Mai-Otome Episode 4

Japanese Title: 炎の転入生!! (Honoo no Tennyuusei!!)
English Translation: Blazing Transfer Student!!

Review
Aww... They didn’t show any more of Shizuru and Rado’s fight T___T. Less action packed this week but still enjoyable in its own way. In this episode, several more mysteries have arisen and we get the joy of waiting for them to be revealed later on =p. Nagi seems fairly dodgy in the way he comments on Garderobe as well as Windbloom’s situation and Sergay looks bothered about Arika. Guess they do have valid intentions to hang around for a while, since they know something about the peeps from Black Valley. Apart from that, Natsuki and co. have their hands full dealing with the likes of Schwarz and Black Valley members, especially the Aswald knights. Sunrise is keeping us in suspense as usual by partially sprouting various new info about the antagonists. It’s interesting to see how the story will expand later on to include all these circumstances. At the moment, the plot has slowed down a little to emphasize on the characters’ development (Particularly Arika and Nina’s), but that’s okay coz it seems necessary to explore their personalities further this early in the series. And now on to a few of the other scenes...


Scene 1 – Super Woman No. 2 has arrived

Haruka (Armitage) has finally gotten what she always wanted.... RAW POWER!! And an insane amount of it =p. It’s amazing to see how she single-handedly threw the huge airship far off into the horizon without any effort. She could thrash Superman any day if she wanted to ^^;;;. I find this scenario a really great re-intro for the good ol’ ex-Executive Director. From the looks of it, her whacky moe (燃え) personality hasn’t changed at all. Love how she stresses along the lines of “To be an Otome is to have strength, skill, and GUTS!!!!” to Arika. LOL!! She still even has that hilarious habit of messing up her words here! I’m sure she meant “promising future prospects” (有望 - Yuubou) but she ended up saying “promising future poverty” (窮乏 - Kyuubou) instead XD. Luckily Yukino was there to correct her (With a loudspeaker ^^). That scene was the best! Wonder if she’d still call Shizuru “Bubuzuke Onna”....


Scene 2 – It’s time for physical examination!

Here we have Haruka trying to beat Shizuru in her field of expertise XD. Honestly, she has to learn that she’ll never surpass Shizuru when it comes to handling girls ;p. There has to be more to an Otome than chest and butt sizes alone. *Ehem!!* Anyway... I like how the writers decided to keep Haruka’s “give-it-all-you-got” attitude in the sequel. Haruka wouldn’t be Haruka after all without her super-determined resolutions. Speaking of which, they kept her heated rivalry with Shizuru in Mai-Otome as well, which is brilliant. I find their interaction by far, the funniest among all of the characters in both series. It never ceases to amuse me how Haruka keeps on ranting to Shizuru’s face that one day she’ll settle the score with her and yet the latter just acts as oblivious as ever ^^. As for Yukino (Crisanto), even though she wasn’t one of my favorites, I’m glad she returned too. I just looooove her voice (Noto Mamiko sounds so naturally sweet ~^^~!). It seems she has somewhat continued her role here from Mai-HiME. At first, I found it slightly odd that Haruka is now following and serving Yukino since she’s the president of the Ealis country but come to think of it, it’s even harder to imagine Yukino being an Otome ^^;;;. After all, Yukino did become the Executive Director of the Student Council in HiME so I guess she’s expected to be a leader in the sequel. It’s nice to see her as an authoritative figure instead of always being the quiet and shy tag-along type.


Scene 3 – It’s time to talk about “the birds and the bees” Garderobe style =p

Wha? U~so! Can this be true o.O? They’re turning Mai-Otome into a yuri galore show! Not that I’m complaining though, especially when it comes to Shiz and Nat. I’m probably just fantasizing too much for my own good but why is Natsuki looking at her left when she’s talking about “that”. And you know who’s standing at Natsuki’s left side, right? Woot, tee hee hee.... Arika’s expression when they were telling her about the details was absolutely priceless XD! Well, this revelation certainly brought up a lot of speculations. In the few earlier episodes, it was hinted that Rena may be Arika’s mother in those flashback scenes. And for all I know, Arika stated someone told her before that her mother was an Otome. It kinda puts two and two together in some way. There is high possibility that Arika is Rena’s child, with Arika’s father probably being a figure of nobility. But it’s hard to say and I can’t confirm it. To top it off, I can already see Akane’s status getting flushed down the toilet....
PS. It’s so weird to hear Natsuki using the pronoun “kimi”.... ^^;


Scene 4 – Need tissue to wipe the blood from your nose? XD

Yes, the infamous bath scene. Nothing but nudity. Thank goodness it was implicit... To be honest, I don’t have much to comment here coz my mind simply went blank during those few minutes =p. Ho~... The juniors have to look after their oneesamas. Wait a sec... Look after? LOOK AFTER? LOL!! Isn’t it supposed to be the other way round? Seems Shiho is still jealous of other girls’ chest size =p. And Chie is being damn cheeky by stripping Erstin like that. Okay, that’s enough... XD


Scene 5 – Annnnnnnngst.....

ちび ニナ すごく かわいいいいいいいい!!!! ~^^~

Gosh, little Nina is soooooooo adorable!! Her voice when she was young reminds me very much of Tsukamoto Tenma (School Rumble)! But all is not well for teenage Nina.... She’s getting more depressed and angsty by the episode. Hmm... Probably due to her responsibility to Sergay again. Her relationship with Arika has gotten worse too as soon as she branded the latter a rival without further thought. She even goes as far as wanting to fight her all over again. From the way things look, her bitterness towards Arika seems to stem from two things – Sergay’s concern for the Souten no Seigyoku as well as Arika being a threat to her position at Garderobe. I kinda feel worried for her that one day she may crumble under all the emotional burden. Hopefully, Arika will remove that resentment from her one way or another soon. Nina does need the support of her friends very much instead of shouldering everything on her own. It’s a good thing that Erstin sincerely sees the positive side of her while the other girls either couldn’t care less or prefer to bring her down. As for Tomoe... Heh, who knows what she’s thinking. Her attitude’s been pretty suspicious so far. She looks humble and understanding but her face always wore a shocked expression different from the others whenever she witnesses something incredible. I can see a Mai-Otome version of Suigintou in the works. Side note, Nao is up to her typical habit of sneaking out of dorms again. Guess that part of her is impossible to change. And what is that talk about Arika getting “destroyed” soon? That worries me..... ^^;;;


Overall, quite a satisfactory episode. Nothing exciting happened but to me, that’s just what the series needs once in a while. Next one looks interesting. Aha! Maybe Mai will be returning soon and I’m sure a lot of us agree that she used to be Natsuki’s rival long ago. Wonder if her name would be Mai Foieru (Katakana!)... Oh ya, does anyone else find the Hoshigumi Trio painfully annoying (The Sakura Taisen folks may file a lawsuit for this =p)? Lilie is all right but Yayoi and Miya are too friggin’ gossipy. Someone should set their uniforms on fire, then we could have some blazing students for real (Hence the episode’s title =p).


~Entry by Dav~