Mai-Otome Episode 7

Japanese Title: 蒼の舞/乙女の契り (Ao no Mai/Otome no Chigiri)
English Translation: Azure Dance/Pledge of an Otome

Man... Can Sunrise deliver or what ^O^? Finally, we have some major plot fleshing after an epi full of hilarity and yuri fluffiness. Even though this episode wasn’t as hyper and entertaining as the previous one, it still managed to convey a very satisfactory story on the whole. It’s about time, I guess. For this round, Mashiro has taken center-stage in the character development show after Arika and Nina had their share of the limelight in prior episodes. Lots of new surprises with one being Chie looking like Chie while wearing her nostalgic glasses =p. Apart from that, the writers are messing with our minds as usual by posing new mysteries for us to strain and crack our brains on. Right, no summaries here again as I typically type up on issues which interest me so if you’d like to know what this story is all about, I suggest visiting other blogs, which I assume you already had by now (Damn, I’m so slow ><). What I will be including in this week’s review are scenes that have appealed to me as well as speculations on certain aspects of the story. I’m afraid there aren’t a lot of screencaps this time, but hopefully you’ll still have fun reading the review. ^^



~Highlights of The Episode~

Beneath the iron mask of the queen

マシロちゃん 可哀相.... T________T
Looks like it’s safe to say that a large majority of us had great misconceptions about Mashiro’s personality. Heck, blame her attendants for giving her the wrong ideas when she was young =p! Well... You can’t deny the fact that Mashiro has been a royal pain in the butt since her toddler years, but hey, she was brought up as a princess, right? Albeit it’s still unconfirmed whether she really is one (Which most of us doubt). Anyway, I think we would agree that her spoilt behavior was genuine before she heard the rumors. I would justify her extreme gakiness now as being attributed to her way of adamantly proving to herself and to everyone else that she’s the rightful ruler of Windbloom despite what others may think. Notice how she was always insisting along lines such as “I became the queen of this country, you hear!” (Episode 4) and “I’M the one saying that it’s wrong!! How could I make a mistake?!” (Episode 5). I doubt she would be THIS bratty if she hadn’t heard the gossips. Leaving that aside, the aspect which I enjoyed most was watching the development on Mashiro’s serious character. Interesting to note that her case is the same as Arika’s coz this is the first time we witness her in such an anguished state (Although it was the total opposite for Nina. She’s so tense most of the time anyway ^^;;;). In all of the previous episodes, we usually see the queen as a loud, crazy, arrogant and confident young lady. This time however, she bared her vulnerable side and took insults in a gravely depressed way compared to before where she would just lash back with her slurs of regal mockery. I view Mashiro’s predicament as bearing a far greater weight than those of Arika’s and Nina’s. She’s obviously trying really hard to struggle with her personal demons that have been haunting her since her childhood days. It’s undeniably a heavy burden to carry for many years. You can imagine the painful hardships she went through not knowing what it’s like to be loved and supported by a real family while growing up. It’s even worse that she has to live in an environment where she’s constantly surrounded by people whom she knows are the ones spreading the rumors about her. At least Arika had her “grandmother”, and Nina her “father”. Mashiro had no one. Mikoto does somewhat play a role in comforting her but I doubt a cat who doesn’t talk is sufficient as her solid emotional support. But it’s good that Mashiro is slowly opening up, mainly due to how Arika is influencing her heart. It’s apparent that the latter leaves a positive effect on anyone she meets, Mashiro included, and she’s helping her look at the brighter things in life like love and friendship, something which the queen never truly experienced for real before. These two have definitely come a long way and we’ll be eagerly anticipating how it would all work out in the end.
PS. LOL!! It’s quite surprising Sakomizu was that thin long ago. Looks like he’d been too busy to exercise. A horsey back ride is certainly not enough. =p


A morning well spent together...

Whoa... Natsuki actually doesn’t mind dressing like that in front of Shizuru? What on earth was she thinking ;p? And isn’t that huge bed in the background a lil’ too lonesome for one person XD? Woot... I don’t think I need to elaborate further on anything here coz the pics sez it all. ^________^


An odd couple but it kinda works

I admit... Ever since the first season, I’ve always thought that Nagi and Mashiro would make a cute couple, even if they have antagonizing roles. They’re both around the same age appearance-wise, and I find it cute how Nagi has this manipulative hold on her, although it’s obvious that Mashiro is trying her best to repel him. As always, Nagi is unquestionably up to something devious. His proposal to Mashiro was way off. I seriously doubt he did it because of love. It’s more like for the sake of moving a piece in his giant chess game of conspiracy. Aside from that, he seems to know everything that’s going on around him. He barely registers any expression of shock when something big happens. Too calm, I tell ya. And of course, SUSPICIOUS... ^^;


Old face

WEH HEY!! Our favorite @$$-kicking android is back and hopefully 100% human! Nothing much to comment about her other than she appeared for approximately 5 seconds and looking broodingly cool! We want MORE MIYU!! >O<


Arika’s sure fire way to skip grades

Oh yeah, we can see this contract happening waaaaaaaaaay before they even aired the series =p. Arika sure knows how to kick butt as long as she controls her robe properly. These few scenes were indeed the best in the entire episode with Arika bashing the heck out of the Slave by taking advantage of the Souten no Seigyoku’s power. Not to mention she used a damn huge double lance to finish the job. KAKKOII!!!! But I find it odd that Arika knows how to operate such a powerful weapon despite it being her first trial. Didn’t she have an embarrassing time figuring out how the Coral staff works during her Butou with Nina ^^;;;? Besides that, here we also have the first demo of how the Meister Otome & Aruji (Master) system works. When Arika was hit on the back by the Slave, Mashiro suffered the same injury in the same spot. A grim trade, ne... By the way, I can imagine Nina exploding with jealousy and angst once she sees Arika’s new power. =p



~Speculations Corner~

The Missing Link known as Rena Sayers

This is one topic which I will be addressing over and over again whenever some interesting tidbits pop up in any episode. Just who is she? How is she connected to everyone else? Here are some things I’d like to highlight

• We all know now that she is, without a doubt, the previous king’s Meister Otome. However, based on a flashback in this episode, she managed to escape the Meister & Aruji’s fate that when one dies, the other dies as well. It’s apparent the contract between them had been annulled before the king was killed, seeing how she was still alive after that scenario. In addition, she had lost her Otome powers as well. How did she lose it? Did she just simply choose to resign and removed her GEM from her ear? Or was it because she lost her Otome powers a while back after she, lets say, had a baby? This leads us to another interesting issue that everyone is contemplating on....
• Is Rena really Arika’s mother? I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while now. At first, I was supporting the fact that she is based on several things like Arika mentioning her mother was an Otome, how she had a mental image connection when she saw the huge portrait of Rena on the castle’s wall, and that she claimed the Souten no Seigyoku belonged to her mother during her battle with the Slave. Those are the few points which strongly support the theory that Rena’s daughter is Arika. However, some of the details are sketchy. Who told Arika that her mother was an Otome? How did they even know this?
• Hmm... Couldn’t be her grandmother, right? Which leads us to more questions... Was the person responsible for raising Arika even her real grandmother? If Arika was actually the missing princess who was left floating down the stream by Rena, then any random elderly woman could have picked her up and adopted her, right? And if Arika is the missing princess, then it would most certainly dispel any theories stating that Rena is Arika’s mother since there WAS a queen (Unless the king committed adultery LOL!!). That would make Rena more of a nanny to Arika instead of a biological parent. Surrogate parent, anyone? ^^;
• Next up, we have Rena’s connection to Nina. Recall the scene where Nina was drowning in Episode 6. She had a vague vision of a woman watching over her which faded into Arika. Despite that woman having the facial features resembling those of Rena’s, was it really her? Her hair color seems to suggest otherwise but there’s always that nagging possibility. Could Rena have babysitted more than one baby? =p

We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Orz Oz!

YAY!! MIKOTOOOO!! Or at least a shadow of her ^^;;;. I’d bloody well pay to see that spirit possess Mashiro’s big fat cat then pull a Yoruichi stunt on us =p! Anyway, main focus is the ancient device currently known as the “Harmonium” which needs three elements to power up properly – “song”, “player”, and “charm”. The third element is noticeably missing, seeing that only two out of the three circles lit up when it was briefly activated. Hmm... Seems that those two were represented by Arika and Mashiro. Who the third person is remains to be seen. High possibility that it’s Nina (A simple and lazy guess coz she’s one of the three protagonists ^^;). One thing to note is we do not yet know who represented which of the elements respectively. There have only been assumptions so far based on visual observations such as the song being “Hoshi ga Kanaderu Monogatari” sung by Arika/Nina/Mashiro/Rena bladdy blah blah... We’ll just have to wait as usual.


Next episode looks set to be even cooler with a new warrior making a debut. I really hope the Meisters would have their go at her (If she turns out to be an antagonist) in the next round but chances are, it may be Arika and gang again. ^-^


~Entry by Dav~