Crystal Tokyo Anime Blog

       This episode on Saturday with Sawako cooking a meal for her parents and remembering her experiences with Yano and Yoshida when her mother answers a call from  Sawako’s friends. Yano and Yoshida ask her if she can meet them for further adventures in ramen. When Sawako asks her parents if she can skip out on cooking to meet her friends, and her parents seem so overjoyed at the prospect of Sawako having friends they tell her to go ahead. Sawako’s father wonders if one of her new friends might include a boy?

        When Sawako meets up with Yano and Yoshida they head off to the ramen shop that happens to be owned and operated by Ryuu’s family. After they finish eating they head up to Ryuu’s room where Yano gets a call from her boyfriend, and she tells Sadako that she’ll soon discover the wonderful world of adults. Later, when Ryuu finishes work he joins them, and Sawako asks if Ryuu and Yoshida are lovers? Well, Ryuu just smirks while Yoshida flips out, and after a few minutes Ryuu tells Sadako that they more like brother and sister.

        After hanging for a while, the girls decide that they should call up Kazehaya so Ryuu doesn’t get to enjoy a harem night. Yoshida gets Ryuu to hand over his cell and she tosses it to Sadako saying it’ll be fun to hear Kazehaya’s reaction when he hears a girl calling him from Ryuu’s phone.

         After a bit of indecision on her part, Sawako finally pushes the call button and when he answers the phone Yoshida’s idea has the desired affect, at first he’s confused, and then he’s happy. Sawako tells him that they’re all at Ryuu’s place and having a good time so it’ll be more fun if he stops over, Kazehaya hops on his bike and heads over to Ryuu’s place.

        Before Kazehaya arrives, the four of them look over photos from middle school, and Sawako wishes she could have met the middle school Kazehaya.

         Then Sawako notices a picture of the “French doll” and asks about her, Yano doesn’t say much but you can tell she not pleased by her mention. The girls then shows her picture to Ryuu and asks what he thinks? Not my type. Wow, Yoshida didn’t know he had a type, and then she asks him about Sadako? Casual like, and Sawako tells him she likes him too. Yano and Yoshida asks her about them? Love. Then they ask her about Kazehaya? Well, Sawako manages to stammer out the word, love. As Yoshida is about to really question Sadako about her answer Yano pulls her back a little.

        Well, Kazehaya arrives just as they’re poking fun at him by calling him a pervert or emo. So, when he says he’s not a pervert he notices Sawako looking  at him and they exchange glances and blushes.

       Once Yano notices how Kazehaya is acting with Sadako she calls Sadako over to sit between her and Yoshida, she and Yoshida start hugging Sawako telling Kazehaya how soft and girly Sawako feels. Yano really seems to be enjoying making Kazehaya feel uncomfortable, and it’s all fun and games until Pin who was eating downstairs barges in on the fun.

       Well, it turns out that Kazehaya’s dad was Pin’s little league coach, so he’s known Kazehaya since he was a kid. Well, once all the fun is over, Kazehaya and Sawako walk off together to the girls’ amusement, Pin head off with Yano to her annoyment, and Yoshida and Ryuu are left together where he tells her she didn’t have to go this far to show him that everything is now alright. As Sawako and Kazehaya walk together under the stars she tells him she was glad she came to this school where she met everyone, and he asks if that includes him? Of course. As they walk together Sawako thinks to herself that she’s glad she got a peek at the Kazehaya she never knew and it makes her happy. Well, that’s enough warm and fuzzies for one episode.

        Well, this was a very nice and relaxing episode watching Sawako hanging out with her new friends, and it was a nice no drama change of pace from the previous episodes. Sawako’s parents’ reaction to their finding out she now has friends was priceless, and even though her father seemed overjoyed it was pretty funny watching him wonder if their might be a boy. I really enjoyed watching Sawako discover the simple joys of just hanging out and goofing around with friends. It was really cute watching Yano and Yoshida pull Kazehaya’s chains with their whole Sawako is so soft and girly bit. Yano realised Sawako’s and Kazehaya mutual attraction and her light hearted ribbing reminded me that we did some of the very same things to my friends back in the day.

         Also, Yano’s reaction to Sawako’s mention of the “French doll” was quite susprising because it seems that she had some extra knowledge about her that she chose not to share with Sawako. Oh, it was also very interesting hearing Ryuu tell Yoshida what his type of girl is, and while she thought that he was refering to Sawako he was really saying that his type of girl is her. In future episodes I look forward to meeting Yano’s yet unnamed boyfriend (older guy?), watching Kazehaya’s and Sawako’s relationship progress, and seeing if childhood friends manage to hook up.

       This episode picks up with Rumi and Kana confronting the other group of girls about the theft of the cake design, but this doesn’t lead anywhere. Outside the school, Kana is in tears because her sister Ringo might be upset over the cake theft but Rumi tells her to look at Ichigo and the princes working hard on something.

       Back inside the kitchen, Ichigo tells the princes that she has a even better cake design, but she has no time to explain. So, Ichigo asks the princes to just help her out and she’ll explain as they go along,  the boys are all in. Ichigo says this is a race against time, and everyone helps out, even the sweet spirits. Ichigo thanks everyone for believing her, and Hanabusa says that only Ichigo could have come up with such a strange cake design so it had to have been hers. Once everything is finished, Ichigo asks the spirits for their help and she tells Ringo to hold on.

      Inside Ringo’s classroom we see that she’s very nervous because one of the boys is teasing her about her birthday cake. Back at St. Marie’s we see that the other group is planning a nasty surprise by telling the teacher that group A is OK and they have the school van leave without them. Kana and Rumi both witnessed this nasty bit and Kana runs off to do something. When group A arrives outside the school they see that the bus is missing and there’s no way they’ll make it to the school on time, so Ichigo asks Vanilla if she could use magic to get them to Ringo’s school, but alas, she says it’s impossible.

      A minute later Kana shows up with  a van and we find out that Kana stopped the first van that happened by the school and begged for a ride to Ringo’s school. Well, the man doesn’t know the situation, but felt sorry for Kana because she’s so upset, so he agrees to give them a ride.

       Meanwhile at Ringo’s school, the kids are getting impatient, so the other group presents Ayu’s with her birthday cake. Ringo is starting to get grief from the other kids and she really starting to worry when Ichigo’s group arrives on the scene.  As Ichigo’s group is about to present the cake to Ringo the other girls think that there’s no way they could have made something good in so little time. Well, when Ichigo lifts the lid, Ringo and the whole class is amazed by the creation. The group has created a candy witch house with a little Ringo trapped inside and her class has to rescue her from the witch.

      Once the witch is defeated, Ichigo lifts the house’s lid revealing a little Ringo who has baked a cake for her classmates. Well, in all the excitement over Ringo’s cake, poor Ayu-chan is left sitting alone with her cake. After Ringo thanks her classmates for defeating the witch she asks them if they could move her cake to where Ayu-chan is sitting so they can all play together. When the whole class is sitting together, it looks like Ringo has made friends with Ayu-chan, and the princes comment on how this was Ichigo’s idea from the very beginning.

       As the whole class is devouring the cake, Kana runs over to Ichigo and hugs her saying that this is the first time she’s seen her sister smile since they moved here. Rumi then comes over and tells the girls to quit being so formal now that they’re buddies, and they both agree to stop calling each other by last names and agree to use Kana-chan and Ichigo-chan from now on.

       Later, the princes tell Ichigo that Ringo must really be happy, and a tearful Ichigo tells them that for the first time she’s discovered the joy in bringing happiness to others. Ichigo tells them that she remembers the smile that her grandmother wore as she watched Ichigo enjoy her sweets.

       Later, as the group is walking back to school, Ichigo thanks the sweets spirits and the boys for all their help and rushes off to the kitchen to start the prep work for a group practice session. The boys talk about how Ichigo just experienced the joy of making others happy and they comment on how Ichigo seems to know what other people need. Hanabusa asks Kashino if he’s scared of Ichigo’s nature and rapidly improving skills? No, Kashino says he looks forward to seeing what kind of new sweets Ichigo will create. Well, that’s all the sweets for this episode.

      Well, this was one awesome episode during which Ichigo showcased the best traits of a shoujo heroine. As the old poem goes.

Sugar and spice

And everything nice.

       While Ichigo may be all of that, she’s also has a never up give and work hard attitude. But, I think that Hanabusa might have grasped Ichigo’s best trait, empathy. Ichigo has the ability to use her personal experiences to be able to place herself in the other person’s shoes and understand their emotional distress. Ichigo was able to connect with Andou’s brother’s feelings of being left behind and Ichigo was able to understand the loneliness that Ringo was experiencing at her new school, so this ability of Ichigo enables her to actually fix the situation instead of just feeling sorry for the person. This ability of Ichigo is were she she closely resembles a magic girl. In the magic girl genre, words may lie, and your vision may try to fool you, but the heart is always true and if you follow your heart you can’t go wrong. 

         Also, when are all those jealous girls in shoujo anime and manga gonna realise all that scheming and conniving never wins over the nice boys? Yes, I’m talking to the devious and cruel girls from Kimi ni Todoke, Yumeiro, and all the others of their ilk, NO CAKE FOR YOU.

For a little essay on the diffrences between empathy vs sympathy click here.

        This episode begins with Lag, Niche, and Steak passing the guardian of Bifrost’s test, and they are allowed to cross the bridge. Once on the other side, Niche, Lag and Steak again face another guardian, the twin of Signal (the guardian from the other side) before being allowed to exit. While they were crossing the bridge, Lag accepts Niche as his Dingo causing her to put her pants back on, and Lag also gets wet because he had to rescue Steak from the water.

       On the other side, Lag finds Connor waiting for him and he introduces Niche as his Dingo. Connor takes them by wagon to Yuusari Central, the capital city, Yuusari Central is very lively and vibrant. Lag asks Connor if Gauche’s sister Sylvette lives here, and he says yes but he’s also very quiet whenever Gauche’s name come up.

        When they arrive at the main post office (the Bee hive) Lag’s rush to make a good impression cause quite a stir, and soon Lag meets the sub-master who happens to be Gauche’s friend Aria Link. After Lag is fully dressed he is taken to meet the master (Largo Lloyd), who happens to be none other than the rare anime collector from the last town. When Lag first notices who Lloyd is, he tells him he can’t have his friend and dingo, Niche. Lloyd tells Lag that he intended to use the child of Maka as his own dingo on business trips (OK, I really buy that). Aria sends Lag to wait at an apartment complex to begin his interview.

        Once Lag arrives at the apartment, he’s introduced to Macky Gee (age 17) and his dingo Resia, they’re each given a letter and told that their sole task is to deliver their letters to the proper address, no time limit and they are both told that all 22 of the previous test takers have failed the exam. Each is offered a Shindanjuu gun and amber, Macky chooses the largest gun, but Lag tells Aria that he has his own gun and amber.

       Outside, Macky is very cocky towards Lag and about the task, he decides to take the carriage while Lag chooses to go by foot. As the two head off, we see Aria watching Lag from above and wondering if Lag is the silver haired Albisian child that she heard about?

       When Macky reaches the encounter with the Gaichuu (they were basically told they would encounter one), he and his dingo are worthless, his dingo runs away and he starts crying for help. Finally, Lag, Niche, and Steak arrive on the scene, and after a tough battle they destroy the Gaichuu but Lag is covered with mud and his letter is missing. The entire battle was observed by a Bee (Zazie) who is serving as exam proctor, and who’s job is also to prevent the test takers from being killed.

        When Lag delivers his letter the woman goes all “postal” on Lag because the letter is very soiled unlike the clean letter Macky delivered. As Lag is saying his apologies, Zazie shows up and gives the lady some stamps for the inconvenience and asks to see the other letter. Once Zazie has the letter he has Lag shoot it with his Shindan revealing to everyone that Macky forged the letter to pass the test, Zazie tells Macky to train his heart and try again.

       Later, Zazie tells Lag that he did a great job, and almost got the all time speed record, faster than him, Conner, and Jiggy. He tells Lag that since Gauche is no longer a Bee he’s really the new record holder, Lag stops in his tracks and asks Zazie if Gauche is really no longer a Bee? Well, cliffhanger time, that’s all for this episode.

       Well, I think that we’ve reached the real beginning of Letter Bee with Lag seeming to be well on his way to becoming a full fledged Bee. In the next few episodes it seems that Lag’s got quite a bit of work ahead of him, he’ll have to discover why Gauche gave up his dream of becoming head Bee, and he’ll have to discover who kidnapped his mother, and why. I really don’t trust Largo Lloyd because there has to be more to his interest in the Child of Maka/Niche than his needing a dingo excuse he feed to Lag, and I get the feeling that there’s corruption somewhere in the Letter Bee management. Also, I thought that Niche and her dingo bait stole the show in the fight with the Gaichuu, Steak rocks!