I just did a recap in episode 6, so we will skip that in this episode. Like always, beware of spoilers . Heh, double blog post today!

The Millenium Earl remembers who Allen is, the one who turned his father into an akuma. Linalee gets there in time to hear this. Allen then has a flashback about a man who took him in when nobody else would. This man’s name was Mana. He was abandoned because of his arm, but Mana still took care of him regardless. When Mana was about to die (he was hit by a carriage) his last words were “keep on walking! Allen. Live your life to the end”. Allen is around 10 when this happens. The Earl shows up, and asks if Allen wants Mana back. Allen aks the Earl if thats really possible. The Earl laughs and brings out a skeleton thingy, and Allen calls out Mana’s name. Mana turns into an akuma, and yells at Allen ” Allen, How dare you turn me into an akuma! I curse you. Allen!” Mana, slashes Allen’s eye, and the Earl tells Mana to kill Allen. Just then Allen’s anti-akuma weapon appears and, acting on it’s own, it attacks mana. Mana soul accepts his fate, and Allen sees it with his eye. Cross soon finds Allen, and asks if he wants to become an exorcist. Notice that the curse turns Allen’s hair white, it was brown before. Allen goes on to tell them why the souls of akuma are crying, and says that the reason he fights as an exorcist is for the akuma. The Earl tells Allen that he should have killed him long ago(the Earl doesn’t like the fact that Allen can see the souls of akuma). The Earl procedes to fire at Allen, but Allen dodges easy. The Earl then calls in alot, and when I say alot I mean ALOT, of akuma. He believes that with enough akuma he can kill Allen. Linalee activates her innocence and joins the fight against the akuma. They fight for a long time, and basicly nothing happens. Alot of buildings get destroyed and stuff, but otherwise nothing important happens. Finally Allen activates a special ability – Cross Grave. It kills all of the akuma in one hit. The Earl escapes with the help of his umbrella, Marry Popins style(his umbrella is alive though). The Earl gloats that soon his akuma will evolve, and it wont be so easy. Jean sends a present with Allen to his father, it turns out to be an onion bomb, and it blows up in his fathers face. The father says that the kid isn’t ready for the science department. Allen tells him that Jean agrees, and it goes into a flashback.
Epilogue – To say plainly, this episode SHOULD have been before 2 and after 1. They seemed to have changed it a little though, when going to the anime version. Otherwise he would have just used his gun to attack the akuma. Anyways, they made it how they made it so it hardly matters anymore.

Okay, it’s been a while since I have done a recap, so once again here is a list of characters, starting with ones we’ve known for a while, and ending with the ones we learned about in the previous episode.

Characters so far:
Allen Walker-Main character, an exorcist.

Millenium Earl-Creator of the akuma.

Komui-Supervisor of the science department.

Linalee(Rinali)-Komui’s little sister, an exorcist.

Lala-The ghost of Martel(Mateel)

Guzoro-A friend of Lala, he was with her when he died.

Toma-A finder assigned to Allen & Kanda’s team while searching for innocence.

Kanda-Katana styel anti-akuma weapon, exorcist.

Cross-A general of exorcists, Allen’s master/teacher

Hevlaska(Hebraska)-Exorcist, holds the innocence.

Timcampy-General Cross’ golem.
Okay, now to the review of episode 6! Allen is going back to headquarters now that he has the innocence from Lala. A kid sees a man being turned into an akuma, and screems for help. The townspeople think he is lying, but Allen sees the creature for what it is with his eye. Allen destroys it and the kid gets all excited that he met an exorcist. It turns out that this kid’s name is Jean, and he is the son of a researcher in the Black Orginazation ( Short for the Black Religious Orginization). Jean asks alot of questions about akuma to Allen, and Allen has a flashback with an akuma attacking him when he was a child. Allen warns Jean not to patrol for akuma because it is dangerous. Jean procedes to throw an “onion” bomb at Allen, which explodes and makes Allen cry – sort of like tear gas. Toma offers to ask the finders of that city to watch out for the kid. Later, the finders get ambushed by akuma. Anyways, once Allen gets back to the exorcist headquarters, he gives the innocence to Hevlaska to hold. He then trys to go to the cafeteria, but Linalee stops him(They plan on having a welcome back party for him). He asks Jean’s father to tell Jean not to go on lookout for akuma, but the father is obviously absorbed in his work. Allen decides to go check up on Jean, and Linalee follows him because Toma tells her about the finders being ambushed. Back at the mansion(yes, Jean lives in a mansion) Jean’s friend Leo comes by and asks Jean to follow him somewhere. Right then Allen gets to Jean’s place and knocks on the door. The maid answers, and Jean pushes her on top of Allen. Allen notices something disturbing – Leo is an akuma! Leo takes Jean to the Millenium Earl becaus Jean knows too much. Allen gets to the cemetary and attacks Leo, but Jean stops him. Leo turns into the weapon form, and attacks Jean, Allen jumps in front, taking the bullets himself. He then cleanses himself from the poison. He can do this because his anti-akuma weapon is inside of him. Allen tells the Earl about his curse and The Earl remembers him. The Earl reveals that he has met Allen walker in the past – when Allen turned his own father into an akuma!

It starts with Lala picking up a huge pillar and throwing it at Allen. This pillar is HUGE, but he manages to dodge it, while she picks up a few other pillars and throws them at him. He eventually gets close enough to stop her from swinging at him. He basicly tells her that he isn’t there to hurt her and she tells him why she was made and when she met the Orphen child. Basically, he was the only one in a long line of people who appreciated her. (She killed the others. Pretty crazy, huh?) After this story she asks Allen to make a promise not to take her “heart” (the innocence that keeps her alive) until the Orphen child takes it himself. Kanda tells him not to make the deal, and they get into a fight about morals and stuff. Allen shows him up by saying he will take responsibility. Kanda asks Allen why, and Allen says it’s because he doesn’t want to see something like that happen. After all this, the akuma comes in, and stabs the Orphen and Lala, killing them, and getting the heart. Allen basically goes berserk after this, and starts kicking major butt. (This part is pretty good.) His innocence starts changing and morphing, due to emotional reactions. His arm turns into a gun, and he shoots up the akuma pretty badly, but to no affect. The akuma changes into sand, and becomes basically invincible. Poping out of the sand, he swallows Allen, then starts stabbing himself in the stomach (like those wizards with the box and sword trick). Allen has finally took enough of this, so he shoots himself out of the akuma, at the same time changing his weapon into a sword, slicing off the akuma’s sand-skin armor. The akuma freaks out, but says that he has the same arm, and trys to use it to stop Allen. Allen turns his weapon back into a gun and fires like crazy. Unfortunately for Allen, his weapon takes a huge toll on his body, and he can no longer fight. Allen falls to the ground and the akuma moves in for the kill, but strangely Kanda steps in and saves Allen. They both stand up, ready their weapons and attack with max power, easily disintegrating the akuma. The Orphen (Guzol, I finally found out his name, but am too lazy to change it) is still a little alive, and Allen returns the heart to Lala, but she looses all memory of the guy. She starts singing to him, and Allen waits untill she finishes before he takes the heart. It takes several days for her to finish. Kanda comes up to Allen and we learn that Kanda was supposed to be in the hospital for another 3 months due to the severity of the wounds, but Kanda seems fine, even mentioning “I’m a fast healer”. With her last words Lala thanks Allen for letting her fulfill her promise to the Orphen (Guzol).

Well that’s it for D.Gray-man episode 5! Visit again for more D.Gray-man later

Cast of characters so far:

Allen Walker

Millenium Earl

Rinali(Linalee)

Toma

Kanda

Komui
New characters from last ep.:

Lala

Orphen child(Now an adult, supposed to be ugly, don’t know real name)

The akuma slashes up Allen a bit and tells him about a level two’s powers.  Stealing Allen’s weapon and face, the akuma goes back into battle with Allen.  Allen notes that the power of the akuma has increased by a ridiculous ammount, but by then Allen is stabbed and taken for dead.  The akuma leaves looking for the innocence.  Meanwhile, Kanda explains to The Ghost(of martel) about the problem, and demands for the innocence.  Toma tells Kanda that they can’t find Allen.  Kanda tells Toma to get over to where he is, but when Kanda turns around, The Ghost and Orphen give him the slip.  When Kanda and Toma meet up, Toma gives Kanda Cross’ golem.  They discern that everything the akuma copies becomes a mirror image of the person.  This allows it to be easily noticed, and Kanda predicts that the akuma couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to show up like that.  Shortly after he says this, the fake Allen comes up behind him, battered and hurt.  Kanda moves in to kill him, seeing it as a mirror image of the real Allen.  The real Allen comes in and stops the attack, telling Kanda that the “Toma” behind him is the real akuma.  The akuma immediately kicks Kanda’s arse(badly).  Allen manages a diversion, and finds an underground place to hide in.  He follows the real Ghost’s singing(it turns out that the Orphen was the tall guy, and he was protecting Lala) and meets both the Orphen and the Ghost.

Wait, that is not a STRAIN

Well, here we are, the second episode of S-Strain and it is better than the first. I was shocked at how good the episode was. It started off IN SPACE! I mean, the setting changed! That is cool. I was expecting some more time on Earth, but nope. Sara has transferred and has changed her last name. Now due to Sara’s STRAIN being destroyed, along with her MIMIC, she is no longer able to pilot a STRAIN. That…is not good, but she is now the pilot of a much less shinny GAMBEE (doesn’t sound as cool too, also see top pic).

Now, with Sara being new, well, ok, there is the generic bully. Person you want to kill. In S-Strain it is Isabella. She thinks she is all that and crap, with her little posse. So Sara has that to deal with. Lucky her. Not the biggest of her worries though, she wants to get her schedule changed to do the sub light training. The higher ups, they don’t like the idea, but they say if Sara can complete the Bashion Desent Training, she can maybe have the changes.

So, Sara is on a mission to reach this goal, and with only four weeks it is not going to be easy. While training she meets a young STRAIN pilot named Lotti. Lotti is about the only one to get Sara to talk. Seems like getting off to a good start. Though, it did start with a challenge, but hey rivals can be friends too.

Later on, the day of the test has come and Sara is ready. Lotti wants to do a little spying on her so she heads to the tech guy and gets a camera on her. Sara is doing well on her mission, she has found the item needed to pass! Though, the evil Isabella starts attacking Sara. Due to where they are at, no communication or sight can be done by the main base; expect for the camera Lotti asked to be sent. In the end, though, Isabella hits a asteroid and is knocked out. Sara ends up saving her by sending a shock to her GAMBEE, and passes the test (first time in six years or something). Isabella, not knowing what happened, blames Sara for attacking with weapons. Lucky for Sara, Lotti knows all of what happens. In the end, Sara gets to move on.

Later on in the locker room, Sara’s pendent has gone missing. So she goes on a huge hunt for it. It is not found, but what is found, is a STRAIN. Along with that she finds a MIMIC, who is model: Emily (This could be why this ‘step’ is called Meeting). Then Sara goes into a small breakdown, reflecting on what has happened and to end the episode it pans to a strange girl who almost looks like the MIMIC and says, “Emily,” and asks “my name?”

Overall, this was beyond words on how good it was. I didn’t expect something this good could come after the, also, great first episode. This is a must watch, and I look forward to more.

On a bit of a side note, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to say that S-Strain has it’s share of fanservice and nudity, but it is not something overdone in the least bit, it is not that crap that is just thrown in. No, it goes with the plot and such. Do you really expect not to see any in a locker room scene? Just thought a warring is in order if your planning on watching it (which you should).

Sara and Lotti

Teh MIMIC

Okay, so they say the name of this ep is The ghost of Mateel, but substitute Mateel with Martel(this is my personal favorite translation for the name.).

Recap

Old characters:

Allen Walker

Millenium Earl a.k.a. The Earl

TimCampy – Cross’ golem

Characters Introduced in last episode.
GateKeeper – He is the guy who is part of the gate, and makes sure no akuma gain entrance.

Kanda – An exorcist who uses a sword for his anti-akuma weapon.

Komui – Supervisor of the science devision(I think) and brother to Lenalee.

Lenalee/Rinali – Komui’s little sister. She is an exorcist, using boots as her anti-akuma weapon.

Cross – Allen’s master. Taught Allen about the exorcists, and is a general exorcist.

Hebraska – the keeper of the innocence. A exorcist that stores innocence inside of itself.

It starts out in the cafeteria, where we learn about Allen’s appetite, as well as Kanda’s personality. Allen orders “Potatoes au gratin, french fries, dry curry, mapo tofu, beef stew, meat pie, calpaccho, nashigoren, chicken with tuna salad, some scones, Tom Yam Kung soup in a cup, rice and after that, for dessert, some mango pudding and skewered dumplings… 20 of them!”- I think that was hilarious.

His order gets cut off when a fight breaks out. It turns out that Kanda is mad because “you’re whiining about dead people while I’m trying to eat”, thus starting a brawl. Allen stops the brawl, and Kanda states that he doesn’t like Allen one bit. Ironicaly both get called to do a mission together to find an innocence in Italy.

Allen gets an exorcist’s uniform, and they set out. Allen learns TimCampy can record information and play it back. His “finder”, Toma, explains what and why they would go search for a ghost if they are looking for innocence.

It turns out that finders were at the site, got ambushed by a couple of akumas, died, but set up a barrier to keep the innocence safe. They were holding it off, but an Akuma “Leveled up” which increased it’s power dramaticaly. Allen proceeds to fight it, but gets beaten when it steels his shape and stabs him with a copy of his arm.

Fin

Ok, so in the last episode we see Allen Walker fight akumas. We learn about the existence of akumas, and that only “exorsits” can fight them.

In this episode it goes into more detail, and Allen finnaly makes it to the Dark Religious Orginization’s main base. Allen has a fight with another exorcist due to a misunderstanding. The Orginization’s GateKeeper sees that Allen has a curse mark on his forehead, and thinks that Allen is on the Millenium Earl’s side. Thusly Allen meets Kanda. Kanda is a samurai stylized exorcist. His “innocence”(The thing that makes an anti akuma weapon harmful to akumas) is melded into his blade. During the fight, they learn that Allen was actually sent there(due to a misplaced letter). This quickly ends the fight. Allen procedes into the Orginization’s building and learns what innocence is and all that good stuff.(While taking a painful procedure to fix his arm, which got damaged during the fight). Nearing the end of the episode one of the characters shows Allen to his room. As he reminisses while looking up at the picture above his bed, he says “I finally made it, Mana.” Mana is a person’s name btw….

add 5% Mech Action, and you get Sky Girls.

Hey it is the one cool/good thing!

Note:  when you click more, there are fanservice images.  So not exactly worksafe.

When I first found this, it looked like it was going to be good.  This just goes to show, just like a book, don’t judge an anime from its cover.

The plot–if you could call it that–is that there was a war long ago with these evil things called worms.  Earth…(yeah we suck) in the end, we had to use nukes on ourselves, basically, to get these worms to leave.  Now, this causes tons of death and the north (or south I forgot) pole to melt so the Earth has even more water!  But, what do you know, the worms come back.  (Wow who didn’t see that coming?  Really.)  So what do we do to fight the worms?  MECHS!  Yep, mechs.  (See why I watched this in the first place?)  Now, see, the anime would have been good if it was mechs fighting these worm things, but no, instead we get about a half a hour of fanservice.  This really pisses me off.  I mean, ugh, just WHY?  I just really wish the OVA didn’t go in the fanservice direction.

Now, not only the fanservice, but the genericness of the characters really shows. I swear, with these three girls, it should have been a magical girl series (note, I do actually like Magic Girl series).  I mean, you have the generic leader person who is calm and all of that, the generic genius/shy girl, and then you have the one girl who is ditsy and people wonder why she is there but has some special power.  Her’s is to communicate with her mech, and she is also good with the sword (go figure that one).

Now, as I said, at the start there is 5% of mech action.  This, the mech action was great.  If the OVA was more mech action, it could have been so much better, but it didn’t turn out that way sadly.

I really don’t have much to say on this one.  What is good is good, and the rest is bad.  I say stay away from the OVA.  What promise it showed was quickly shot down by the overdone fanservice.

The only set of clothes not revealing

Fanservice

There is always a flashback

All right, the episode starts off with a flashback to our main character’s (Sara’s) past.  This scene is about how her brother leaves to go to war and is to never be seen again.  Now, anime 101 here:  person leaves, sibling goes to follow in foot steps, but right before that, Sara is given the standard item that is important.

So years later we’re put into training following Sara.  Here we meet some other characters and see the mechs in this anime called STRAINs (yes, mech anime will have a name for the mechs always, it will never be called a mech).  Now, here we meet the standard character who has a crush on the main character.  He is Cedric.  Same training group, can’t admit his love, so on, so forth.

NOW!  This is where S-Strain starts to pick up.  Sara and Cedric are dancing and there are some “fireworks”, which is an enemy attack.  So, Sara and her group head to their mechs er….STRAINs.  They head into battle and then an unknown STRAIN comes in.  This STRAIN…kills everybody on Sara’s team and she is shot down.

BOOM! HUGE SURPRISE! Half the people you think are important are dead now.
Now, the ending is when something very ironic and important happens.  Sara sees the mech STRAIN pilot who is…HER BROTHER, who stole a child that was hidden in some secret thing.  THEN, the necklace breaks (which is the very important item from before). This, right here, is the first episode of Soukou no Strain.

Final word, pick it up it, took the main stream mech anime and rose it a level.  It may be the same old, same old, but it does it well.

Everyone Likes Fanservice

The Mech STRAIN