Ghost Hunt ep 4 - 6
In File 2: The Doll House, the SPR team and company investigate the haunting of a family's new house.
This is more like it. While the first story was a good intro for the characters, the conclusion felt a bit lackluster. Now we get a genuine haunting with dangerous spirits. This story lived up to the horror potential of the show much more, with plenty of creepy twists and turns, including a scary possessed doll that couldn't be destroyed. It gives me hope that we'll get to see some more spooky action in the rest of the series.
Nodame Cantabile ep 5 - 6
Resuming from the end of Ep 4, Stresemann is willing to allow Chiaki to change his major to conducting if Nodame gives him a kiss. Instead, she totally knocks his lights out, which is exactly what I was hoping she would do. It made me giggle with glee every time I thought about it.
Nodame gets Chiaki to conduct the orchestra rehearsal, but he's unable to keep everyone in line and gets frustrated too easily at the smallest mistakes. Stresemann comes to and proves why he's a maestro by talking to rather than down at the orchestra, getting them to perform better than Chiaki could. In the end he still denies Chiaki's decision to switch majors, but takes him on as his student. Of course, while he may have shown a glimmer of being a decent guy, he's still a dirty old man, preferring to go out on dates with a gaggle of girls rather than conduct. Things get even more interesting when Chiaki busts in on one of his dates and all the girls flock to him instead. Despite the fact that he didn't do it on purpose, Streseman holds a grudge against Chiaki and quits to conduct Orchestra A, which Orchestra S is going up against in a concert in less than a month, leaving Chiaki as sole conductor. I have a feeling this could turn out to be a lesson Streseman is trying to teach him, but for now the guy still annoys me.
ep 7 - 10
Yep, I was right. Stresemann walked out to provide Chiaki with a lesson and an opportunity. In a way, all of Stresemann's antics are just about the only way to instill Chiaki with the ability to overcome his stubbornness and shine, but he still proves to be a pain in the ass a lot of the time. But then, it turns out his old friend Minako, president of the university, asked him to come with the specific task of nurturing Chiaki.
I got a big kick out of Orchestra S's costume performance at the school festival. The "Japanese Big Band" in their hakamas and Nodame in her mongoose costume, playing Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue"... It was just a lot of fun to watch and hear. This has to rate as my favorite moment in the series so far.
Silent Mobius ep 24 - 26
Thing's don't look good for AMP. Rally fights her sister once again, but just when it seems she's getting through to Rosa, Ganossa attacks them. Meanwhile the Lucifer Hawk have kidnapped Nami, Yuki is in turmoil from a constant barrage of bleak future visions, and AMP headquarters itself is being invaded and transformed into a giant Lucifer Hawk, forcing Mana to initiate a program to destroy the building. And Kiddy is determined to free Katsumi from her possession by Demon Sword Medium, but there is only one way to do this: Katsumi must kill a loved one.
Everything comes down to the wire in these last three episodes, and I was constantly wondering if AMP would prevail in the end and who among the cast might get killed. Fortunately no one died (although it was touch and go for Kiddy and she only managed to survive because she's a cyborg), and Katsumi was freed from Medium's control. Most of Tokyo ended up trashed from the giant Lucifer Hawk, Ganossa was desperate to destroy AMP once again for all before he ages backwards to nothing (a curse placed on him by the lord of Nemesis), and with the AMP officers finally recovered and reunited, they set out to engage in the final battle...
And that's where it ended. Yep, completely wide open, no resolution whatsoever. And it was going so well up to that point, too. I was really getting into it, and they robbed me of an ending. Now, I've been watching anime for a good many years now, and I know that a lot of shows don't really end conclusively, or leave loose ends behind, but knowing this still doesn't help quell my irritation. With all the angst and doom and gloom of these last few episodes, it doesn't feel right to conclude the series without a definitive ending.
To sum up Silent Mobius, despite a few flaws, I really did enjoy it. It's not up to the level of shows like Evangelion or Bubblegum Crisis 2040, but for the kind of show it is, it isn't really bad. It had a decent cast of characters, an interesting storyline, and avoided any monster-of-the-week plodding. I just wish it had an ending!
