana and Wilhelmina fly around baiting for them to attack them, and at that moment fly back towards the structure, and confirming that the Bal Masque enemies are avoiding dealing damage to the structure. Inside, Yuji regains consciousness and continues on his journey to locate the Reiji Maigo. Shana and Wilhelmina continue their defensive tactics using the steel structure as their defense. Outside again, Yoshida thinks really hard about using the Hougu, and at that moment, the Hougu activates and Yoshida starts to fade away, but it was just her own imagination. She decided not to do it and instead decided to rely on Shana to save the day.

For a moment there, it really did look like she used the Hougu. I was almost looking forward to it only because I hate her character. It would have been one monster of a finale. Oh well. Maybe in the third season, if they plan to have one.

Yuji continues to go deeper into the structure and continuously thinks about his decreasing energy supply. The mad scientist begins the next phase of the experiment by breaking down some of the external frame. Shana powers up and blows a hole into the Statue of Pride and dives in while Wilhelmina stays on the defense. Inside, Shana searches for Yuji following his energy trace. She finds him and tackles him down with a hug. Alastor explains that Yuji’s energy is probably being drained as its being used to power the Statue of Pride. Yuji says the heart is near and the two go together. Outside, Hecate summons the Statue to stand. The blue dome shatters as the entire city sees everything happening, but Margery Daw summons forth a Fuzetsu before any more damage could be done, but reinjuring herself in the process.

This is probably the only other time in this series where Shana reveals her feelings towards Yuji as she tells him quite intimately to not disappear (literally). However, it wasn’t as heart-wrenching as the first time around in episode 15 where she recovers Yuji after Bal Masque had their way with him. On a side note, the scene of the blue dome shattering away looked sick.

Dantalion explains that he has a solution to this problem. He smashes a button, revealing a pair of wings coming from the statue, as if ready to fly out of the Fuzetsu range. Yuji and Shana reach the heart of the Statue, which is the Silver. Yuji senses the Reiji Maigo inside the Silver. Shana attacks the Silver, as Yuji helps cover for Shana. Yuji realizes that the machinery is what is connecting the Reiji Maigo to the Statue. Shana gets knocked away by the Silver, who then focuses its attention on attacking Yuji. Yuji is short on energy and can’t get out of the way. The Silver, now being controlled by Hecate directly, takes aim and fires, but completely misses, to the shock of Hecate. The Silver reels back and Shana goes on the attack with her fiery wings spread out. The wings confuse the Silver/Hecate who sees it as a bird, pointing back to Konoe’s affection towards birds and showing how her memories are starting to affect Hecate’s thoughts. Seeing this apparent bird, Hecate loses her focus and Shana breaks the machinery, and simultaneously Yuji attacks the Silver with whatever he had left grabbing the Reiji Maigo and reabsorbing it back into himself, cueing the appropriate piano rendition of “Hishoku no Sora” similar to how the first season’s last episode did it.

I always thought the Silver was a lot tougher than what was shown here. Margery Daw really hyped him up, and seeing it now, he doesn’t exactly seem all too powerful. As for Hecate, I don’t understand why she’s controlling the Silver the way she was doing it. I guess it was the only way to allow for a flaw in the system to give Shana a winning chance. In this case, it would seem using Konoe to collect memories and emotions backfired on Bal Masque. I guess Konoe is pissing everyone one.

With all that damage, the Statue crumbles away while Shana and Yuji get the hell outta there. Bel Peol sees everything unfold and admits that maybe they can’t change how the universe works, but she does follow it up with a thought that she has more deeds in her plans. Hecate sees everything fall apart and does not know why those memories affected her. The Bal Masque characters all disappear as they see that it’s now a lost cause. Once gone, Shana and Yuji look over the mess that just ensued, with a new song playing in the background; “Sense” by Mami Kawada to be exact. Yoshida appears and is in tears, happy that Yuji’s alive.

They resume their competition to find out once and for all who Yuji chooses. The two girs go back to their waiting positions while Yuji clutches onto the two letters headed somewhere. They also show some quick shots of the other characters. Then they show Yoshida with tears forming in her eyes showing that she has lost. Then it’s a shot at Shana who looks a little pissed off at being bored, but her mood changes immediately when she turns towards the screen with a big smile. Although not revealing who it was she was looking at, it’s pretty safe to assume that Yuji, in the end, picked Shana over Yoshida.

And damn that was a long review. This episode had no slow moments. And I think those who’ve been watching this series would agree that they’re relative happy that Yuji picked Shana. It was bound to happen considering the two are immortal. For those who disagree with the assumed ending, Yuji did pick Shana in the light novels, so you can’t argue against the canon.

As for this episode, it felt a little rushed. I think if they had enough budget for two more episodes, it would have been one hell of a finish. It was alright, though. It would’ve been crazier if Yoshida did pull the trigger and summon forth Pheles, but maybe some other time, I guess. I was a little disappointed that Bal Masque’s plans that they’ve pretty much planned throughout the whole season faltered so quickly. You would think they would have planned out a better defense against the Flame Hazes. Oh well. I think the most important aspect of this episode was to find out who Yuji picks. Without really knowing if there will even be a third season, though possible, it was a good way to finish off this series to tie up some of the loose ends.

In the long run, I think the series started out super fucking slow. Nothing reminiscent of the first season. The whole Konoe thing was such a painful month and a half. They could have easily reserved her for a more minor role and within 2-3 episodes instead of 12 episodes! Things didn’t really pick up until Pheles showed up. Then things started to unravel and things finally started to get interesteing and back on track. So, I give the first half the season a horrible rating and the second half a pretty good rating. And Yuji picking Shana at the end was a good way to close it all off. And I picked up a new song due to that ending too.

A huge blue dome of energy surrounds the clock tower with Yuji staring at the Reiji Maigo in the possession of Hecate. Back at where they keep the Silver, the mad scientist explains how they’ve had Sabrac place a location tracker on the Reiji Maigo, how they inserted a defensive mechanism and a separation mechanism on Pheles’ Keeper as well and how everything has gone off as planned. Hecate sends off the Reiji Maigo to the Silver and tells it to awaken.

Wow, Yuji is so screwed. Now that his, life-support, per se, is no longer with him, he’s pretty much on limited time. And, finally, things are starting to unravel in regards to Bal Masque’s plans. It hasn’t been fully revealed, but now some of the questions are being answered.

Outside the blue dome, Shana finally reaches the front of it as the ground around the area starts to shift and crumble. The other Flame Hazes appear as well. Yoshida is running towards the area too while in the Fuzetsu cast by Margery. Her Hougu starts to light up while she’s heading to the dome. Meanwhile, the Flame Hazes are unable to break open the dome. At the same time, Hecate summons forth pillars of existence power and they all feed into the dome. Alastor believes it’s Bel Peol behind the energy. The energy is then used to power up the Silver. All this time, the clock tower has transformed into a twisted pile of steel. Inside, Yuji knows that if he doesn’t get the Reiji Maigo back, he’s done for. He can still sense the Reiji Maigo, and that it’s being drained.

Outside again, Yoshida finally reaches the dome and explains to them that the Reiji Maigo was removed from Yuji. She further explains that Johan told her what had happened via Hougu she carried. Margery makes use of the situation to ask Sato to use the special device from season one to examine the dome and look for an opening. Inside, Yuji decides that he must do something, so he goes inside the steel-twisted maze to find his Reiji Maigo. However, while inside, he has to fight off a robot fleet defending it.

This episode is starting to get quite thick, as things are starting to get very bad for the main characters. Yuji’s existence is at hand, the help can’t get in, and pretty much all the odds are against them. However, this is the type of anime that always ends on good terms, so it’s not really about how bad it’s turned out. It’s really more about how they’re going to resolve this mess. It’s pretty similar to the Sabrac incident.

Sato locates a possible opening and the Flame Hazes go off. They expect a trap, so Margery volunteers to go in first to take in the attack. As expected, the moment they go in, Metamorphosis is waiting for them and quickly incapacitates Margery. Now it’s a 2v2 fight. The mad scientist guy is there too, who goes on to explain what they’ve been up to this whole time. He explains how Hecate’s clone was used to collect emotions to gain data of the environment to control the experiment. He goes on to point out that a being that uses power of existence as its fuel, emotions for its brain, and the Reiji Maigo as a heart, will be born from the twisted metal. A Tomogara born only of Guze in the human world. Something he calls the Statue of Pride. Shana and Wilhelmina go on the attack to destroy this thing before it’s created while Metamorphosis and Hecate go on the defense.

After the explanation from the mad scientist guy (can’t seem to remember his name, and too lazy to look it up) everything now is starting to make sense. They’ve been after the Reiji Maigo all this time as a fuel source to power their machine and all that crap with Konoe is somehow important for their creation so it could have… common sense?! Whatever. The next episode’s the finale, so it’s going to be an all out battle it seems.

At Bal Masque, it turns out that Sabrac may have been defeated, but not killed as he is talking to Bel Peol. Still, apparently he accomplished what was needed of him and therefore he sets off to do his own things instead of idling around at Bal Masque. Meanwhile, Bel Peol indicates to the rest it’s time to begin. At Sato’s place, Sato tries to make a phone call, but can’t go through with it. He explains to Margery he’s willing to work at Outlaw and will do whatever it takes, even as far as asking for help from those he never wants to rely on (in reference to his father). Margery can’t believe his resolve despite all her threats and attempts to scare him away from Outlaw.

I had a feeling Sabrac would not be that easily killed after all that hype he was given. Him being alive just leaves it open for another season or at least more content for future novels, although I don’t think he will be making another appearance on this series or in the novels any time soon. As for Bal Masque’s plans, get on with it already. They keep alluding to some master plan with the Silver, but not one extra hint as to what they are going to do with it.

As Shana and Yuji head home after the end of the semester, Yuji’s father unexpectedly appear waiting for Yuji. His father has something to tell him so Shana heads off on her own. Meanwhile, at one of the bridges, Yuji’s father asks Yuji for his permission to place the number “three” to the name of his new brother or sister. Yuji realizes then that his mother is pregnant. He goes on to explain that Yuji is actually their second child, as the first one died due to birthing problems, hence Yuji’s name having the “two” in his name, and the third who will carry the “three”.

I guess Yuji’s mom, Chigusa, actually had a reason to be sick, which is pregnancy. I did leave out a lot of detail of his conversation with his father, but you get the gist of it. Now Yuji has even more reason to defend his city, which means he’s stuck there. The thought that comes to mind is, Yuji is already dead and therefore shouldn’t age. Somehow, on terms of some realism, it’s going to be an awkward situation when his family realizes he’s not aging. Anyway, I wonder what the “first born” thing is all about. It can’t just be the author simply wanting to explain Yuji’s name. It must be for some future plot.

At a bench, Shana awaits for Yoshida to show up. When she shows up, she tells Yoshida to teach her how to make babies, which of course, shocks Yoshida. Shana explains that Yuji and his family wouldn’t tell her. Yoshida explains to Shana that she shouldn’t ask those things in public. Afterward, Shana and Yoshida talks about how they will settle once and for all who Yuji will choose. Shana thinks the best way to do this is to make him decide based on separate letters that they write to him. Basically, the letters will both tell him to meet one of the girls. Who he decides to meet will mean that is who he chooses emotionally as well. Shana writes that she will be in the North exit while Yoshida indicates she will be in the South exit during the Illumination Fiesta, which is the next day. The letters are dropped off to Yuji.

It’s just entertaining how Shana blurts out her interest in wanting to learn how to make babies. I’m surprised all the studying that she did growing up did not yield an explanation to her already. If she could recite Shakespeare ala first episode, I would assume she also studied science, and hence some knowledge of biology. At least she came up with a good idea as to how to settle the love triangle. Put all the pressure on Yuji, of course.

Afterward, Ike is headed home when Yoshida bumps into him. He takes the moment to ask her if he can take a moment of her time tomorrow. She tells him it’s fine as long as she can still make it to her scheduled time to wait for Yuji to see who he picks. Upon hearing that, Ike tells her that’s fine as he wants her to hear what his feelings are for her. The next day, at Shana’s place, Shana and Wilhelmina get into an argument when Shana reveals her plans to Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina comes to terms with the facts and decides to help Shana prepare for that night instead.

That night, Ike tells Yoshida his feelings. He tells her she doesn’t have to answer him, but instead when she makes up her mind, to either walk to him or go wait for Yuji. She decides to wait for Yuji. Yuji shows up in front of the clock tower and looks at the directions leading to the girls. Before he could make a decision, Hecate shows up and takes the Reiji Maigo out from him alerting all the Flame Hazes immediately.

What a way to end a rather slow episode. Hecate right off the bat. No tricks to separate Yuji from the others and no need for the Bal Masque goons to assist her. Just show up right in front of him and rip out the Reiji Maigo from Yuji. That was unexpected. I should’ve known it wouldn’t be as easy as Yuji just showing up and choosing one of the girls.

Continuing off from the previous episode, Yoshida is bandaging Shana’s arm when Yuji appears out from the sewers. Yuji asks that Yoshida bandage Shana’s injuries with Wilhelmina’s bandages. Back at the fight with Sabrac, Wilhelmina is fighting a losing battle and Sabrac powers up to prepare for a killing blow. He charges in but is interrupted by Shana. Sabrac can’t believe that Shana is still mobile after being hit with Stigma. Wilhelmina explains that Johan was able to find away to defeat Stigma, and at that point, both she and Shana rid themselves of their injuries to the surprise of Sabrac. Shana also gives Wilhelmina a communicator card where Yuji explains to her a plan that he, Shana, and Margery devised to top Sabrac.

It’s an interesting trump card that Wilhelmina pulled off against Sabrac, but if you think about the time that was spent running away from Sabrac and giving the special bandages to Shana and Margery Daw, would it not be more efficient for Wilhelmina to have healed her own wounds from the start? That and maybe keep some blood stained bandages to not let Sabrac catch on. Another thing I don’t understand is why their clothing restored itself. I guess I shouldn’t question the power of magic.

Yuji further explains that before Sabrac appeared, he sensed a faint energy source around the city. At first he believed it was Zarovee or the Wanderer, but it didn’t disappear after the two were defeated, and he felt the presence was stronger while he was in the sewers running towards Shana. Yuji believes that Sabrac is a large Tomogara that encompasses the entire city, and only manifests only a piece of his total self into a human form for convenience’s sake. Wilhelmina makes the connection as to how Sabrac seemingly does not take any damage despite receiving direct hits. Yuji explains his plan to Wilhelmina, but it’s not revealed what it is, but Yoshida and Sato are directing Wilhelmina and Margery where to go. Wilhelmina agrees while Margery goes around the city casting spell insignias.

Well, all of this explaining actually does seem to make some sense. But Sabrac is actually under the entire city? That was something I never expected. But why doesn’t Sabrac just make himself bigger to become a more imposing figure? Or smaller to be more annoying? Doesn’t seem to be a really well thought out character all of a sudden. Anyway, back to the episode.

The plot thickens as the plan takes shape. Margery is placing spells in a very organized manner while Wilhelmina is luring Sabrac to a certain location. During the fight, Shana exits the fight leaving Wilhelmina to deal with Sabrac. In a quick flashback, it details more of what Yuji explained to the group on how to possibly defeat Sabrac. He explains that Sabrac has a huge body, but really only has enough energy as any normal Tomogara, which is the reason why he only deals with whoever’s in the vicinity of his visible form. Back to the present, Shana sits down to regain all her energy. Elsewhere, while Margery is planting spells, Sato tells her that he can’t think of what happens after Margery dies, and instead prefers to focus his energies on keeping her alive.

After seeing the flashback, I now understand why in the previous episode Wilhelmina spent a good amount of time describing the pros and cons of Sabrac. I thought it was just to introduce Sabrac, not actually something to be recycled to strategize against Sabrac.

Back at the fight, Sabrac goes in for the kill, again, but at that point Margery casts off her spell, which reveals that her insignias create a circular surrounding area with Sabrac in the center. For some reason, the anime’s first opening song (”Joint”) starts playing. Then the area within the spell is lifted off the ground, revealing the existence energy strands that connected to Sabrac breaking off. Shana gets up and before heading off, is ready to tell Yuji something, but changes her mind and heads off to Sabrac. Alastor tells Shana that he’s impressed by Yuji’s contributions during this situation. Shana powers up and charges straight at Sabrac. Sabrac blocks the attack, but without the connection to his power, he’s overwhelemd and defeated. The next day, Yuji’s mom is fine again, and Yuji apologizes to Yoshida for what he said to her. He then asks Shana what she was going to tell him before she defeated Sabrac. Shana is embarrassed and tells him it was nothing, leading to her patented triple Urusais.

After some serious episodes, it’s somewhat nice to see that this arc ended on a light atmosphere. I’m a little surprised that Sabrac, having been hyped up since the appearance of Pheles, was defeated so quickly. I truly believed that Sabrac was going to combine forces with Bal Masque to create an ultimate final battle for this season. But no. Two episodes and the Sabrac threat is neutralized. Oh well. At this point, with only three episodes left, there’s only one more big event left for everyone to deal with. It’s going to be Bal Masque and the underlying plot that has been going on since the appearance of Konoe.

After defeating the Wanderer from the previous episode, Yuji feels a strange presence. He waives it off to tell Shana something, but at that moment the area erupts with existence energy. Yuji wakes up after being knocked unconscious by the sudden explosion. As he gets up, a sword flies straight into his chest destroying his contact bookmark in the process. It’s Sabrac holding the sword, and Yuji is shocked by his level of power. Wilhelmina calls out Sabrac and pulls Yuji out of harm’s way. Sabrac praises Wilhelmina’s improvement in fighting ability. The two begin fighting immediately. Wilhelmina incapacitates one of his swords, but he cuts his arm off and detonates the sword, while at the same time complaining that he’s lost another sword and that he needs to get another one back. He then regenerates his hand along with a new sword.

Hmm, a dual-wielding, assassin-like character. Reminds me of so many instances of this kind of archetype, such as my World of Warcraft Rogue or a Ragnarok Online Assassin. More so the assassin than my rogue, but whichever. Anyway, we finally get to see what makes Sabrac such a feared opponent. He is referred to as a Guze King, like Alastor, so he should be quite buffed up.

So the fight continues with the two dodging each other’s attacks. Sabrac points out that Wilhelmina is already injured, and is not happy that she’s still able to fight. Yuji notices that during the explosion, everyone has gotten separated. Turns out the explosion was Sabrac’s attack called Stigma, which opens up wounds more and more as time passes. Both Wilhelmina and Margery were hit by it. Elsewhere, Yoshida walks the streets clutching the Hougu that could summon Pheles if it came down to it. As she walks on, she finds Shana knocked out.

Now that’s one messed up attack. Of course, they always give these powerful (and cheesy, unblockable, unavoidable, un-fixable) attacks to the not so responsible bad guys. It builds the suspense as to how this whole situation will come to an end.

Wilhelmina and Yuji take cover, and as she explains, Sabrac has an ability to hide his presence. She has never been able to detect his presence, despite all the years. She also explains that he always starts off with surprise Stigma attack leaving his opponents at a disadvantage from the start. Back to Shana, she explains to Yoshida that Yuji’s attitude has returned to the way things are. She too also has been hit by Stigma. As Wilhelmina continues to run away from Sabrac, she explains that though he’s tough, he has his limitations, such as having enough energy capacity to pull off his opening attack, and then is limited to fighting opponents in front of him, and not multiple opponents from all angles.

Shana barely makes an appearance in this episode. She barely even says anything. I guess they’re saving her confrontation with Sabrac for the next episode. As for Sabrac’s weaknesses, I get the feeling that he’s an anal type of mentality where he must do certain things a certain way, and can’t focus if he has to deal with distractions. That’s probably how they’ll defeat him. That, or Yoshida kills herself to summon Pheles. Doesn’t matter either way.

Sabrac tries to chase them down, but Wilhelmina is able to counter his attack, which annoys Sabrac, and gives him a sense of regret of not having killed Wilhelmina before. The chase continues, with Wilhelmina putting in traps on Sabrac and throwing powerful spells against him. Unfortunately, all of her attacks are meaningless. Wilhelmina asks Sabrac if he was responsible for Zarovee and company. He admits that Bal Masque set everything up for him, but he knew they were probably wouldn’t get the job done. Sabrac throws another attack at the two and manages to capture Yuji. However, it turns out this Yuji was a fake, made up of Wilhelmina’s ribbons. The real Yuji is running inside a sewer tunnel that he noticed earlier. Most likely running to where Shana is. Wilhelmina, in the meantime, is showing signs of fatigue from her injuries. Sabrac takes the opportunity to finally get his chance to kill her.

Now that was a crazy episode. They sure raised the stakes against the good guys having to deal with Sabrac who Pheles herself couldn’t defeat. I doubt he’ll kill her. She’ll probably pull out some trump card to save everyone from fought Sabrac so many times. Looks like the next episode is going to be full of action too. I’m sure this battle is not going to end until someone gets killed. It would be a very shortlived moment for Sabrac if that’s the case.

We continue off from the previous episode where the Tomogara Collation Flux, Zarovee confronts Yuji. Looks like the Tomogara splits himself off into multiple copies, but together is considered as one. Yuji is surprised that he wasn’t able to detect his presence and reasons that Zarovee’s existence energy must be very small. Zarovee tells Yuji they’re not here to hurt him. Instead, they point out that they are holding the entire city at hostage as one of the clones are in the city as collateral to prevent Yuji from attacking them. Yuji identifies them as Jaegers (too weak to fight, and used for covert operations, but accompanied by Wanderers, Tomogaras specialized in combat) from reading Outlaw documents. However, he can’t detect the Wanderer either. Zarovee tells Yuji to come with him, er.. them. Back at Yuji’s house, Shana gives the medicine Wilhelmina prepared to Yuji’s mom. Shana thinks back about what she said to Yuji earlier that day about his attitude.

They sure made Yuji into some kind of Tomogara super nerd. He immediately picked up on what Zarovee was all about along with realizing that there is a clone in the heart of the city. I find it ridiculous he deducted all of that in a matter of minutes.

Out in the streets, Zarovee leads Yuji around the streets of the city. Yuji tries to call his bluff, by screaming loudly and making a scene and then walking off not caring if Zarovee starts eating people’s existence. It turned out to be a ruse to send a signal to Tanaka who Yuji noticed in the crowd as a way to tell Tanaka that something wrong is happening. Ogata, who’s with Tanaka wants to go after Yuji to make sure he’s safe. Tanaka is stuck in a dilemma and doesn’t know what to do. He wants to get away from the situation, but Ogata makes him realize what he must do. He takes her hand and they go running to Sato’s house to talk to Margery. After explaining the situation, Margery instructs him to take Ogata far away.

I guess this would be Tanaka’s final meeting with Margery. It feels like a sitcom or a drama series trying to kill off a character once their purpose has been served, although Tanaka hasn’t really had a meaningful purpose throughout the series. Just an extra person for Sato to bounce his opinions off of. Hopefully, they’ll spend less time on characters like Tanaka and more on the real story at hand.

At Yuji’s house again, Wilhelmina is cooking up a dark concoction to help Yuji’s mom. Alastor thinks it might worsen the condition. At that point, Shana gets news of what’s happening. At the Haridan building (refer to season 1), Margery stands at the rooftop waiting for the enemy to act. Still on the streets, Zarovee tells Yuji they’re almost there. Zarovee tells him it’s time for him to set the area for battle. Yuji slowly starts to realize what’s going on. He realizes that the clones are going to form a small Fuzetsu to lure the Flame Hazes inside, while keeping one clone outside to pull the other clones out of the Fuzetsu, and at the same time, the Wanderer will be outside the Fuzetsu to destroy the area with the Flame Hazes inside. And as things unravel, the scene cuts over to the Wanderer from the previous episode preparing his attack while waiting for Zarovee’s Fuzetsu.

Maybe I’m not giving Yuji enough credit, but it really feels like he’s figuring things out way too fast and actually getting all of his assumptions correctly. As for the Wanderer, I was wondering why he looked so bizarre in the previous episode. Now we see that he’s a big ass cannon. It all makes sense now, I guess.

At this point, Yuji stops following Zarovee and decides that he’s not going to let the idea of the city being held hostage to prevent him from trying to protect them. He casts his own Fuzetsu instead encasing the Wanderer inside as well. He then tosses a fireball at one of the clones. He then straight up chokes one to death with his bare hands and then eliminates two more with another fireball. With one left, he summons forth Blutsauger and spears the clone. He calls out for Shana who arrives with Wilhelmina. He explains there’s a Wanderer at a distance. They spot him ready to fire his attack, which Shana prematurely detonates the attack killing the Wanderer and leaving a big crater in the area. Yuji tries to say something to Shana, but then the crater starts reacting strangely. To be continued..

Damn you cliffhangers!! Good thing there are previews! And it turns out to be Sabrac. About time I say.

So after thinking about this episode, I think this episode and maybe the last two were completely useless. All of this just to show Yuji’s resolve to care for people instead of thinking about just leaving them behind. Could they not just cut to Sabrac’s entry into the show right off the bat? Why such an elaborate thing with Zarovee and the cannon guy just to pave the way for Sabrac to show up? It doesn’t matter now. Episode 20 is going to be all out chaos at this point.

Episode starts out with a person on the phone who looks like one of the people that Yuji is fighting in the opening sequence. He’s on the phone with someone named Bifrons and not happy about a sudden change in plans. The person he’s on the phone with appears behind him, which reveals a number of things. It shows Bifrons as this giant pillar of a monster and he identifies the other person to be Zarovee. Zarovee also has a bunch of duplicates all around him too. Finally, Bifrons identifies Zarovee as a Jaeger, while Zarovee identifies Bifrons as a Wanderer. Whatever that means.

I guess with the appearance of these guys, it’s almost time to see Yuji fighting them with the Blutsauger. Not sure what that big totem pole guy is all about, but he’s probably something that Shana’s going to have to handle, while Yuji handles Zarovee and company.

Elsewhere, within a Fuzetsu, Yuji is being trained by Margery Daw as Shana and Wilhelmina agree that Yuji has enough power of existence to become a spellcaster. She teaches him how to collect energy, form it into a fireball, and throw it against targets. Yuji shows a large compassion to training himself to get stronger. The Flame Hazes notice his unusual obsession of it as well. His impatience pisses off Margery, who ends the training session for the night, but leaves behind Blutsauger for him. She instructs him to transform it into a bookmark so he can carry it around conveniently. Afterward, Shana tries to find out what’s happening to Yuji. Yuji explains he finally understands that he can’t pretend to be a human, and he eventually will have to leave his life here to travel with Shana, which means he must become stronger.

For some reason, I still think Bal Masque is pulling some mind tricks on Yuji to make him more aggressive in his training. It’s probably far from the case, but it’s always fun to make presumptions. Yuji does seem even more annoying now than ever though. Him wanting to get stronger is making him look like a cocky SOB, especially when, comparatively, he’s not even close to the level of fighting ability of the Flame Hazes.

Yuji returns home to find his mother unwell. He skips school the next day, and Shana and Yoshida find out about it while at school. After school, Shana rushes over to Yuji’s house. Yoshida is reluctant to visit as she thinks she’s using it as an excuse to get closer to Yuji, but Ike tells her that’s not the case. She makes the resolve to make food for Yuji and his mother. Shana makes it to Yuji’s place in record time to make sure Yuji’s mom is alright. Wilhelmina learns of the matter and starts preparing to make some remedies for her. Yoshida that night drops off food for Yuji. All this time, Yuji feels that all of this is pointless as he wants to separate himself from his family and from friends he knows that can’t come with him in the end.

I take it this whole thing with his mom being sick is just a way to move the character development along to show that Yuji’s state of mind is slowly changing. In this scene, he’s listening in on Shana and it gives off the sense that he’s made the tough decision that one day he’ll have to leave and all of these things happening to this “normal” life is starting to become pointless.

The next day, Yuji is unwilling to accept Yoshida’s contributions as he explains to her that he doesn’t belong in the normal world of things anymore. Yoshida fires back telling him she’s doing all of this out of love, and has nothing to do with him being a Mystes and whatnot. She drops off the food and runs off with Yuji chasing, but he stops quickly as he sees Shana standing by. She’s mad at Yuji too with his current mindset that he no longer fits in the normal world and not caring about the people he will leave behind. Yuji walks around the city wodering why everyone’s mad at him when he encounters Zarovee and his “clones” (?). I guess they’re clones. Anyway, he’s surprised that he wasn’t able to detect Zarovee.

I really don’t understand what Yoshida said because I don’t like this character to begin with. I tried my best to paraphrase her message, though. Anyway, it looks like the attitude thing that Yuji has developed is most likely going to come to an end due to Shana’s ultimatum to him. Looks like the next episode is going to be interesting considering none of the Flame Hazes have been able to detect Zarovee. It’s probably going to be Yuji to rise to the occasion to do battle.

It starts out with one of the Bal Masque members with an army of Tomogaras attacking an Outlaw facility. They easily destroy the place. Back at campus, Ike brings up with Ogata her relationship with Tanaka. He tells her she should invite Tanaka to her volleyball game. Tanaka, on the other hand, is still bothered from the recent events.

As Sato returns home, he overhears Margery and Wilhelmina talking about Outlaw. Wilhelmina explains that the information she receives are useless and has no bearing to the inquiries she sent in for. She believes something is happening to Outlaw internally. Margery calls Sato in as she senses his presence. He brings up Outlaw, but Margery stares him down and he walks away. Elsewhere, Yuji and Shana increases their training. Shana and Alastor explain they will throw in a few striking blows against Yuji, but Yuji demands that Shana include more of these attacks.

After seeing the opening minutes, it makes me wonder why the enemy doesn’t just send an army against one Flame Haze. Would probably make life easy on them, but I guess they’re in it for feeding on humans, not to kill Flame Hazes. Why does this sound like vampires and vampire slayers?? As for Yuji, his desire for increased training seems to be directly related to the experiments Bal Masque is doing on the apparent Silver. Perhaps altering Yuji’s state of mind.

The next day, Sato calls Shana out to the rooftop to ask her about Outlaw without Yuji or others knowing about it. The scene cuts over to Tanaka and Ogata having lunch together where Ogata points out he’s not the way he was before and walks off. After school, Sato meets up with Tanaka and explains to him he wants to work for Outlaw as Outlaw has regular humans working there. It would be a way for them to follow Margery and not be in the frontlines of battle. Tanaka does not want to join him and walks away.

It’s trouble in paradise between these two, but I guess they’ve been pushing this angle for a number of episodes already, so they have to follow through.

At Shana’s place, Wilhelmina stresses that they should be worried about Sabrac. She goes on to explain that she was once saved by Pheles and Johan from being killed by Sabrac. She used to travel with them, and so she would always distract Sabrac long enough for Pheles to blow him away with her powers. During one of their encounters, Sabrac managed to kill Johan. Back at Sato’s place, Sato tells her he wants to work for Outlaw. Margery explains to Sato that one of the key Outlaw facilities was recently destroyed, which was the same facility in the beginning of the episode. Not only that, but other facilities all around the world are experiencing similar attacks as well. At the volleyball game, Tanaka shows up at the game as Ike told him about the game. Watching her play, he makes the resolve about his future.

This scene gave a little bit of history between Wilhelmina and Pheles. What I found weird was that she was still wearing her maid gown. If this was something that happened a long time ago, shouldn’t she be wearing something else instead. She did during the flashback of the previous Flame Haze that Shana replaced. Should have been the same for this case. I guess they were lazy with the animation.

Back at Yuji and Shana, Yuji finally manages to sense Shana’s killing intent and parry’s her weapon away, only to receive a kick to the ribs. Alastor wants to end the training, but Yuji demands for more. Elsewhere, Tanaka calls Sato out to a convenience store to talk about his decision to not follow Margery anymore. He gives Sato the device that Margery gave them to have free roaming inside a Fuzetsu and asks that he give it back to her as he won’t be needing it any longer.

Shana is such a tsundere, unwilling to admit that she got outdone and so knocks Yuji down to avoid her embarrassment. That’s probably what makes her relationship with Yuji work so well in this series. Overall, the episode was quite boring. No real development, just a bunch of mini events that were remotely chronological in order. Oh well.

After the action-packed episode 15, episode 16 starts off with a new opening sequence and also a new ending sequence. Here’s a link to the opening sequence:
http://www.ninenines.net/ninesblog/index.php/anime/2008/shana-second-op2/

Since Mami Kawada performed both the opening and ending songs previously, this time it’s KOTOKO performing these two songs. Just like from season 1 when Mami Kawada did Hishoku no Sora for the first opening, and KOTOKO did Being for the second opening. And the song titles are “Blaze” for the OP and “Sociometry” for the ED. Unfortunately, they’re not as great as “Joint” or “Triangle”, but I guess it’ll grow on me. Besides that, this new opening is crazy. It reveals so much. It looks like Yoshida and Shana are entangled even more in personal pains. Yuji gets himself a weapon (the Blutsauger from season 1 to be exact) and he looks like he’s kicking ass. Shana is up against the usual Bal Masque guys, and they even show her fighting Sabrac too. Looks like this season’s going to have an epic finish.

Anyway, back to the story. So it’s the disassembly of the school festival and with the disappearance of Konoe, so does everyone’s memory of Konoe as well (except for the main characters who aren’t affected by the Fuzetsu). Shana sees it as part of the way things are, but Yoshida is somewhat disturbed by it. At Bal Masque, Hecate returns the bracelet that Konoe was wearing back to Bel-Peol. Turns out, that bracelet was actually part of her chain. They report back that they were unable to destroy Yuji to liberate the Reiji Maigo. Bel-Peol isn’t too worried. She’s confident they can kill Yuji at any time. The mad scientist agrees, claiming he can collect more data this way. Hecate charges up the armored creature and it starts to come to life.

Finally, that Konoe character is gone. Annoying as hell. Anyway, the episodes are starting to wear thin. It’s going to be 24 or 26 total episodes, and they’re barely scraping the surface of what’s going on with Bal Masque and Sabrac. Let’s get on with it. Too bad this episode is what I consider an “aftermath” episode.

Back at the campus, Sato tells everyone that Margery wants to examine Yuji some more. Noticing the uncomfortable look on Yoshida, he tells her that she doesn’t have to go. This leads to a flashback showing Pheles giving Yoshida a cross-like memento. The same one she was clutching towards the end of episode 15. Turns out, this item is a Hougu that Pheles believes suits Yoshida well. This Hougu, when used, will summon Pheles, but at the expense of the user’s power of existence. Therefore, if Yoshida summons Pheles, it will be at the expense of her life and also everyone’s memory of her as well.

This explains further how Yoshida has that item with her, what it does, and why she had such a strong reaction to the concept of disappearing from everyone’s memories. I doubt she’ll use this though, but she should. It would be good storytelling.

After being examined by Margery Daw at Sato’s place, she discovers that Hecate placed a seal on the Reiji Maigo. The seal is apparently acting like a transmitter. She further explains that Pheles inadvertently summoned the Silver when she was trying to call out Johan, which Bal Masque did not appreciate. She goes on to explain that Johan even managed to restructure the residuals of Margery’s spells on Yuji to materialize himself from Yuji. And in conclusion, she reasons that Bal Masque is still after the Reiji Maigo. The transmitter may be a way to track down the Reiji Maigo after Yuji is destroyed. Alastor throws in that the town of Misaki seems to be a place that attracts Tomogaras and Flame Hazes. Whatever that means.

I guess Alastor’s idea of the city attracting goodies and baddies together is a precursor to an epic battle in the city in the episodes to come. I wouldn’t mind seeing an all out war similar to the Claymore series, if and only if the animation quality stays top notch. Kinda like the new intro where Shana is going after Sabrac. Now that’s good animation quality.

The next day, Yuji’s father is leaving again. He and his wife head off to the airport. As they leave, Shana tells Yuji that Wilhelmina has a task for him. They abandon Yoshida who is currently with them. Ogata meets up with Yoshida as she’s still contemplating her role in the world of Crimson Lords and Tomogaras and whether or not to use the Hougu to summon Pheles if ever came down to it. At Shana’s place, Wilhelmina tells Yuji to help sort out the reports sent in by Flame Hazes. At this time, Yuji asks Shana to borrow the Blutsauger, the sword used by the brother of the incestual siblings back in season 1. Alastor agrees. Elsewhere, Bal Masque continues to experiment on the apparent Silver armored being.

That evening, Yoshida decides to toss the Hougu, but she is stopped by a Fuzetsu that Shana casts. She sees Yuji swinging the Blutsauger around and Shana teaching him how to wield the sword. With all the training he’s had with Shana, he doesn’t have too much trouble with the sword. Yoshida at that moment decides she wants to be where Yuji is, and as Pheles points out, if she wants to be part of the group, she will have to use that Hougu.

Yuji still looks like a pansy, but he’s actually able to wield the sword. I remember in the first season, Sato and Tanaka had no chance in hell of even holding it up in the air. Yuji is actually swinging it. And judging from the opening sequence, he’s going to be quite agile with it. Must be all that training. And next episode looks boring.