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The highlights of this episode:

• Kyou, Ryou, Okazaki, Nagisa, and Kotomi go out around town, and while they’re out, Kyou tries to get doll out of a crane game machine, but fails. Kyou cries out if anyone can win it and suddenly shows up….Fuko, declaring that she is a master at crane games. Nagisa finds her somewhat familiar, but Fuko tells her that the day they will be reunited will come naturally. Fuko, instead of getting the plush Kyou wants, grabs a plush star (figures) and runs off.
• Afterwards, when Okazaki walks Kotomi home, Kotomi asks him to hang on to a book which she has already memorized. Suddenly the older man shows up, and Kotomi grabs Okazaki and runs away. That night, Okazaki has a nightmare of a young boy, a bunny, a deer, Kotomi, and a fire in a library and an older man, who looks like the man chasing Kotomi, arriving to try to put out the fire.
• On the way to school the next day, Kyou is trying to harass Okazaki by sending Kotomi to play embarrassing jokes on him when Nagisa runs up and says that the bus that Ryou usually rides to school was in an accident. When Kyou shows up, she starts to yell out to Ryou, who suddenly shows up safe, saying she got on the next bus. When Kotomi shows up and sees the accident, she suddenly breaks down screaming and curls up into a ball on the ground, calling out that “she’ll be a good girl.”
• When the foursome goes to see Kotomi in the school infirmary later, they find out that she’s left, and that the nurse can’t share any information to protect Kotomi’s privacy. The four then see Kotomi’s homeroom teacher, who isn’t able to tell them anything either, but does give them her home address.
• The four arrive at Kotomi’s house, and find the yard a wreck, with apparently no one home, while Okazaki sees a black butterfly flying around. The four are about to catch the bus to go back home when Okazaki runs back to the house. There he spots the older man standing outside. He tells Okazaki that he used to work in the same lab as Kotomi’s parents, who were researching a world which was created and sealed away when this world was young, but says nothing else. He only asks Okazaki to pass on a message to Kotomi: He doesn’t expect Kotomi to forgive them (supposedly him and others working in the lab), but they still regret what happened.
• Okazaki then returns to Kotomi’s house and finds it familiar. He is about to ring the doorbell when he realizes that he never entered through the front door at this house, and enters via a sliding door that leads into the yard. He goes to Kotomi’s room and finds her sitting on the floor in a room covered in book, magazine, and newspaper clippings about a plane crash, something called the Calabi-Yau manifold, and of the death of people with the last name of Ichinose. Okazaki then realizes that they knew each other when they were kids…

Well, I tried cutting down the review to the essential information this time, but it was still a lot because a lot happened. We’re getting deeper into Kotomi’s story, and this storyline has a bit of a “Yuuichi and Mai” feeling to it with Okazaki just now remembering that they were friends as kids.

It seems obvious that Kotomi’s parents aren’t here anymore, but the question is what happened to them. Were they in a plane crash, as one of the articles that Kotomi had collected suggests, or does the fire that Okazaki keeps dreaming about have something to do with it? And exactly why is Kotomi collecting all those clippings anyway? I’m also interested to see what this bunny, deer, and butterfly have to do with things.

The other interesting tidbit was, of course, Fuko showing up again. Nagisa clearly seemed to remember her somewhat, but Fuko definitely seemed to let on that they would get to see each other again. I’m wondering if Fuko showing up like that will turn into a running gag for the rest of the show or something.

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The highlights of this episode:

• On the Novaal, the Master Commander briefs her three ship’s commanders on the imminent plan by the aliens to attack Earth. However, Azanael then shows up and angrily asks if they plan to destroy the Blue first. Azanael explains to the assembled group that the Kamiooki island incident was planned by the Master Commander herself, as an experiment to check to see what effect an Emul Force Drive malfunction would have both on themselves and on the humans. After the Master Commander basically says “so what?,” Azanael rushes up to her and shoots her in the head for killing Onomil.
• After getting shot in the head, the Master Commander starts to dissolve into nothing, much to the shock of everyone in the room. A new Master Commander shows up and says that the incident was indeed pre-planned, but it’s purpose was to test the limit of the Emul Force Drive. The guards in the room are then sent after Azanael, and she tries to escape.
• Sugawara-sensei asks Hagino to meet her in her office where she confronts Hagino about being an alien, with gun in hand. Hagino tells her that the aliens plan an full-out invasion of earth in a few days, but that she wants to try to protect earth. Outside, Michiko, who has come to see Sugawara herself, overhears the conversation.
• Azanael and the guards have a shootout in the hanger when Onomil suddenly appears. However, as the two embrace, Onomil tells Azanael that she’s the “shadow created from the bottom of her heart.” Suddenly a whole bunch of Onomils appear and merge together and become a form of the Master Commander, who explains to Azanael that through the experiment, they’ve been able to create a weapon which materializes people’s thoughts – particularly their fears. Azanael then tries to run away, but is shot and presumably killed by the pursuing guards.
• When Azanael’s blood touches the necklace given to her by Onomil, Azanael’s ship starts going berserk, shoots up the hanger, then flies off.
• That evening, Mari asks Hagino why she didn’t tell her about the incident earlier, Hagino tells her she was scared to. Mari then slaps Hagino, for not telling he properly about the incident, then pushes Hagino into the water for making Mari worry about Hagino all the time. Mari then jumps into the pool with Hagino, where the two kiss.
• Meanwhile, the 4 ships in the Master Commander’s fleet sail out to destroy the 5th ship: the Blue.

This ended up being a pretty interesting and exciting episode. We get confirmation that not only did the Emul Force Drive incident cause people’s fears to materialize, but the very incident was an experiment executed by the Master Commander (and quite possibly even those above her) to see if that would happen, in order to create a new weapon.

This may explain why the alien landing party died as well: they probably died the same way many of the humans did – fighting against their worst fears.

Also, we’re on the brink of the alien invasion. Will it lead into the where the manga starts, or will it go a different path? If it’s the former, the ending may be less than happy.

Also, it was about time that Sugawara finds out about Hagino. Unfortunately for Sugawara, there apparently isn’t much she can do about this situation. My other ponderance is how much Michiko heard, and what she might do about it.

Of course, the meat of this episode is the end where Hagino and Mari finally express their feelings for each other and start going at it.

I’m just wondering that, if we’re going to have a big battle in the next episode, it’s either going to be short and sweet, or else I’m not sure when the play will get performed. We’ll find out soon enough as there is only one episode left.

Oh, and Hagino’s costume: A+. Akane’s isn’t too bad either.

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The highlights of this episode:

• Ayumi asks the Shogi association for an advance on her winnings, but the girl who works there says that it’s against policy rules. Satoru says he can lend Ayumi money, but she blows him off. After Shion sees Ayumi storm off, she asks what happens, and the Shogi Association girl tells her.
• Shion goes into her match with Suo Honma, who is gleeful to meet her. As the match starts, Shion notices that Suo isn’t one who thinks about his moves too much, but that she shouldn’t underestimate him since he did beat a 9-dan opponent in the first round. Meanwhile, Satoru defeats a 3-dan opponent to advance to the 3rd round.
• Shion starts to beat up Suo due to his more reckless style of play. Suo then decides to use his trump card: he draws the character of “king” on his forehead. This reminds Shion of the murder and causes her to suddenly break down crying. He tells her that he heard from someone he played online once that it’s a magic spell to beat Shion. However, after seeing Shion’s reaction, Suo starts to wonder if something is wrong. He remembers back to when he played noname online. Noname figured out who he was, and knew that he was going to play Shion, and told him the “magic spell” to win against Shion.
• Shion feels like running away after being reminded of the murder, but decides to press on. Shion starts to look more confident, and Suo gets unnerved, even though he’s winning and makes a bad mistake, allowing Shion to gain the advantage and win.
• After the match, Shion gets Hisatani to call the police, and when they arrive, he goes with them to see Shion. Meanwhile, someone takes his cell phone from the association’s office. The visit by the police ultimately leads to them questioning Suo about the magic spell. The detectives decide to ask the ISP and online dojo for the information about where the murderer was playing.
• That night, Shion gets a call on her cell phone from the murderer…

Well, this has suddenly gotten a bit more exciting as the murderer is coming more and more to the surface. Of course, the question still is “who is it?” From the fact that they knew that Suo was going to play Shion, that seems to suggest that it’s someone who is at the very least participating in the shogi tournament.

This would fit with my theory-of-the-moment that it is actually Hani-meijin, since he would obviously be both in a position to know who he is playing, as well as to know how strong Shion is. Now, why he may be trying to get Shion to lose, though (and a motive for the original murder for that matter) is still a mystery to me.

This is also the first time that Shion seems to have taken pro-active steps to try to find out something about the murderer, having called the police after realizing that what Suo did might have been a clue. In any case, we have something like 36 players left in the tournament, 2 episodes, and 1 murderer-at-large left, so it may get interesting from here on.

Oh, and why was Ayumi trying to get an advance for his winnings? Was it just his normal “I need money now,” or something more?

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The highlights of this episode:

• Chihiro arrives with the finished novel and gives it to Renji. Renji asks which ending Chihiro choose, and she tells him that he’ll find out when he reads it. He starts to read it, but she asks him to stop.
• Renji asks Chihiro out on a date, and after hesitating, Chihiro agrees, but says that they’ll only be lovers for one day. Renji asks why only for one day, and Chihiro tells him that it’s a “trial period.” She then asks Renji to hold off on reading the story until after their date the next day.
• The next day, the two decide to see a movie on their date, but the movie they see has an unexpected bad ending, which causes Chihiro to cry. After she recovers, the two talk about how the movie had a twist end with the happy ending. Chihiro starts to say that she wished it would have had a happy ending, then starts crying again.
• Next, Chihiro wants to play a crane game, but apparently fails to get anything, sending her into another crying fit. Renji then goes back and wins it for her.
• The two then go to the school rooftop with a key that Himura gave Chihiro, and they look at the sunset together. Renji then confesses to Chihiro, and they kiss and, er, the rest as well.
• Once midnight hits, Chihiro gives Renji the story to read as she goes to the roof to read through her diary. However, in the end, the girl in the story, instead of being united with the boy in her paintings, decides to “make the world clean” and burns everything – the castle, the mansion, and the paintings.
• Renji goes to the roof and Chihiro asks him what he thinks. Renji says he’s surprised since it’s a sad ending, but Chihiro tells him that it’s the happiest ending for the girl, explaining that the girl shouldn’t interact with other people, or else she’ll find out what loneliness is.
• Chihiro tells Renji that they should break up, since she’s afraid that he’ll “disappear from her heart” some day with her condition, and she wants to break up while she can still say that she loves him. Also, she doesn’t want Renji to suffer through her condition. Chihiro then tosses all the sheets in her diary about Renji out into the wind…

*Pulls hair out*

Ack! What a cliffhanger! Will Renji be able to end up with Chihiro or not? It’s looking more like the answer is “no” at this point, but perhaps something will happen, like Chihiro just not being able to forget him (remember, every time she remembers something, the 13 hours reset). I’d guess that’d be the way since having her condition be cured would seem to be a rather Dues ex Machina type ending. Everything in this episode dealt with sad endings, so will this arc end up with one as well?

Once again, the point of contention for the primary girl in the relationship is “disappearing from one’s heart.” Of course, with Miyako, she was afraid that she would disappear from Hiro’s heart, and in this case, Chihiro is afraid that Renji would disappear from her own heart because of her condition.

Perhaps the one humorous part of this episode was when the prim, proper, and shy Chihiro asking Renji if he wants to do the nasty (not in those terms, of course).

In the end, I really want these to be together, really more than Hiro being with either girl in his arc. Chihiro and Renji are probably my two favorite characters in this series, and it’d be sad if they ended up with a bad ending. I guess we’ll find out for sure in the final episode.

Given that I’ve only been watching fansubs for a couple of years (and nothing on any large scale for less than a year), and the first fan subs that I watched which were released in the US were Rumbling Hearts, Kashimashi (which didn’t even come with a dub), and Haruhi Suzumiya (i.e., quite recent releases), most of the series I’ve seen have gone something like *watch in Japanese. watch in English soon after.* The point being that I haven’t grown attached to the Japanese voices for most of series that I’ve seen, and there are some series where I actually prefer the dubs or relate the English dubs to the characters more than the original Japanese voices.

When Rumbling Hearts, aka Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, came out on DVD, it was my first experience watching a dub when the sub had been pounded in my head over and over for the course of a year. I didn’t know whether I would like or dislike the dubs based on being thoroughly used to the Japanese voices.

I think at first, I dub sounded weird because of the fact that I wasn’t used to it. However, now that it’s been released here for a year and I’ve watched it a few times, the dubs seem pretty close to natural. Meanwhile, I was able to grow onto the Haruhi Suzumiya dubs pretty easily.

All that said, I’m kind of feeling the same thing with the Kanon dub as I did with the Rumbling Hearts dub – that is, on th first watching, it seemed like a suit that just didn’t fit. However, like Rumbling Hearts, I think this dub has the potential to grow on me.

First off, the voices seemed to feel less awkward as the episode went on, so that’s a sign that I may be getting used to them already. Second, I don’t necessarily find them to be bad dubs ala Ai Yori Aoshi (which I still think has about the worst dub ever recorded). If I hadn’t have seen the Japanese version of Kanon first, I probably wouldn’t have any issues with the Kanon dub at all.

Perhaps if someone was a “IT MUST SOUND EXACTLY LIKE THE JAPANESE VOICES” person, then they may not find Kanon‘s dub to be all that great. But then again, some of the best dubs out there don’t necessarily sound like their Japanese counterparts, partly because if they did, then they would sound really weird.

Just consider Kanon, for example. I’m hardly an expert of what Japanese voices normally sound like, but many of the Japanese voices, I think especially Nayuki’s and Ayu’s, sound kind of cartoonish, so if you want the American voices to sound similar, they’ll sound cartoonish the same way (and then get hammered for sounding dumb instead of being different).

One of the things which I think make me think that Kanon‘s dub is an overall success, at least after listening to one episode is this: can I find anything wrong with them other than being “different” from the Japanese voices, and can I think exactly how I would have expected the dub to sound like anyway? Basically the answer for me is “no” and “no,” so, at least after a single episode, I think the dub seems to pass my own personal test.

Added:

I was just reading ANN’s review of Kanon, and while they agree about the dub being good, I ran across this:

The English script is a bit loose but free-flowing, with its only significant flaw coming from actually being too literal at one point. (In one scene it has Sayuri using her own name instead of “I,” which is the way it’s done in Japanese but sounds unnatural and pretentious in English.)

Um yeah, there’s a reason for that as one will find out on probably the 3rd or 4th DVD…