Kurogane's Anime Blog

Sunrise shows off their excellent storytelling skills with this episode, juggling both humour and plot development equally throughout the episode.

First off, the *omimai* was darn funny, with everyone using each other’s names. Takumi became “Akira”, while poor Akira got forced to become “Takumi”. While the *sanbaka* interchanged each other’s names, with Arika becoming “Mashiro”, Mashiro taking up “Nina” and Nina as “Arika”. Ironically, Mashiro and Takumi DID get to meet each other, but that was expected anyways. Shizuru seemed to had fun exposing Akira though :P.

But in the midst, there was some nice character development, as Mashiro gets to see how the divide between the rich and poor in her country is.She’s ignorant about it first, but now she seems to feel some regret over it, after looking at it firsthand.

While for Takumi, he seems to have inherited Mikoto’s *”ane/ani sagashi”* trait from HiME. It seems that Mai suffered some traumatic experience due to becoming an Otome and is now missing, with Takumi trying to find her.Takumi also has matured from his HiME days, with his questioning about the Otome’s roles to Natsuki and his realization of the suffering of people. He would make a fine king someday :).

Next episode, Akane seems to be the focus and it doesn’t seem like something good is going to happen to her. Is the (Joke) Mai Otome Wishlist Wish No.2 really coming true?!! Hopefully not, a certain someone wouldn’t like it ^_-.

Oh, and *chibikko* Mai and Natsuki are to die for :)

I haven’t really done any Otome posts lately due to the overloaded scene of the Otome bloggers around. No offense please, but it seems just about everyone who has an anime blog MUST blog Otome, making me quite jaded and bored to do any Otome blog posts and instead concentrated on less blogged series. I’m seeing a new emerging trend here I guess, but at least Mai Otome doesn’t suffer from oversubbing than Rozen Maiden ~träumend~ does.

Well, I just don’t really have anything new to contribute to Otome, but I bet Mentar and moyism do….

However Otome 11 was just too funny and good to not blog, haha. Seriously, Akira’s entrance this episode was really over the top, with all that drummers and the announcer. I couldn’t stop laughing for at least 10 minutes after watching that (and in the process, woke up the whole house ^_^;;).

Other than that, we get some nice Nina development this episode, with more showing of her (obsessive) love towards Sergay(whom I hope doesn’t turn out to be gay). But damn, really, Sergay really knows how to score with the girls, especially “coincidentally” picking up Nina’s lost necklace and telling Nina that her birthday was the day he met her… truly, I don’t blame Nina for being (obssesively) in love with him.

The next episode seems to have some hijinks between Arika and Akira (damn it’s sooo easy to confuse their names :P) and romance is in the air for Mashiro-chan (who was really funny this episode). Oh, I forgot, WHERE IS NAO-SAMA?!!!!

A much more serious episode compared to the previous fanservice-laden ones, expanding the plot more and confirming in a few titbits.

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BEST. EPISODE. EVER.

Following in the Mai universe tradition, tentacled monsters MUST appear. Tis’ is a good tradition my friends. A pretty good one. Hell, I don’t even mind if Sunrise turns the Mai universe in to the second GUNDAM-esque franchise. Just keep Shizuru, Natsuki, Mai , Shiho and Nao in plus all the yuri and the “traditions”. Ah…. I patiently await Mai-SEED.

I suggest a law making it compulsary for all *bishoujo’s* to learn CPR and to always be near a pool/sea/body of water.

Nina makes me come. I’m liking her much much more. Though, she should be pleased with Erstin’s CPR. I would kill for that to happen to me.

GAHHH!!! I JUST CAN’T BLOG THIS EPISODE. TOO EXCITED TO GO ON!!!!!

Anyways, just watch. JUST WATCH IT.

Oh and before I go, I pledge allegience to the Nao-sama Fanclub. Shiho, you should do that too.

(I’ll probably finish up this post as soon as I finish fapping…calming myself down)

(Even after fapping…calming myself down, I sat down to watch Otome 06 again. I still have blogger’s block on it, unfortunately, but head over to Omni’s and Zyl’s post for screencaps and summaries. I’m busy making an idol of Nao-sama to worship… err, watching other anime.)

(for comprehensive summaries and screencaps, go to Omni’s and Mentar’s blogs. Otome makes me go fanboy enough to shut down my rationalism)

In the Mai universe tradition, some clothing items stealing *must* occur and poor Arinko gets the short end of the stick here. Looks like Sunrise is making the Otome world quite realistic, with lily-infatuated otakus opening shops selling tons of Gundam kits..Otome dolls. Hmm, wonder does it come with snap-off shitagi?

Speaking of shitagi, I miss the shitagi doroubo Orphen already T_T.

In all, this episode was some fun character development episode. I rejoiced at Chie with her blue rose fetish. Glad to see her hook-up with Aoi too ^_^. Mashiro, bratty as usual, provides some laughs especially during Conan-girl’s Kindaichi-esque “Anata wa hannin desu!!“ scene. Nao and Nina are definately good candidates to grow lilies. Ohh…. how I missed her “oh-so-sexy” claws….

Over on the antagonist side, Tomoe does some pretty good Bitchslap™. In fact, I want her to try it out on Arinko-chan ASAP. It would, at least, lift some boredom for us fans who are doing nothing but counting down to (1) Mai’s appearance to pwn everyone with her DRAGOON system, (2) waiting for the infamous “KAZU-KUN? KAZU-KUN!!! I-YAAA!!!!!!!” and (3) producing all kinds of lily-related stuff.

Yeap, Sunrise sure knows their otaku stuff, where in the world can you get ORZ and lilies together in the same scene? Such a perfect symbolism of otakuism. Someone should nominate them for the Turner Prize.

Fresh off 4chan, the unofficial breast size comparision of the Mai Otome characters. Limited due to the fact that not all the girls were in the bath at that moment.

Surprisingly, Nina got last, even Mashiro beat her, XD.

I’d gladly blog Mai Otome full, but this job is best left to Mentar and co., besides I’m scared of myself. I take screencaps close to the high hundreds everytime I blog Mai Otome. So instead, I’ll put up fanboy rants important plot plots instead.

- Haruka and Yukino rules. Period.

- Otome’s can’t have sex with the opposite gender, due to unknown effects on the nanomachines. At this point, I actually had to stop and take a 30-min breather due to the fact my brain exploded with HAADO YURI!!!!!! thoughts random speculations.

- Chibi Nina chou kawaiii~~~!!!!!!

- Sunrise should die. They *shouldn’t* put in the revelation that Otomes are HAADO YURI!!! forbidden to have sex with the opposite gender *and* the bath scene in the same episode. I almost died from anemia, goddamnit.

- Mysterious cloaked figure with Rado in Episode 3 now has a 50-50 chance to be either Mai or Midori.

- Rivalling pairs : Haruka and Shizuru, Natsuki and Mai(?)

- Fumi Cameo : Natsuki’s table in her office. It’s a permanent fixture.

Based on the four episodes out now, it seems Mai Otome is heading to FMP? Fummoffu’s status. I wouldn’t mind as it was the dear wish of all Mai HiME fans (apart from animating the audio drama CD’s). There’s hints of seriousness to come, but so far the show hasn’t even taken itself seriously, as nicely put by Mentar.

Found this image off 4chan, which practically has the comparision of all the Mai-HiME characters to their Mai Otome counterparts (minus Nao, but well, she hasn’t changed much). Enjoy!!

click for a larger image and more comparisons.

No time to put up a full blog post, so here’s some opinions and predictions i gleaned from this episode.

1. Mai is coming back, YAY!!!!(well, possibly)

2. Sergey and Rena are connected. I see 3 possiblities, either he’s her son, student or adopted child(ala Nina). Any wild guesses that Sergey’s Arika’s oniisan?

3. Nagi is still a god damn manupulative bastard.

4. Nina is hardcore, real hardcore. She looks like she’s trying to kill Arika, goodness.

5. KnK guy from Mai-HiME actually has some powers. And IS MAI WITH HIM?!!!!

6. I miss Haruka and Yukino!!!!!

7. I will kill for Mai-Otome’s OST(also for Shakugan’s OP & ED :)

8. Chibi Nina is cute. (Ok internal lolicon sense going off).

9. Anyone spotted the Fumi cameo for this episode. Need to rewatch it.

I’ll up a post soon. Going out for a movie with friends. Expect Shuffle! 14 and Gunbuster 2 04

Summary

Continuing from Ep.01, Arika is impressed by Shizuru. She immediately asks Natsuki to let her become an Otome. Sergey then advises Arika to not show her pendent out, to which Arika says her baa-chan already told her that(hmm..). Mikoto (I still cannot believe that she’s a neko!!) appears and Mashiro’s identity is revealed. Arika then asks Natsuki to let her into Garderobe.

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