Tomoeda is holding a quiz tournament in town, but people have to enter it in pairs. Tomoyo would rather film Sakura’s exploits, so Sakura ends up entering with Yukito. At the tournament, Chiharu also enters with Yamazaki while Meilin has dragged along Shaoran. Interestingly, while Shaoran gets flustered from looking at Yukito, he gets more flustered after looking at Sakura.

The first question is to take 10 matchsticks that form a star shape, and to make a different star with the same matchsticks. Yukito knows the answer right away, which is to create the Kanji for “star,” which uses 10 strokes. The second stop is at Twin Bells, where the question is how one turns ice into water in an instant. Again, Yukito has the answer, which is to remove a stroke from the Kanji for Ice, which turns it into the Kanji for Water.

Yukito and Sakura fly through the rest of the quiz course until they get to the final stop (behind only Chiharu and Yamazaki), which is manned by Ms. Mizuki. Ms. Mizuki makes Sakura answer this question, however, which is to get a ball out of a bottle without breaking it or turning it over. Sakura finally answers it by filling the bottle with water to get the ball out. As Sakura leaves, Ms. Mizuki tells Sakura to be careful, since it’s a full moon out.

Sakura and Yukito are finally sent to Penguin Park to fetch one of the plaques that they have to find to win. However, while in the woods looking for it, Sakura looks at the moon and falls into her dream again, and falls off a cliff, but Yukito is able to grab her and protect her on the way down. At the bottom, Yukito’s leg is slightly hurt, but he found the plaque.

Back at the finish, people start to get worried since Sakura and Yukito aren’t back yet, but when Toya and Shaoran are about to look for them, Yukito is limping back with Sakura’s help.

Well, this episode was really used to start building things up towards…something. Sakura sees her dream (twice!), Kero is still thinking about the person called Yue, and Ms. Mizuki warns Sakura to be careful since it’s a full moon. The series has really been focusing on full moons a lot recently, with there being a full moon in Sakura’s dream, and there being a full moon out when Kero first mentioned Yue back in the Return episode.

We also get our biggest hint yet that Shaoran might have a thing for Sakura, when we see that, while he still gets flustered by Yukito, he now gets more flustered by Sakura. Interesting…very interesting.

Speaking of Yukito, there is now increasing evidence that something may be up with him. In an earlier episode, Ms. Mizuki was about to tell Sakura something about Yukito, but stopped herself. In this episode, she’s about to ask Yukito himself something, but ends up getting interrupted.

No cards were captured in this episode, so the count stays at 36 cards for now. The next episode is the end of the first season, so we should expect something big.

Cards Captured: none
Card Count: 36

Yeah sure, someone could be like “But Angel is just like Nagato!” but it’s not exactly like that character type is new.  And that’s about where the comparisons end, because no one can convince me that Otonashi is like Kyon really in any conceivable way that doesn’t apply to a multitude of other shows as well.  Indeed, I’m ready to smash the whole Angel-Beats-is-a-ripoff-of-Haruhi stuff right now.

However, there is a show that Angel Beats reminds me of.  None of the characters in Angel Beats are directly relateable, but the story sure is.  That show, which sits as the first show on the 2nd shelf of my anime bookcase, is Haibane Renmei.  Yes, you heard me right.  Angel Beats is (almost) just like Haibane Renmei.  “This is an affront to Yoshitoshi ABe!” some might say.  Perhaps it is, but time will tell.

Is this show...

Having said that, look at the similarities between the two shows so far:

• The characters appear to be in some sort of afterlife.  The characters appear to have all gotten there after suffering some sort of grief or regret in their past life
• There is a distinct possibility that most, if not all, of the characters committed suicide
• It appears that a primary way to “disappear” from where they are is to forgive themselves for some regret that the held over from their previous life
• After the 4th episode of Angel Beats, we can now add the element that the primary character, at least initially, is very apprehensive to the idea of his (or her) friends disappearing

Will more things line up later as Angel Beats progresses? Maybe, maybe not.  Only time will tell.

However, I’m stating to see strong similarities between the characters of Otonashi in Angel Beats and Rakka from Haibane Renmei.  They both arrive in this new world, without memories from their past world (though that’s true of all the Haibane) and, after one of the people in their world disappeared, they become distraught at the idea of it happening again.  I’m also beginning to wonder if Yuri is essentially playing the role of Reki as well, having the worst memory from her previous life, and really fighting the system more than going with it.  I also think Otonashi will have to accept that getting over one’s regrets and vanishing is ultimately for the best, much like Rakka had to do, and that Yuri will realize that forgiving herself is also for the best, much like what Reki had to.  And I rather fully expect Otonashi to aid Yuri in achieving this goal and disappearing, much like how Rakka aided Reki.

...just like this show?

Of course, Otonashi and Yuri are quite different personality wise from Rakka and Reki, but their roles in the story may be similar.  On top of this, there are obvious differences too.  There is no time limit (that we know of) on how long anyone can stay in this afterlife, unlike Haibane, for example.  But I’m not expecting Angel Beats to line up perfectly either.  They are, after all, different shows.  But the things that are similar are striking to me.

That brings up one final question for me:  What analogous character, if any, might Angel have in Haibane?  One possibility is that she could essentially play the role of The Communicator, in the sense that she’s there to guide everyone towards the path that will allow them to leave.  If this is the case, it brings up several possibilities: 1) she’s just someone put there to guide them, or perhaps, 2) much like how people hypothesized about The Communicator, perhaps she somehow failed or ran out of time to forgive herself for something she did, and was kind of left behind to help others.  The advancement of her weaponry, given that it’s made in the same way that Yuri makes their firearms, would present the possibility that Angel had been there for a very long time.

I’m looking forward to seeing if any other similarities pop up as Angel Beats progresses.

Sakura’s class goes on a field trip to the ice skating rink, but Sakura is concerned about her ice skating ability since she’s never gone before. However, the night before, Sakura once again has her dream about the Tokyo Tower focusing on the Mizuki-looking person. This time Sakura is able to clearly recite what she saw in her dream to Kero. When Sakura leaves for School, Kero once again thinks about Yue.

Once at the rink, Tomoyo shows off her proficiency at ice skating. However, Sakura falls right away as a beginner, as does Shaoran, and Ms. Mizuki helps out Meilin and Sakura in learning how to skate.

By the time lunch is finished, Sakura has gotten pretty good at skating. However, the temperature in the rink has also started to drop rapidly, and suddenly everyone in the building who doesn’t have magical abilities freezes, leaving only Sakura and Shaoran left…and Ms. Mizuki, who watches from the shadows. Shaoran identifies the card as the Freeze card, as it uses the ice on the rink to attack the pair, but especially Sakura.

Soon, Freeze knocks Sakura out and starts freezing her over. Shaoran is able to shake Sakura awake and says that he’ll try to lure Freeze above the ice. When he finally does, Sakura uses this chance to seal it, and everyone who was frozen returns to normal, as does the temperature in the building. Being the one who lured Freeze out, the card also flies to Shaoran.

And yet another card is captured by Shaoran in this episode. That’s 3 cards in the past 7 episodes (along with Return and Dash). While Sakura certainly seems to be getting more adept at catching cards, the fact that they’re gotten more aggressive towards her seems to have resulted in Sakura needing to rely on Shaoran’s help a little bit more recently.

Also, we have two more pieces of evidence that Ms. Mizuki is someone who will have a final say in things at the end. First, after Sakura describes the dream with the person who looks like Ms. Mizuki in it to Kero, he once again mentioned Yue. Second, she isn’t frozen by Freeze, which clearly indicates that she has some level of magical power (if she hadn’t already demonstrated that when she broke through Maze earlier).

Shaoran also appears to be getting more flustered around Sakura than he was to start. At the end of this episode, as well as a couple times in past episodes, he seems to have gotten somewhat flustered while looking at her. Maybe something is developing there? Ho ho.

Cards Captured: Freeze
Card Count: 36

Sakura and Shaoran are chasing a weird looking Clow Card, when Shaoran and Kero grab onto it at the same time, allowing Sakura to seal it. However, in doing so, Kero and Shaoran end up switching bodies. The card Sakura captured was Change card, which switches the bodies of two people who touch the card at the same time. To change back, the pair have to wait until the same time the next day, when the power of the card starts to weaken.

Meanwhile, the pair have to figure out to do until the next day. Shaoran doesn’t want to tell Meilin what happened, so Kero-as-Shaoran has to fake it that night, and doesn’t do that well, cooking really awful soup and still talking in an accent. Shaoran-as-Kero doesn’t have it much better, freaking out about sleeping in Sakura’s room, and thus trying to fly to a tree, but not being able to.

Shaoran decides to go to school the next day with Sakura to keep an eye on Kero. However, once they arrive at class, Kero-as-Shaoran is always attracting attention to himself. During break, Tomoyo arrives, suspecting something as well, and Kero-as-Shaoran hides it so poorly that Tomoyo immediately confirms her suspicions.

Despite his further promise not to stand out, Kero-as-Shaoran still does anything but, doing things like running on all 4s during a soccer match, causing Sakura to pelt him with a dodge ball before anyone sees. Meilin is still suspicious, but Kero is able to head her off by being all serious and romantic with her, but that quickly ends when he starts licking himself.

Meanwhile, Kero is found by a teacher and through a series of circumstances, ends up in a bag being taken home by Mr. Terada. The group find a Kero-looking toy in a blue bag, and Sakura realizes that Mr. Terada had a similar bag that morning, so they find out from Ms. Mizuki where he was going. They eventually catch up to him, and find out that he’s returned Shaoran-as-Kero to the toy store, where he’s now in a crane game machine. After a while, Kero finally gets Shaoran out of the machine, and they head to the park to switch their bodies back.

This was an unusual episode in that, Sakura was able to seal the card at the start of the episode, but the rest of the episode was about the effects of the card. I have to rather agree with Tomoyo that it was rather funny seeing a comedic Shaoran and a serious Kero. Shaoran-as-Kero was probably ultimately happy that Kero has his own bedroom in one of Sakura’s drawers, though.

As Sakura also pointed out at the top, this is yet another one of those seemingly-useless cards created by Clow Reed. Kero chalks it up to Clow just being strange, however. I suppose the card could be useful if you wanted to infiltrate someplace and had captured someone that you could switch bodies with. Or if you and a buddy just wanted to freak everyone out for a day, I guess.

Cards Captured: Change
Card Count: 35

Anime DVDs

April 27, 2010
Gin Tama – Collection 1 (S)
Naruto – Season 2 Part 2
Rurouni Kenshin – Box Set

Manga

April 27, 2010

Broken Blade – Volume 3
Karakuri Odette – Volume 3
Negima!? Magister Negi Magi Neo – Volume 5
Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei – Volume 6
Tsubasa, RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE – Volume 26

April 30, 2010

Cirque du Freak – Volume 5
Spice and Wolf – Volume 1
Spiral: Bonds of Reasoning – Volume 11