Following up from the previous episode’s cliffhanger, Yuji realizes that the Silver flame is what Margery Daw is after. Unfortunately, no one understands why Yuji would have this flame. As a precaution, Shana tells Yuji to lay low on his power of existence.

The next day, Yuji heads out for school, and hiding in the shadows is a mysterious person watching Yuji and his mom. Yuji meets up with Ogata, who explains that Konoe is not feeling well, so her butler will be taking her to and from school for the time being. However, inside the mansion, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Both Konoe and the butler are wearing the same bracelet, and they stand there as if they are channeling something.

Now that things are starting to move along, we can now start seeing some of the cracks in the shell in terms of Konoe. These two are up to something. Don’t know what the bracelets are all about either. And what’s up with the mysterious guy standing in the street?

At the campus, the mysterious person is standing there, but his face is not shown. Just his feet. He runs off as Konoe’s limo pulls up. Konoe shows up to her classroom, which leads to Ike explaining what the school festival is all about and what their school is doing. He further explains that their class is doing costumes from Romeo and Juliet and Wizard of Oz. Shana and Yoshida both think about being Juliet, but Shana loses out and has to settle for Dorothy.

Wow, this whole scene was so useless. Anyway, it’s obvious that it comes down to Shana and Yoshida fighting over Yuji again. Yoshida wins out this time.

Yuji makes a phone call to his mom for some clothing supplies. Outside the house stands the mysterious person again. Shana and Yoshida decide to get the materials from Yuji’s house since he’s busy. At Yuji’s house, Yoshida and Shana talk about their feelings towards Yuji and how they want to pursue the physical aspects of a relationship. On their way back to campus, Shana tells Yoshida that they’re being followed by a human. They start moving and the man chases after them. Shana and Yoshida lose him and start following him. The man bumps into Yuji and they’re both stunned for a moment, allowing Shana to go on the attack. He dodges her kick but being caught off guard he loses his footing. Yuji immediately identifies the man as his father.

Yuji’s mom seems very open to having a pair of schoolgirls gawking over her son. I guess it’s fine for her since it’s less work for Yuji to find a relationship. After they finally pinned down the guy stalking everyone throughout the episode, I was surprised that it turned out to be Yuji’s father.

The two end up staying for dinner. After dinner, Yuji’s father discuss relationship matters with Shana and Yoshida. He explains how he met his wife and that their hearts led them to where they are now. Elsewhere, in Paris, Wilhelmina finds out that Pheles is still alive and after the Reiji Maigo as it is a memento of her lover.

I guess Yuji’s father only role in this series is similar to his mom’s role, which is to give advice to Shana and company. As for the Pheles thing, not sure if I mentioned this already, but I’m pretty sure Pheles is the one with the green hair in the opening intro sequence.

This is the second half of the Margery Daw flashback. It starts out with Alastor telling Yuji he’s ready to go to the next level, which is to cast an unrestricted spell. Yuji starts to channel his energy to cast a Fuzetsu. Margery Daw’s flashback cuts into the scene with her casting of a Fuzetsu. Continuing off from episode 8’s flashback, Margery again meets up with Anna Berg at the Empire State building, while Yuri observes from a distance.

Battle ensues between Margery Daw and Anna Berg. Metamorphosis jumps in to the fray. Yuri explains to his Guze that he wants to help out. Valac tells him that a Flame Haze’s job is to hunt down Tomogaras. Helping and saving others just happens to be a by-product. During the battle, Anna Berg starts talking about his intentions with speeding up the evolution of mankind, and in the process distracts Margery long enough for Metamorphosis to pull off an attack from behind.

The scene involving Anna Berg talking about human evolution was quite confusing. It may have been just the subtitles, but I honestly did not understand his motive at all. Good thing this enemy is irrelevant so it doesn’t matter whatever the fuck he’s talking about.

Yuri decides to go in to assist Margery. He draws in with his power the moths around the town. Fully charged, he becomes a vortex of energy and blasts towards the Fuzetsu. He cuts directly into Metamorphosis and cuts him in half, but that wouldn’t kill him. Yuri goes after Anna Berg, while Margery goes after Metamorphosis. These two always end in a draw. Yuri on the other hand leads Anna Berg into a head-on collision where he is defeated by Yuri’s attack.

I’m not sure what the moths are all about, and I’m not sure if it’s Yuri who’s generating the attack or if he’s drawing his power from Valac, similar to Shana manifesting Alastor. I also can’t believe that cutting Metamorphosis in half didn’t incapacitate him for some time. He just regrew the other half back with little effort; paying tribute to DBZ. And Anna Berg eats it, as expected. Like I said, irrelevant character.

Margery and Metamorphosis are both fatigued, but neither one wants to back off. Metamorphosis decides to use Yuri as a way to end the battle. Margery can’t save Yuri because she needs to stay alive to find the Silver Tomogara to exact her revenge. She lets Metamorphosis strike down Yuri. Marcosius explains that was the only way to end the battle in a draw.

Technically speaking, Margery Daw killed Yuri on purpose so she could let Metamorphosis escape, which would let her escape a potential death match. And the power difference between Yuri and Metamorphosis is evident. He landed his attack on Yuri pretty easily.

Back at Shana and Yuji, Yuji is still struggling with the Fuzetsu. After some words from Alastor, Yuji tries again and manages to cast a Fuzetsu. Unfortunately, his flame color is silver. Exactly what Margery Daw is after. Now that’s a cliffhanger.

It would appear that the next season of Haruhi will most likely be The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi. I’m definitely excited. And here’s why I believe it’s going to be based on this storyline (from Anime News Network):

SPOILER ALERT!! –
After the Anime News Network message, I’m going to go a little in depth to the storyline.

The official Japanese website for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya television anime series has announced further details about the franchise’s next anime project. In the spirit of the first anime series and the Haruhi Suzumiya science fiction comedy light novels that spawned the franchise, the announcement was made in a roundabout, cryptic manner.

On Tuesday, the site “disappeared” and began displaying a false error message that read, “The page cannot be found.” A second message then appears over the first message; it states that a computer program is starting up and prompts the user for a password. If the user enters “K,” “N,” “S,” “A,” and “K” (the initials of the family names of the members of SOS brigade, the main characters in the series) into the password fields and selects the radio button to the right, a fake xterm terminal session opens. A series of messages from “YUKI.N” confirms that the key to the “emergency escape program” has been found and asks for a final confirmation before starting the program. If the user hits the enter key, a new page opens that shows the character Yuki and lists the production credits of the new series.

The page reveals that the previously announced second anime season of Haruhi Suzumiya has been “cancelled” and replaced with a new animation project. Yasuhiro Takemoto (Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Lucky Star) will direct the new project, and Kyoto Animation will still be animating as it did for the first anime project. As in the previous anime project, the fictional “leader” of the new anime project is the character Haruhi Suzumiya herself. The “disappearance” of the website on December 18 at 4:00 a.m. (Japan Standard Time) is a reference to the pivotal date in The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, the fourth volume in the light novel series and an apparent indication of which novel plot the new anime project will adapt. Bandai Entertainment finished its English-language release of the first anime project in November.

Alright, on to a preview the Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi.

So what happens is one day, Kyon wakes up and the world literally has changed over night. Haruhi is missing, no one knows who Haruhi is (except for Tanaguchi), Asahina doesn’t know him, Itsuki is missing, and Asakura is back! Not to mention, Yuki, the only person who can save the day, has become a fragile loner of a bookworm. Talk about the odds stacked against Kyon.

So where’s Haruhi. Well, someone changed history to have Haruhi end up at a different school. Here she is in another school uniform. Looks quite spiffy, if you ask me. By the way, Itsuki is at this school too.

With Haruhi at another school and not having met Kyon, the SOS Brigade would never have been created. Sounds like a villain plotting the destruction of the SOS Brigade by making sure it never even had a chance to be made.

And as for the big spoiler: Let’s take a look at the image released by Kyoto Animation. This is an image of Yuki with her arm stretched out aiming at the school. Since I read the novels, I know exactly what’s going on here. And it points out what Haruhi Season 2 is going to be, which is The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi. Not only is it this, but it should be this one by the fact that it is the only one next to the original novel that actually has a decent anime-acceptable plot. The other stories available are rather short or not interesting enough. This one is, and many would agree. Here’s another cover art to finish it off:

The episodes starts out with a flashback of Margery Daw’s first encounter with the Tomogara with the silver flame. This Tomogara kills everyone in sight and Margery herself is quite bloodied up. It’s a more detailed event of what caused Margery Daw to become a Flame Haze and why she holds a death grudge against the silver flame. It also points out that she was a human around medieval times. She wakes up from the flashback dream to drink some more.

Over at Yuji’s training spot, he is training against Wilhelmina. Her wrappings transform into the large baby Rinne that he encountered when he first met Shana. The sudden reappearance throws him off guard, but he is able to block the attack. Sato observes the fight and walks away with frustration and envy. It’s another developing situation for the series involving Sato’s obsession to get stronger.

Alastor tells Yuji that it’s about time he started to learn how to cast a Fuzetsu. Later that night, Wilhelmina’s research into Yuji’s Reiji Maigo leads her to a name: Pheles. The next day, she packs up and tells Shana she’ll be gone for some time for more research. Pheles is still an unknown at this point, but it’s safe to assume that Wilhelmina knows something about Pheles.

Back at Margery Daw, Sato returns home and requests to be trained to get more power to follow Margery Daw. Margery tells him he would die if that were to happen. This leads to a flashback story of Margery Daw in the 1950s in New York. It starts out with her doing battle wih a Tomogara with a clock for a face called Anna Berg, which is also written on his clock/face. She is ambushed by Metamorphosis during the fight. She’s incapacitated, but Anna Berg decides to not kill her and instead move on to his plans.

At this point, I’m surprised Metamorphosis doesn’t just finish the job knowing the dangers of keeping Margery alive so that she can return to fight again. Villains and fiction at work here. OH well. Back to the episode.

After the two villains leave, Margery recuperates and has a change of wardrobe. While changing, a young boy runs up to her while the Fuzetsu is still up and sees her without any articles of clothing resulting in him receiving an off-screen beatdown for having come into such an awkward situation. Turns out he is a Flame Haze by the name of Yuri. As Margery narrates, she explains that Yuri was a strange one because he didn’t have it in him to kill Tomogaras. She even hints at a great battle in Europe between Flame Hazes and a group of Tomogaras calling themselves the Revolution. Margery is in America to deliver a message to a Flame Haze called Eastedge regarding the topic.

I wonder if that topic will be touched upon again. It could lead to an interesting side story. A war of Tomogaras and Flame Hazes.

Eastedge requests Margery to train Yuri for a while. For his own sake, I guess. Yuri explains how he was on an immigrant ship that got attacked by a Tomogara. He was knocked off the ship, and there he made a contract with Valac to become a Flame Haze. From this, it is obvious that he is not a good candidate to be a Flame Haze for his large compassion for saving human lives. Margery feels that he lacks the properties for the job and tells him to go home while she goes on to face Anna Berg at the Empire State Building.

Overall, this was a decent episode. I would say that they are moving the story along even though it’s mostly a flashback story. At least it’s not another wasted episode like the last four episodes.

Alright, one more useless episode to get through. Sorry, but the last few episodes have been pretty bad. This episode would make it the fourth “filler-like” episode. That’s a month’s worth of useless episodes. So let’s speed this one up too.

Turns out, Ike scheduled a theme park outing with the group so that he could eventually get some alone time with Yoshida on the ferris wheel. He has everything planned out, but all his plans go awry.

Long story short, he leads everyone to a giant maze and pairs everyone up to have a race to see who makes it out first. The only notable part of this whole episode is this one part where Shana and Sato are paired together. Sato takes the chance to ask Shana if he could become a Flame Haze. Another instance of his willingness to become stronger. We don’t find out Shana’s answer nor his reason for wanting to become one though. It’s a quick 15-second scene.

Ike and Yoshida end up exiting first and convinces her to go on the ferris wheel with him. Unfortunately, he has a bad case of motion sickness. The ferris wheel in the past did not give him motion sickness, but he fell victim to it this time. And.. that’s about it for this episode. From the previews, it would look like things are getting back to what the series is about: Flame Hazes battling Tomogaras. Finally, I say. Finally.

Before I begin with this episode, this is yet another craptastic episode. So I’m just going to do a speed summary.

Basically, there’s a surprise test for the next day and the usual cache of characters decide to get together for a study group. Shana isn’t sure of showing up and holds off on her decision. In the end, she shows up anyway.

They do some studying and some eating. Ogata and Yoshida bump into Margery Daw since they’re at Sato’s house. Margery gives them some love advice and everyone goes about their way. Yoshida shares the advice with Shana as they are frienemies.

By the end of the episode, Shana and Yoshida have started to accept Konoe a little more as they consider her as more or less harmless. With that, Shana returns to training Yuji.

That’s all I can say about this episode. It was really just that useless. Just another episode to progress the adolescent emotional mindsets of Shana and Yoshida. The next episode is pretty much the same too.

This and the next two episodes plus the previous episode were so useless, it took me out of the rhythm of reviewing the episodes as they came in. The series finally picked up on the storyline, so I’m trying to catch up.

Alright, so this episode begins with Yuji training with Wilhelmina and showing signs of improvement by dodging one of her attacks. This is about it for anything related to the true essence of the series genre.

Next we see Shana and Wilhelmina ready to eat dinner. Alastor questions Wilhelmina’s choice of food (Cup Ramen). She explains it’s the most efficient of sustenance, despite Alastor’s critique on the need for variety. Shana decides to take a bath instead and in the process gets into an argument with Wilhelmina.

The next day, Yuji goes to pick up Konoe. He’s invited inside the mansion by the butler. The mansion is dark and there’s no one there except for the butler and Konoe. It’s like a horror movie waiting to happen. At school, both Shana and Yoshida are starting to feel the emotional strain due to Yuji’s attention to Konoe. Ike pulls Yuji aside and hints to him that he needs to be more considerate to the others around him. Somehow, I’m starting to get the aching feeling that this show is becoming more and more like a school love drama. t(>.<)t

Fast forward through the episode… Wilhelmina wants to be a better cook and bumps into Yuji’s mom and gets help from her. Then throw in a scene with Margery Daw that has nothing to do with anything. Then return back to Wilhelmina who introduces a cooked meal to Shana. It’s not that great, but Shana accepts it because she’s aware of the effort Wilhelmina put in to making the meal.

Overall, this episode was pretty useless. Had nothing to do with anything. I understand they are trying to push the tension that Yuji causes by giving too much attention to Konoe, but just get on with it. This is horrible.

Shana and Yuji start off the day walking Konoe to school at the dissatisfaction of Shana. Apparently, it’s originally not his duty to walk Konoe to school, but he volunteered to do so to save Yoshida the trouble of going out of her way. Then fast forward to some rather unimportant scenes involving their classmates cleaning up the pool. Totally useless stuff.

Over at Margery’s place, Wilhelmina discusses her investigation on the Keeper of the Reiji Maigo. They mention Yuji’s training with Shana, which doesn’t go well with Sato, who has intentions on wanting to get stronger so he could travel around with Margery, but cannot find any way to go beyond his human limits. This is evident the next day while they are at a new restaurant where Sato challenges Yuji to an eating contest. Slowly, but surely, something tells me Sato is going to acquire power by some means. He’s somewhat of an x-factor character that can lean either to the side of good or to the dark side.

After their eating session, Konoe suddenly disappears from the group. Yuji decides to look for her, but Shana does not want to. Probably due to her negative emotions towards Konoe. She decides to head home, and Yuji fails to talk her out of it, so the two go their own ways. A typical love-hate relationship between the two as always.

Yuji eventually finds Konoe somewhere saving a bird from a cat. Yoshida sees the two and starts to feel a little jealous. Shana
being upset at the whole thing sends Wilhelmina to train Yuji instead of doing it herself. The next day, Shana and Yoshida avoid eating lunch with Yuji and Konoe and instead share each other’s company on the rooftop. This is like an example of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of thing. This also reminds me of Onegai Twins where the two girls make a pact with each other to support each other until the guy chooses.

Overall, I hated this episode. All slice-of-life and doesn’t really touch upon what the show really is, which is sci-fi action.

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. >_<