Mai-Otome Episode 21

Japanese Title: 白き姫、目覚めるとき (Shiroki Hime, Mezameru Toki)
English Translation: The Time when The White Princess Awakens


First of all, my deepest apologies for the extremely late entry. I was really occupied with one of my group assignments and the deadline was just the day before. Managed to scrape that. Right, on to the review. You know... After watching Episode 22, this one seems... Blatantly ordinary :p. Once again, I don’t have much to comment on other than that I see a slight improvement in the progression of the plot. It’s great to see the writers trying their best to push the story forward as much as possible now that the series is nearing its end. Since most of us probably have watched the latest episode by now, I’ll try to comment as if I haven’t watched Ep 22 yet (which is gonna be darn hard). I guess I’ll write this week’s one as a treat for those who have not seen 22. I won’t bore readers too much with what they already know so this review will be much much shorter than the previous entries. ^^



~Highlights of the Episode~

The egg capsule says it all

Or does it? After Nagi skimmed through the photos and noticed the capsule in two very different environments, he concluded that Nina is the missing princess of Windbloom. The truth or simply an educated guess? Furthermore, he decided to make a very radical change in his speculations – he labeled Arika as “an inteferer that must be eracidated”. It may be an indication that he no longer sees Arika as having anything to do with the Harmonium, which would mean either the “protector” or the “player” role is filled up by someone or something else and that brings me to my next point...
PS. Yes yes, 22 spilled all the beans but I still wanna have a go at it. :p


A veiled hope

Who is that on the bed (To those who already know *Shhh.....* ;p)? I guess many who have not watched Ep 22 yet would have a somewhat obvious idea as to who that person is if you know how cliché certain things are in just about any Anime series. Moreover, the visitor is Chie. If Nagi’s assumption about Arika is correct, that person may be the final piece to the Harmonium puzzle. Then again, what about that incident in Episode 7? Didn’t Arika open the sealed doors to the Harmonium? Where would that leave her if Nagi says her role is not of any use?


Who’s using who now, ei?

As heavily hinted in the previous ep, Shizuru is only using Tomoe to probably create an advantage for herself. By providing free service? Sly... Very sly..... But it’s expected from someone like her anyway. Tomoe’s downfall seems rather inevitable at the hands of Shizuru. At the moment, I can only see two feasible way of interpreting her actions. One, she does not know about Natsuki’s situation and is relying on Tomoe to feed her info about the Gakuenchou, but of course that doesn’t mean she still trusts Tomoe; two, she’s confident Natsuki is safe and decides to go with the flow so that she can take action once she sees the opportunity to do so. Either way, I’m hoping to watch Tomoe let loose her psycho side (just like she did recently) once she discovers the truth. ^^


A young rightful queen with no equal

I must say, Mashiro suddenly became the most interesting person in the entire episode to me. Her thoughts, emotions and actions were all very convincingly poignant. A great deal of praise must be directed to Sunrise in the way they handled her development. By gradually changing her character from a spoiled, obnoxious royal brat to a mature, selfless and wise leader made it all the more believable for me. Comparing her personality now with her past’s, it has been a rather dynamic transformation but the pace they made her grow as well as the events which slowly influenced the changes in her behavior were done perfectly to match the situations both she and Arika were in. The scene where she disregarded all nobility honor and self-consciousness by bowing and begging Midori to help her people went for the sure win. Never have I expected her to resort to such humility for the refugees; the very same group who hated her and consequently “killed” Aoi because of that. Mashiro’s decision and action that time definitely won my admiration and respect for her, and I’m very glad to see that the refugees have begun to accept her as their queen. She has indeed grown to be a very strong protagonist, stronger even than Arika this time round imho, because of the extent she would go for her people despite the horror they’ve initially put her through. Arika has matured a lot as well but her circumstances did not have that much of an impact on me compared to Mashiro’s. It’s great that they both finally acknowledged their importance to each other and take on their rightful roles as Master and Otome. They have unquestionably one of the strongest bonds ever forged over the course of the series and we’ll definitely look forward to more @$$-kicking from them later.


So Episode 22, chock full of plot movement and ripping action. Lets move on, shall we?


~Entry by Dav~