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• In the town of Toran, the mayor opens the tricentennial celebration of the town by showing off the “Clock of the Three Magi,” which is a valueable treasure the town has. Oh yeah, they’ve also invited a circus troupe which is actually Twenty Faces’ group undercover.
• In the green room (is that what you’d call it for a circus?), Chiko is reading a newspaper article about the circus which was made up, and is peeved that they called her a “child” in it, even though she is now almost 13.
• In the circus, Chiko acts as “Lily” a tightrope walker, while Twenty Faces acts as “Baron Doyle” who has an amazing disappearing act.
• The next day, Chiko is checking out The Clock of the Three Magi when a girl who was at the performance the night before recognizes her and wants to be friends. The girl, Angie, turns out to be the daughter of the head of security of the museum.
• The next day, Angie is waiting at the museum for Chiko and shows her a secret way into the museum, remarking that it’s be easy for a thief to get in that way, but remarks that her father would lose her job if that happened.
• In the town, Ken is being followed by someone, and sneaks into an alley way. The man follows him there and is caught by Ken, who demands who he’s working for. The man barely gets out “Tiger” when Tiger himself shows up and slashes Ken’s face and walks away, saying that it’s a hello to Twenty Faces. Ken then throws his knife and hits Tiger’s henchman in the back of the neck, but Tiger just walks away.
• Meanwhile, Twenty Faces is about to ask Chiko if she wants to sit this one out when they get word of Ken being injured. Ken wants to do the job, but Chiko tells him to rest, and that she’ll do it.
• As the group does their final circus performance, Twenty Faces and Chiko leave to execute the plan. Chiko and the others enter the museum using the secret entrance and then steal the artifact by bringing it through the roof and they all escape on Twenty Faces’ blimp.
• As the airship leave, Angie watches it fly away with a demented look on her face…

This series seems to just have one good episode after another, and this is yet another one. This time, Chiko seems to have some doubts about the job, since it may negatively influence her new friend, but goes through with it anyway. However, clearly things don’t appear to be what they seem given the last scene. Also, Tiger making a cameo in the middle and then not showing up again probably has some meaning. Also, there was a very brief scene were Twenty Faces seemed to discussed having “everything set up as planned” with the mayor, but that’s all we saw of that. I’m wondering if we’ll see that scene come back as being important later.

Also, it looks like Ken has finally killed someone, given that he threw a knife into the back of the one guy’s neck, and Twenty Faces warned him about not doing that in the first episode, so I wonder if we’ll see some results from that. In any case, having half your face slashed with wolverine claws can’t do much for his complexion.

In any case, we once again jump ahead about a year in this episode, so we’re getting close to Chiko being 14, which is how old she’s supposed to be in most of the series, I think.

Not only do we keep getting fed more and more development by Chiko, but we’re now perhaps starting to see a plot line that will start bridging multiple episodes. Man, the more I see of this series, the more I like it.

And remember: Clumsy maids are born! (ok that was a dumb one)

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• Fubuki gets up and is about ready to get the clothes that hadn’t dried the day before, but Kogarashi is there (in her room) saying he’s already done it, and also mentioned how he’s figured out this and that about Fubuki’s underwear, which causes Fubuki to beat Kogarashi once again.
• Fubuki, Naeka, and Kousuke are out buying crabs when Kousuke tells Naeka that she’ll get fat from them. Naeka tells him to shut up, but then triggers the “overweight” warning on a crowded elevator she’s about to get on, which persuades her to go on a diet. Not only that, but she forces everyone else to go on it with her.
• Naeka has everyone weigh, though Kogarashi finds the idea of him losing weight silly, and to show why he displays yet another skill: Maid Guy Levitation. However, Fubuki isn’t so lucky, coming in at 85kg (187 lbs) – though she blames it on all the battle mid equipment on her. Nevertheless, she swears to lose 6kg.
• Fubuki and Naeka go hang out in a sauna, where Fubuki shares a pill with Naeka that increases her metabolism and will help her lose weight “3 times as fast.” However, Naeka, believing the more the better, grabs the bottle and chugs down the entire bottle of pills and ends up sweating like mad.
• Seeing that the pair appear to be failing in their goal to lose weight, Kogarashi demonstrates yet another skill: Maid Guy Super Vibrating Claw which instantly evaporates water from any object. He then offers to use the skill to shrink down Fubuki and Naeka’s flabby matter – something which the pair don’t take a liking to
• Naeka then decides to go the next step: indefinite fasting. After a few days, Fubuki, Naeka, and Kousuke (who has been forced into fasting) are all out of it in their room. Maid Guy, who is fine, uses his third new skill of the show, Daydreaming Maid Guy Illusion to make Naeka and Fubuki dream that they finally lost weight – but only by completely losing their boobs (among other various horrors).
• After this, Naeka gives up fasting, but Fubuki comes down with a bad fever. After Fubuki ejects Kousuke from the room after he remarks how the situation is similar to a dating sim game, Kogarashi arrives and reveals yet another skill: Maid Guy Healing Dance, which apparently Fubuki has to do with him, but doesn’t feel like it.
• Fubuki then requests Kogarashi to fetch the Illusionary Moss Taizan Fukun, which is only found 3,000 meters high on Mt. Fuji. Meanwhile, Naeka attempts to take care of Fubuki, but spectacularly fails. To prevent Naeka from trying to help some more, Fubuki pretends to be better but that fails.
• Finally, Kogarashi comes back, and as Fubuki says she feels better by drinking the tea made from the moss, Kogarashi reveals that the moss he used actually just came from behind the house. Fubuki doesn’t feel so good anymore, and Naeka is overjoyed that she can still take care of her…

OK, this was a pretty good episode, especially since we actually saw something new in this one.

Firstly, it was largely centered around Fubuki, and second, while Naeka gaining weight isn’t something new, this is the first time Naeka tries to do something about it – and of course it doesn’t go all that well.

Meanwhile, Maid Guy unveils a good number of new skills this episode and each of them are rather unique. My favorite was him offering to manually shrink Fubuki’s and Naeka’s boobs my using his “Vibrating Claw.”

We also had a lot of Fubuki assaulting and Kogarashi beating, so this was an awesome episode for that. Nothing is better than picking on Fubuki and then getting Kogarashi beaten.

However, one of my main problems with this series – and I kind of expected it – was the lack of a central plot. OK, we have the maids protecting Nakea, but other than Liz we haven’t really had anyone who is actually out to get Naeka yet, and we’re supposedly halfway through already.

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• Sui decides to come over to ask Hikari to take a job (which she later learns is going to a party with Kei as his partner) and accepts, over Kei’s objections.
• After Hikari fails miserably at making her own dress, Kei has her go to a store to her measurements. Once at the store, Hikari can’t seem to get her measurements, since as soon as anything touches her side, she bursts out laughing. A boy suddenly shows up and, despite Hikari’s objections, he “helps” her get her measurements.
• That night, Hikari shows up at the party wearing a beautiful dress, stunning Kei. Once in the party, Kei asks Hikari to stay put and not talk to anyone.
• Hikari soon walks outside and mutters how the party seems to be boring when the boy who “helped” with her measurements show up and reveals himself as the guest of honor and birthday boy himself: Yahiro Saiga.
• Yahiro then remarks how she must be Kei’s girlfriend since she’s his partner, but when Hikari denies it, Yahiro remarks that she must be Kei’s unrequited love then. Yahiro goes on, calling Kei a “novice” in love, which causes Hikari to kick Yahiro in the head, with her telling him not to call her greatest rival a “novice” and that there is no way Kei is in love with her.
• Yahiro then says that they should test that, and that if he “tries something” there, and Kei shows up angry, then that proves that he loves her. Yahiro proceeds to try to kiss Hikari and Kei (who has been watching this whole scene) shows up and punches him. However, Hikari, who is spooked by having Kei’s arm around her, punches him and runs away.
• Hikari winds up in Yahiro’s room when she’s done running, and Yahiro shows up soon after. He continues trashing Kei and remarks how Kei would never treat Hikari as a real rival and how Hikari hasn’t been “trained” to be a proper woman.
• Kei goes around looking for Hikari and eventually finds her on the dance floor. Yahiro shows up and decides that everyone should play a game of reverse-tag, and decides that Hikari should be “it” and that she has a 30 second head start to reach the house’s roof using the stairs only.
• Hikari runs towards the goal, beating up guys and turning her dress into a mini-skirt along the way, but Kei ends up grabbing her and taking her into a room to hide. In there, he demands to know what Yahiro told her outside, but she can’t bring herself to say it. Kei tries to get her to leave, but she tells him that that would be giving in and continues towards the roof. Once there, Yahiro asks Hikari what she wants as a prize, and she just says for Yahiro to recognize her and Kei’s rival.

For once we get a pretty decent episode of this show, and I think that is largely due to the fact of spending a lot of time on Yahiro, who was introduced this episode.

We get teased with a love confession by Kei (or at least Hikari realizing that he likes her), but of course we can’t have that, so Hikari keeps convincing herself that there is no way Kei likes her, which is probably a pretty good sign that she likes him herself.

We also learn that Kei, Yahiro, and Akira were childhood friends, and Yahiro seems interested in knowing how Akira is doing, so perhaps he likes Akira. That also suggests there is more about Akira and Kei’s relationship which is yet to be uncovered. In any case, is Tadashi and Yahiro going to battle over Akira at some point?

Oh, and what was the point of having Ryuu, Tadashi, and Sui infiltrating the party? They basically didn’t do anything while they were there.

However, overall, this is more what I was kind of expecting from this series. Too bad it took 6 episodes to get there.

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• Yokoyama, the lead detective, tells his partner that, due to what he’s uncovered recently, he thinks that Hani-meijin is a suspect in the murder of Shion’s parents. He’s also suspicious of Hani-meijin’s alibi: that he was at a party the night before a match with Kamizono for the title of a tournament, especially since where he supposedly attended the party was quite a ways away from where the tournament was being held.
• Ayumi comes by Shion’s house the morning of the match to give her a carm: a necklace with a star hanging from it. However, Shinji sees this and gets all fatherly on Shion when she comes back inside (not knowing who Ayumi is since he cut his hair).
• During an interview before the match, Hani-meijin is asked if he expected Shion to be his opponent, and he answers in the affirmative, saying that she has what it takes to be “truly strong.”
• Meanwhile, Satoru visits Kamizono to ask him about his game with Hani-meijin the day after the murder.
• The moment Hani-meijin enters the room to play the match, Shion starts getting vibes like the ones on the night of the murder. Once the match starts, Shion launches into a strategy called Onigoroshi, which is a very aggressive style of play. As the game goes on, he starts acting more creepy, until he finally tells Shion to look at the board, and that the pieces will tell her what to do – a comment which totally freaks her out…

Well, I guess we can erase all doubt about who the murderer is – it’s definitely Hani-meijin. His possible motive also comes to light as well: to make Shion fearless and strong at playing Shogi. Knowing how obsessive Hani-meijin is about shogi, this wouldn’t be a shocking motive for him.

The main question left now is how the final two episodes will play themselves out. Will the match end next episode, or will it last all the way to the final episode. I can see either happening. Also, the lead detective is clearly zeroing in on Hani-meijin, though I’m wondering what piece of evidence will finally put him over the top to convince him that Hani-meijin is the culprit.

I have to say that the further this series has gone along, the more I’ve liked it. It’s probably become one of my favorite series that has aired at least part of it’s episodes this year.

Also, no podcast this week.  Once Wednesday hits and I haven’t put it out, I just forget it for that week.  I’ll do a double episode next week.