Don't forget to use the spoiler title

Aha, and poor Mion. It's never a good thing when your twin who's pretending to be you starts doing things that will leave a messy trail for yourself to clean up.

It is really strange to see things from Shion's view. What with everyone thinking she's Mion and her obvious hate for Satoko.

And one question, she was locked up in a school or something in the beginning? I'm too lazy to rewatch and I don't think I as paying to much attention, but what was that about? Poor Shion in any case, in some school far away from her sister whom she apparently actually is quite close to.

Shion's escape from the boarding school, which took probably an hour in the game, was easily accomplished within 30 seconds in the anime. :heh:

As I expected, it was a bit of a bummer that dai-san's beautiful piano tracks from the game can't be heard in the anime. But well, it can't be helped.

The first half of the episode did a good job portraying the loving relationship between Mion and Shion, which is quite important, so I'm glad they didn't skip too much on this. Surprisingly, they even animated that famous(?) little tap to the forehead that Shion gave Mion in the library. ^^; From that scene, we can tell that Shion is really the extroverted caretaker, while Mion is actually the insecure shy one.

The meeting between Shion and Satoshi was a little different from the game (Shion was playing around by pretending to be crying from the delinquents' threats, that's when Satoshi showed up to "rescue" her), but overall it was nicely done.

(For game players) Satoshi petting Shion on the head for the first time was... *sigh* :(

Shion's talk with Rena felt a little out of place, especially without Shion's internal monologues. Although Rena doesn't know that it's actually Shion, for Shion, it was her first time meeting Rena. At the bus stop, Rena suddenly asking Shion if she likes Satoshi felt like it came out of nowhere, when the question could've been softened with some small talk first. As for Rena's knowledge about Oyashiro-sama as an "experienced person" herself, all of it alarmed and frightened Shion. It would've been nice to hear Shion's monologue here about how her instinct tells her to never go up against Rena.

Finally, Shion's hatred for Satoko felt slightly pushy in the anime. In the game, the flow was:

Shion likes Satoshi
↓
Shion learns that much of Satoshi's hardship came from having to cover his little sister from abuse at home
↓
Shion hates Satoko for being so dependant on her brother all the time, dragging him down

But in the anime, there hasn't been much portrayal showing "Shion loves Satoshi" (partly because of the lack of monologues, so we can't tell her thoughts), so her sudden explosion of anger at school against Satoko's crybaby attitude felt a little over-the-top.

Oh yeah, Kanai Mika-san cried for a whole 2 1/2 minutes... wow... ^^;

Overall, despite some minor complaints, not a bad episode to start off Meakashi with. Next week, Shion is going to be up against that painful kejime machine... :(

I was wondering if you could tell me which tracks played at which moment? Gonna listen to them at the scenes.. see what i can feel from it. ^^

Unlike the anime, which began with Shion escaping the school in record time :heh:, the game's first hour or so was spent with Shion in the process of sneaking out while avoiding guards and getting through locked gates. Shion paused shortly after the game started, and began describing her situation, how she ended up in this quiet suburban boarding school in the first place, and why she's breaking out.

The track played during this scene was "Iru". Which, despite being merely 1:25 long, is one of my most favorite, if not the most favorite, track in Meakashi-hen. The track had a very calm and nolstalgic melody to it, and fitted the night scene perfectly.

After Shion escaped and met up with Kasai (the sunglasses guy, who is Shion's bodyguard), they headed out onto the highway to return to Hinamizawa. At this point, the game's logo appeared, along with the "opening song", which is "Thanks".

The meeting between Shion and Satoshi was also accompanied by one of dai-san's great tracks. I don't remember if it was "Thanks" or "you" though.

Tsumihoroboshi-hen featured some great tracks as well (not just from dai-san), so it's a slight disappointment that we won't hear them in the anime.

I think it supports the "Shion was the evil twin in Watanagashi" theory. We see how easy she can get enraged, we see that she is not too fond of Satoko to put it mildly and she can indeed pass for Mion even among her friends.
However, she seemed to be genuinely surprised when she heard about the Furude family deaths so I guess we cannot explain all the murders by simply saying that Shion did it. I don't like Satoko that much so I don't really hate Shion...for now. :heh:
I still don't see the great significance of the opening scene, doesn't it just confirm what almost everyone suspected - i.e. The Evil Twin pretending to be the victim in the end of Watanagashi?
So Shion and Mion get on well at that point but that does not seem to be the case a year later, unless they just pretended to dislike each other in front of K1. I guess Satoshi's disappearance has a lot to do with the deterioration of their relationship. Satoshi's voice seemed kind of unsuitable for this character, btw.

Rena said that Satoshi experienced it as well as she did. Does that mean that he already went on a batting rampage before that time?