Hmmm, things aren't off to a good start for part two. I'll give it one more week since next week is where the
real main plot kicks off.
Episode 15: "A High School Girl Soars to the Heavens"
I love this series, but I find this particular episode problematic for a variety of reasons.
1) Although I generally enjoy the show's tendency to play around with (and sometimes indulge) anime conventions, the sequence with the HiME sortieing from that underground facility was a bit too over the top for me.
2) Am I honestly supposed to believe Mai and Midori took out all those warships without killing hundreds of people?
3) How on earth did those missiles take out the leftover Searrs troops without causing lots of collateral damage?
4) What happened to all the wrecked ships and armored vehicles after this episode? How can everything simply go back to normal right away after a big mess like that?
5) Why the heck did it start snowing at the end of the episode?
On the plus side, I gotta say that if you're going to have a character cheat death, referencing the Egyptian Pheonix myth is a pretty cool way to do it. Speaking of which, Mai and Kagutsuchi take cues from multiple mythologies -the Japanese Kagutsuchi myth is of course the main one, but in addition to that and this episode's Pheonix myth reference the show also referenced the Arthurian sword in the stone legend when Mai summoned Kagutsuchi for the first time back in Episode 3.
This episode represents one of the highest levels of teamwork seen among the HiME during the course of the series.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Alyssa
"But I wonder who the cruel ones really are."
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More foreshadowing there.
From a character perspective this episode concentrates quite a bit on Alyssa and Miyu, but Yuiichi also gets a bit of focus. I think one of Yuiichi's biggest problems in the series is that he wants to play a traditionally masculine role as a protector. Problem is, the girl he loves (even if he won't admit it) can fly, has flame powers and can summon an enormous biomechanical dragon/pheonix thing, and he's... a guy who's good at kendo.