Sea Slugs! Anime Blog

Mashiro has a meeting with some mysterious old people about how she has to continue to make the carnival succeed because Lord Kokuyou is about to return, and the more tears shed by Ikusahime, the happier Lord Kokuyou is. More importantly, if the plan works, Japan will flourish and then it will become easier to find reasonably priced anime and manga. While this boring speech is going on, Nagi is also giving a long speech about how the HiMEs now have to fight each other. While he is talking, Natsuki receives a call from Akane informing her that if the CHILD dies, so does the HiME’s most important person. Nagi compounds this by pointing out that HiME death >> CHILD death >> MIP death. However, the winner is given tremendous power and charged with the responsibilty of stopping the Red Star and saving the Japanese stock market. Nagi then mentions that he has to explain these rules to those not in attendance, and later Midori explains that there may be two more HiMEs they have not yet met. From here the story further splits the focus by having a suddenly evil Ishigami-sensei drug Sister Yukariko’s coffee, Reito clutching a necklace very similar to the one that Mikoto has, Takeda asking Shizuru to let him ask Tate to rejoin the Kendo club after waiting a year as promised, and Midori telling everyone not to fight. There is a little good news, as Mai learns that Takumi is next in line to receive treatment. Mai runs into Tate at the hospital and the meeting is very awkward. Tate whines about how he sucks so bad in the anime and apologizes, and Mai leaves. Mai sees the benches where Tate had his only good moment in the series and cries about how crappy his character has become. Shiho, however, sees Mai leaving and questions Tate about what he was doing. Tate lies, saying he was reading a magazine, and Shiho obviously knows he’s lying (and a crow caws outside). Just to end on a cliffhanger, Mai is then ambushed on her way home by a mysterious ghostly young woman in a white veil and kimono, who just so happens to be wielding a large dark crow CHILD. Somebody caw the police (~ohohoho, domo domo domo)!

The first question that popped into my head when Nagi set down the rules was, “Why did Miyu say that there was no point to killing a HiME without her CHILD materialized?” I suppose Miyu could have been wrong, but is it perhaps because you need to have the HiME alive, but defenseless and traumatized? It was interesting to get a hint of who Midori’s MIP is (Sasaki?), and see a picture of a young Midori holding some kind of artifact. Although it’s suggested that Shiho is the one responsible for the crow CHILD, this seems weird to me. Shiho is always characterized as an octopus, and it seems weird that her CHILD would be avian. Funny how she accuses Tate of peeping on her in the previews, like some kind of loli-pseudo-sis-con.

Also, in retrospect, I can’t believe that SEARRS was trying to eliminate the HiMEs and, in doing so, undermine the Japanese economy. Is this the “softer side of SEARRS”? Even better was how Midori read Sasaki’s email and then noticed a newspaper suggesting that the Red Star causes El Niño (or maybe El Niña)!!! But maybe the temperature isn’t the only thing that the Red Star is causing to rise… Of course the truth is much more insidious. *spoilers*

It seems that there are some Yakitate connections in stopping this “Red Star” (that or they are talking about stopping Soviets)… Those mysterious elders did mention something about wanting Ja-Pan to flourish. There’s already been one cookoff, and I predict another one will take place in the Kitchen Arena…