Crystal Tokyo Anime Blog

         The holidays are finally over and all the students have returned to the school. The school’s cake grand prix is about 15 days away, so the princes tell Ichigo that she’ll have to undergo intensive training before the contest starts.

        Meanwhile, we see the school’s staff discussing how this year the number of middle school teams that have applied has skyrocketed. They discuss how the number is unmanageable given the allotted time, so one of the teachers suggests that they give a pliminary test to separate the teams that actually have a chance of winning from those who don’t.  As this is going on, the three princes begin Ichigo’s intensive training program, Kashino starts Ichigo off with physical fitness training; pushups, sit ups, and running. Then Andou continues Ichigo’s training on the science of cooking & baking, and Hanabusa teaches Ichigo French.

       Day after day Ichigo continues her basic training with all three of the boys pounding as much of their baking knowledge and skill into Ichigo as possible, and she’s showing signs of improvement.

        One night Ichigo decides to go to the kitchen by herself for some addition self-practice and she begins to melt down because she can’t seem to remember what she was just taught. All the sweet spirits show up to lend Ichigo their knowledge and help, but Ichigo is overwhelmed and tells them she’s not a genius like  President Tennouji and the others and they’re just wasting their time on her.

        Vanilla calls Ichigo over to her and tells her to have a look. When Ichigo looks where Vanilla is pointing she sees President Tennouji is also working late into the night. President Tennouji notices Ichigo and calls her over, and she asks Ichigo about her physical fitness training and tells her that developing good stamina is part of the job. Then she notices Ichigo’s worn out and bruised hands and tells her that she’s beginning to develop the hands of a first class patisserie. Tennouji goes on to tell Ichigo that it’s possible that they might meet in the finals, and she looks forward to the match. Later, Tennouji tells Honey that this year’s cake grand prix is going to be very interesting.

         Well, President Tennouji’s words and Ichigo seeing that even that best have to work hard rejuvenates Ichigo and she dedicates herself to training  even harder than before.  When the big day finally arrives, all the students are told about the pre-selection test, and no one is worried until they hear the terms of the test. All students will take an individual skill test, and if one student fails their entire team fails and will be eliminated from the competition. Ichigo’s is really nervous but the princes tell her that they’ve taught her enough skills that that she should easily pass any basic skills test, as long as she doesn’t do anything stupid.

        When Ichigo’s number is called she heads off into the unknown, and enters a room (the tasting room) that has a piece of cake sitting on a little plate. Ichigo wolfs the cake down and heads to the next room where she realizes how bad she screwed up. The next room has three sticks of butter on the table and a card asking which butter (A, B, or C) was used in the cake. Then Ichigo sees three doors each with having a letter on them that corresponds to a stick of butter, and she then understands that she made a stupid mistake when she just wolfed down the cake; she hadn’t bothered to use her tremendous natural sense of taste, and now she’s screwed. But, all of Ichigo’s training with the princes finally pays off; she’s able to remember all the baking basics they pounded into her and answers the question correctly. After Ichigo navigates the two next rooms involving milk and sugar she makes it to the final room of the test involving flour.

        Just as Ichigo is working out the final challenge, the school’s PA system tells her she only has one minute left to finish the test. As time is running out, Ichigo mixes water with the flour to test the firmness of the dough. Inside the “all correct” room, the princes nervously wonder if Ichigo will make it out in time. As the final countdown has commenced, Ichigo makes her choice and heads to that door hoping she is correct, and Ichigo has……Well, cliff hanger time, that’s all for this episode.

       Well, with this episode, I think Ichigo finally realizes how hard she’ll have to work to become a truly skilled Patisserie. In the beginning of the series we discovered that Ichigo was born with a tremendous sense of taste, and this ability has served Ichigo well throughout the series, until now. Ichigo being her normal rush forward without really thinking self rendered her natural talent useless. If Ichigo had saved her sample of cake she probably could have just sampled a little bit of the cake at each test station and quickly made it through the test but now she had to rely on knowledge earned through hard work rather than talent earned through grace.

       In Philip Pullman’s, His Dark Materials book trilogy one of the main characters, Lyra Belacqua has obtained the ability to read a device through grace and by the end of the series Lyra loses that ability.  Later, Lyra is told that she can regain that ability through hard work and sweat, but once she regains the ability her readings will be even better than before because she’ll have a full understanding of the task, and she’ll now have certainty and the skill will never leave her.

       So, when Ichigo’s god given talent fails her she was able to rely the knowledge that she earned through hard work and practice; Ichigo was able (I assume) to pass the test  using her brain rather than her intuition.

For further reading about the differences between innocence & experience, and skills obtained through natural grace and skill earned through hard work see, On the Marionette Theatre by Heinrich von Kleist, 1810.

       Well, this episode begins with Kurumi admitting that she started the rumors and it wasn’t a misunderstanding. When Sawako asks her about all this time she thought they were friends; Kurumi says she never once thought of her as a friend, you were in the way. Do you hate me, Sawako asks. Yes. Ayane and Chizu tell Sawako to let Kurumi have it, but all Sawako can muster is tears. Chizu can’t take it any longer and tells Kurumi off saying don’t bother them or Sawako anymore or take advantage of people.

       Kurumi tells them that Sawako isn’t playing fair, and what’s wrong with using people, people use her than toss her away when they’re finished. So, Ayane says you’re not going to change your ways? No, why should I. Ayane tells her that she’s not as good natured as Chizu so how do you feel about me telling Kazehaya all about this. Fine, I don’t care. OK, I will. Then Ayane and Chizu head off to their volleyball match leaving Sawako and Kurumi alone.

       Kurumi tells Sawako to go ahead and tell everyone about this so you can get Kazehaya’s sympathy, but Sawako walks away, leaving Kurumi alone.

        Sawako catches up with Ayane and Chizu and asks them to not tell about this incident.  Well, Chizu says she’s doesn’t really care, and Ayane feels the same way. Ayane apologies to Sawako because she didn’t think that this would have upset her this much, and soon all three of them are saying their sorries about the whole situation.

        After, the volleyball match, which Ayane’s and Chizu’s team lost, the girls find out that Kurumi hasn’t showed back up at school, and Sawako and the other girls hear some other girls kind of ripping on Kurumi about her lack of effort other than looking good. During the soccer match all Sawako can think of is what happened between Kurumi and them, and she wonders if Kurumi was telling the truth. Once the match is over, Sawako remembers that she had to tell something to Kurumi, so she goes to look for her.

        Just at that moment, Kazehaya links up with the girls, looking of Sawako, and soon Pin tells them that Kurumi must be somewhere broken hearted over him. Pin goes on to tell Ayane and Chizu to not go falling in love with him like Kurumi. Well, this is overheard by some other girls, and they say that Kurumi has bad taste in guys, and Ayane and Chizu say they feel sorry for Kurumi for the first time.

        Well, Sawako finds Kurumi in the same spot where they left her, Kurumi tells her to go ahead and let her have it, but Sawako tells Kurumi that she likes/loves Kazehaya.

        A tearful Kurumi tells Sawako that she hates her, and that she knows that she loves Kazehaya more than her. Sawako tries to cheer Kurumi up by telling her that she’s much cuter now, and she tells Sawako, what does it matter if Kazehaya doesn’t like me, and I knew he didn’t like me.  Sawako says she thought they could talk about their feeling for Kazehaya, but Kurumi tells Sawako that she hates her, and Sawako comes to the realization that she was jealous of her because of her aura, and how well she matched Kazehaya and how cute she was. Well, that’s all for this episode.

        Well, Kurumi finally admitted to her misdeeds, but this episode was not quite what I had expected when it came to Kurumi’s reactions to being caught, or Sawako’s reaction to Kurumi’s behavior. First of all, I really didn’t expect Kurumi tell them there’s nothing wrong with using people since they just use her. You could sort of get a feeling for what Kurumi’s “friends” really think of her when we overheard their conversation after the volleyball match; Kurumi never tries hard at anything besides looking good. So, in the end, Kurumi plan of being the “nice & cute” perfect girl has backfired on her, now everyone just thinks of her as the girl who spends more time looking cute then doing anything important, she’s just a “French Doll”. So, Kurumi’s got it right, “people just use her” because she created an aura that she’s has no more substance than a cute airheaded doll.

          I didn’t really expect Sawako to be all mean and viscous towards Kurumi (its not her nature) after she found out that Kurumi caused all those problems (I might have wished she would have been) but I wish that Sawako would stop thinking that everything is a misunderstanding that corrected by talking with people. When Sawako went back to see Kurumi to tell her about her feeling towards Kazehaya I thought why is Sawako even bothering with trying to connect with Kurumi. Even if there was a possibility that Sawako and Kurumi could become friends wouldn’t it be like sticking a dagger through Kurumi heart every time Sawako talked about her and Kazehaya’s relationship; guess what Kurumi, me and Kazehaya went to the movies yesterday and we made out. Dagger to heart, fatality, flawless victory. I think that Sawako just needs to come to the conclusion that she’s got what Kurumi lusts after and leave that girl to her own devices.

         This episode picks up right after Kanata finishes playing for Rio, and she tells her that from now on she’ll practice with just her mouth piece, and then Rio directs Kanata to the mess hall. Before breakfast begins Rio introduces the rest of the platoon to Kanata; Lieutenant Felicia Heidemann-the tank commander &  Captain of the unit, Corporal Noel Kannagi-the tank pilot/driver/mechanic, and Private Kureha Suminoya-the tank gunner. After the group finishes breakfast Rio tells Kureha to show Kanata around the fortress.

       Well, Kureha gives Kanata the ten cent tour of the base and their mission, the platoon has one tank, one heavy machine gun, two light machine guns, four rifles, five pistols, and their mission is to guard the town and the general area which boarders no man’s land. Also, the fortress has one telephone line, and if it rings something big as about to happen.

       Then Kureha shows Kanata the quarter’s area, the latrine, and so forth. Kureha gets mad when she sees Felicia doing latrine duty, and says she’s setting a bad example for the new recruit. Finally, Kureha shows Kanata their main battle tank which happens to be a zero generation model and isn’t even in running condition. While Kanata hasn’t said a bad word about the tank Kureha gets defensive and tells Kanata not to make fun out of them even though everyone else does. When Kanata sees how upset Kureha is she tries to be friendly to Kureha by calling her Kureha-chan but that just causes Kureha to tell Kanata the tour is over.

       Later, we see Felicia and Rio talking about how Kureha got upset the other night when she found out that Kanata wasn’t going to be trained as a driver or loader, orders are orders. A minute or two later Noel walks in and wants to tell them that she just saw the “ghost”? Later, when the group is together Noel tells them about the ghost, and Kureha goes off on her saying there are no ghosts, but Kanata tells them she saw it to. Kureha goes off even worse yelling at Noel that she’s an engineer, so investigate, NO, scared. Kanata says, what’s the big deal about a ghost, and she doesn’t seem to be bothered in the least bit. As Kureha is pounding the table saying there are no ghosts Rio agrees with her.

       Then we switch scenes to see Kanata and Kureha all geared up with Rio telling them to investigate the busted up old barracks area. Well, it’s storming and Kureha seems scared but Kanata seems to be enjoying the whole adventure thing.  As they begin to explore the deserted and busted up part of the fortress Kureha has Kanata take point and Kanata finds an old book that seems to have a picture of what looks like modern day school girls. Later, Kureha asks Kanata if she’s scared, no. She tells Kureha that ghosts are supposed to protect us, and back in her home village they used to hold an annual festival to honor and thank the ghosts (O-bon?).  Kureha tells Kanata about all the bad things ghost are supposed to do to people when a rat jumps out and scares her, and soon the girls are being chased by a large group of rats. As they continue to wander around the abandoned area Kanata tells Kureha that she thinks this used to be a school for lots of kids. Kanata spots a piano in one of the rooms and tells Kureha that she thinks that this was a music classroom. But, Kureha is very doubtful because she says that not even the capital has schools this large, and Kanata says that there were supposed to be a lot more people long ago.

       As Kanata is thinking about what music class would be like if the platoon was students instead of soldiers Kureha interrupts her musing by complaining about the platoon’s situation. Just then the girls get attacked by a fire breathing dragon owl and Kureha flees from the room and eventually fires her rifle at the owl. While she misses the owl, her shot hits the ceiling and the shrapnel stuns the bird.

       Later, the group discusses what to do with the bird, and since the owl was the very same one that snatched the charm from Rio she says cook it.  Felicia names the bird Shuko, and says they’ll keep the bird since their unit patch contains the image of a bird or owl. Then next morning, Kanata finds that she’s been fully accepted as a member of the unit, and even Kureha is friendlier towards her. Well, that’s all for this episode.

        This was a very interesting episode because we found out a lot of information about the functioning and status of the country the girls are supposed to be defending. Firstly, we discovered from Kureha that the unit is basically considered by military higher ups to be group of misfits that gets old broken equipment and sporadic resupply. I don’t know if this is just an issue of the military being worn out after a long conflict or if they don’t know what to do with female soldier, so they put them out of sight and out of mind. Also, Kureha tells Kanata that other units make fun out of them, so I tend to think that the military doesn’t know what do with these female soldiers. 

        What is also interesting about this episode and this world is that it seems to be a sort of steam punk world. While, the broken main battle tank is a walking tank (more advanced than any of our real life tanks) the platoon has a rotary dial telephone, and rifles that look older than my grandfather. This episode had the feel of an YKK episode in that the world feels like it’s winding down. Kanata found a book in the ruins of the fortress that had pictures of what seemed to be modern school girls, and Kanata came to the conclusion that the ruins were a former school. While, finding a former school isn’t shocking, Kureha’s response was, not even the capital has schools this large. 

       So, I’ll be looking forward to finding out what the hell happened to the world to cause such a population loss (war/ecological disaster), and why can’t Kanata or Kureha read the text from a book found in an abandoned school inside their own country. The book Kanata found was in fairly good shape so that tends to indicate that the “great change” in their world didn’t really happen that long ago, so why doesn’t anyone know anything about the near history of their own country/world.