Maon FTW

I guess to start off, this episode cleared some stuff up for me. I was kind of under the impression that Fu already knew everyone from when she lived there before, so I was like “wait…how can Maon become friends with Norie in middle school, after Fu already left?” So I went back and checked the first episode, and sure enough, the only one that they had really established as being Fu’s friend from before was Kaoru and her sister, and the 2nd episode, while not confirming this, insinuated it as well. So…I guess my impressions were wrong so now I’m corrected.

Having said that, this was once again another nice episode, and another Maon episode, who is quickly becoming my favorite character, I think. In this episode, we see how the four friends all first met, even though they didn’t really become friends yet at that point, and then later when Maon became friends with Norie (and then presumably Kaoru after that). We also learn where Maon got an affinity for whistling as well here. I think I said this a couple episodes back, but Maon is the type of character that can sometimes be forgotten by writers, and I’m very pleased with the fact that she’s already gotten two episodes centering around her.

This is probably the minimum that Souta deserves

I’m not sure if it’s the writer’s intentions to make Souta as unlikable as possible, but so far they’re doing a pretty good job of it. On top of having the weirdest “issue,” he’s easily the most self-centered, possibly even more than Kyoko, which is saying something. Unless something is “small” or “cute,” he basically sees it as trash that need not be paid attention to. Before some of that was just for comedic relief, but at this point he’s just being mean about it. I can have some sympathy for him due to being punched by Mahiru all the time, but at this point I’m thinking he probably deserves it more than needing sympathy over it.

Otherwise, I’m guessing we’ll be seeing the twin former-gang members again at some point. I have a feeling that their devotion to Kyoko, which easily matches Yachiyo’s, might cause problems between them, however.

Millia leads the glorious Maid Empire

I guess I’m not surprised that Fam’s first capture ended up pretty easy, though I somehow don’t expect it to be as easy from now on. One good thing is that, as she collects ships, she may be able to start capturing more than one at a time. For example, once she has 4 or 5 ships, she may be able to go after two that are together and get them to surrender.

We also confirm that Dio served on the Silvius before joining the pirates, so this series is probably more than 6 months ahead of the first series, but it’s still clearly not that far into the future. Meanwhile, in a short scene it looked like Dio was playing chess from the old engineer from the Silvania. Otherwise, not a lot happened in this episode. Giselle was able to show off her expertise, and the government-in-exile was created, but that’s about it.

Hecate is almost ready for the real action to begin

We still don’t really have any word about what the Flame Hazes are doing to prepare for imminent Bal Masqué attack, though it seems they keep asking for Wilhelmina to be a part of it, though she’s intent on trying to save Shana, which seems like it would be a suicide mission right now. Perhaps the one way it could work is if she attempted to rescue her while all the members of Bal Masqué were away as part of their 2nd state attack.

I still wonder what Yuji’s true intentions are. There are more rumblings, this time from Sydonay, about what Yuji is up to, though Bel Peol assures him that things are alright. One has to wonder if he is doing something behind the scenes to hurt the Bal Masqué’s plans or somehow has secret knowledge in that, even if the Bal Masqué succeeds in doing what they’re doing, the end result won’t be what they expected. Otherwise, why would Yuji allow Alastor to basically be in on some of the Bal Masqué’s meetings. Not that there is much Alastor can do about it right now, but still…

All of Fu's friends, together

Once again, another excellent episode. I figured Chihiro would probably visit eventually, and the episode was as good as I was hoping it would be. So we learn that “Potte” is a name Sayomi gave Fu because she thought it described how she moved, and Chihiro calls her “Fu-nyon” because she accidentally called her that when they met, out of nervousness.

It was nice to see Chihiro finally warm up to all of Fu’s other friends, especially Maon, in this episode, and I hope she decides to come visit again later.

This episode was better paced than the last one, I think. It still kept the show’s relaxed feeling, but wasn’t so slow that it felt like the writers were just trying to fill time up. I think so far this probably rates as the 2nd best show I’m watching in my Fall group.