My initial impression now after 4 eps is that this series is even better than the first one. Out of the first four eps I consider three to be aces. ("Aika's date" was OK, but nothing special. The other two were Carnival and Treasure Hunt.) It'll be interesting to see if they can keep the quality up.

Ep 4 was particularly interesting and creative, and there were a lot of things in it to like. It was nice to spend time with Mr. Mailman. It was nice to see how he delivers mail from a gondola. And it was nice to see the wedding. Whoever planned it spared no expense, given that they booked Akira to take the happy couple away from the church.

It took me a moment to recognize Akira and Aika, actually, because they're not in their normal livery. And it was fun to see the gondola equivalent of a limo:

UPDATE: Another thing that was nice to see was Akari's back-paddling.

UPDATE: Beginning of ep 6. Ep 5 was a strange one. We're also really cooking on time. Ep 5 was beginning of spring; the voiceover at the beginning of ep 6 says spring is over. That's 6 months or so we just skipped.

Regarding ep 5: It may well be that the Fox was attracted to Akari's inari. But I wonder if he was also curious about Akari herself, whom the Cait Sith seems to favor.

UPDATE: Ep 6 was a character building episode for Alice and Athena. As weird as Athena often seems to be, there's more depth and maturity to her than we usually see. And she genuinely is trying to look out for Alice, as this episode shows. It was nice.

BUT... Ep 7 was another awesome one. I'm now convinced that any episode about the cats will be awesome.

He is a rather natty dresser, isn't he?

I'm beginning to think that Alicia knows about the Cait Sith and has met him. Some of the things she's said, and the way she seems to be encouraging Akari to explore the supernatural aspects of Aqua, suggest that she, too, has stood on both sides and that she knows what Akari is going through.

Could it be that Alicia, Akari, and Ai all have second sight? By which I mean an awareness of things on another level beyond what the rest of us experience? In this episode Akari sees some things that Aika clearly did not.

As to that scene up there, I'm not sure that the Cait Sith would have minded having Akari visit. But Aika wasn't welcome, so as long as Aika was watching the Cait Sith has to use his magic to obscure the scene. As they're paddling away, however, with Aika distracted, the Cait Sith lets the mask fall and allows Akari to see what was really going on in that warehouse.

An interesting thought for the future: If, for whatever reason, Akari eventually decides that she really needs to get a message to the Cait Sith, she knows that Aria can find him and deliver it. I wonder if that will happen. Right now I can't really imagine a reason why that might be needed, however.

UPDATE: A huge question about ep 7: How was Aria moving his boat? No oar that I saw.

The obvious answer is "magic" and I'm sure that's what Akari would think. Evidently it didn't occur to Aika to even think about it.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 08:38 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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