Bloody hell…my post got eaten by the intarweb again. In place of a well-written write up I leave you my raw notes and screencaps for this episode. I may rewrite it later when I have more time, but I’m having trouble sticking to any semblance of a schedule during AP Testing season.

Enjoy.

-CCY

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Summer memories reminding me of Air – it won’t end there, will it…?
-> Nerine says last day of break, finish homework?
DIFFERENT TITLE CARD. Foreshadowing and serious. music sucks
my eyes gloss over when faced with math too. or is that the reason, Rin? :P (bowchickabowwow)
the God/Demon game analogy continues; funny that they really treat N/S x Rin as such
summer progression, silent stills of everybody (Itsuki picking up a girl??)
and now back to Kaede, who’s been absent for a bit.
Primula is more conversational than a Nagato type
-> more strange happenings with Primula and the tea (a LOT of tea…)
and Asa shows up ‘hitting on’ Rin during the sketch of course
-> wild theory: importance of Asa’s hair ribbon
-> Even Asa supports a Kaede ending??
Asa seems the most harem-aware, yet doesn’t seem to bring up herself…
Rin is smart and votes for harem ending – also known as peaceful coexistance
There are certainly hints at Asa’s high standing with Rin but it’s not blatantly obvious; and nothing higher than Sia’s level
Kareha: different phrase now? is she the equivalent of a shipper?
Itsuki’s glasses shiny never gets old
Primula likes rainbow, hates turning things to ice (King Midas) and passing out
-> This is where ‘frozen summer’ comes from; thought it would be a time-loop episode
Different eyecatch, now with 100% more loli (and non-loli) cleavage. scary. o_O
this is where the serious part of the story kicks in…?
122 degree fever on Primula, mildly high!
Sia/Nerine hiding things from Rin again with fever?
Primula has 3 cats now?
oshi, God/Demon become USEFUL??
despite Primula’s apparent connection to Nerine, it is revealed that she is an fox/kitsune that took the form of a human “artificial life-form”
-> explains the test-tube bit in the opening
Demon has a nice example of magic with the breaking/unbreaking of glass. impressive.
Annoying vagueness, as expected – we’ll see how this turns out.
Primula can create ‘miracles’ – did this cause her to faint? the power of unleashing miracles unwillingly on the flowers…
-> powers equalling energy drain is reminding me of Cardcaptor Sakura, Sakura Card Arc
and I think this is the first time in ever Kaede and Rin are alone.
Kaede, stop saying you can’t do anything. like, now.
Rimu doesn’t like the demons – perhaps this is a regretting-creation issue?
-> or is it just care for Rin
Connection between Nerine + Primula made (control)
and emotion is proved to be bad? emotion is key to the miracle power
-> also reminding of another anime that shall remain unspoiled (vaguely)
Rin’s working on the boat again.
More Nerine foreshadowing – losing someone a ’second’ time…
-> what was the first…
and a Rimu flashback?? to the time where she was abandoned?
Rin uses the really-super-deep-full-bow to beg Primula to go back – why does it work?
the plants are crying…??
she took her cats and left Rin’s..
this feels like the beginning of a Rimu arc…but will we see her again??

and, why did she get sick…?

With the Sia arc all nice and wrapped up it’s time to get into the deeper stuff of Shuffle as we take a turn toward the dark side…

Next episode, anyway. For now, we get the usual lighthearted interim filler-esque episode.

Although, any episode with Mayumi in it deserves to have it’s filler status revoked. Go, FCA power!

Anyway, it’s summer-time and we skip straight to the end of summer-tutorial hell for Sia and Mayumi, who have managed to survive and flee jubilantly from the classroom.

Mayumi catches up for lost fanservice by giving us about 10 panty shots along the way and subsequently smashing straight into Rin. In true harem style, the two fall on top of each other. Rin gives us a minute-long view of what’s up Mayumi’s skirt, which rightfully angers her.

She decides to take revenge.

In a oh-so-wrong way. Seriously, Mayumi, whose side are you on?

(I wonder how this scene turned out in the original H-game…)

Right on cue the whole harem shows up and gives Mayumi, who’s still sitting on top of Rin with her hand on his crotch, a bunch of weird, perhaps jealous stares. The fact is mentioned that they’re headed to the beach again and for a minute I was expected a second swimsuit episode.

Instead we get Nerine vs. Mayumi swimsuit comparisons (hint: there’s one large difference), and another cover-up by Mayumi. Market value? Is that what they call it now? Also, note Primula’s stare in the background. She knows the value of loli over loli bust size. Not to mention, purple hair.

We shuffle on over to Kareha’s cafe, and meet the blue-haired pervert kid along the way. I’ve noticed this is the same, decidedly less-perverted kid that Rin helped in the park during his date with Sia. Strange, strange, scary kid.

Mayumi and Kareha converse over Rin’s harem, which despite Kareha’s claims is not a simple love pentagon but something far, far more sinister.

Kareha also asks Mayumi if she plans to turn to the dark side anytime soon. For the love of God Haruhi something, don’t do it!! We need at least one character who hates Rin the pimp. -_-

This is also noted to be one of Kareha’s longest period of sanity, without going all shiny. Thankfully.

Also, for some reason, Mayumi’s two-toned eyes in this scene suddenly reminded me of a certain time traveler. MAYUMI BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMU! (insert photoshopping)

Rin was smart enough to search Mayumi’s ass while she was raping him and stole her wallet, forcing her to do some Mario-RPG (old-school-version) style compulsory service. Uh, work. You know what I mean.

In the meantime we get a hilarious riff at the ol’ magical girl transformation sequence as Mayumi is a little too exuberant in taking too much off. The sad part is, this actually happens. I’ll attest to it.

Meanwhile, God-chan eats food.

Somehow Mayumi forgets the fact that underwear goes on first and walks out into the cafe, as she puts it, ‘open’ in at least one area. This will be a recurring theme throughout the next few minutes as Mayumi very stiffly tries to cover up.

The fanboys however are very clever and pull the usual trick of knocking things over (this is screaming of that one Megatokyo scene) in order to get some nice panty(-less) shots.

We also wonder how much Kareha knows as she seems all too happy to give Mayumi a ladder-climbing duty.

Not to mention the hilariously brilliant and dramatic face-off between Mayumi and blue-haired-pervert Masato. Surprisingly he is the one that ends up backing off, probably because onee-san’s are decidedly not striped now.

Anyway, Mayumi is finally defeated by a gust of wind, friends of dirty otaku everywhere. Rin makes a token appearance at the end of her sidestory to be annoyingly nice and leave, as he always does, to go flirt with Nerine. Or maybe Kaede. Or Asa. Maybe Primula. Or Sia again. Geez.

Eyecatch!

The second half features the only teacher in the Shuffle! school, Nadeshiko. This is an alternate-point-of-view episode, in that we begin with Mayumi and Sia dashing off from summer school again.

This time around we get a bonus super-secret (and unimportant) meganekko, which despite sensei’s remarks is sort of cute in the homely, down-to-earth way. There is no shame in blue-haired meganekkos. Waiiiiii~

Nadeshiko contemplates her love life and again the viewers pray to every deity there is that she doesn’t end up a part of Rin’s harem as well. That’d be five different levels of wrong, right there.

Meanwhile, God-chan eats food. Running gag.

Nadeshiko comes across the aforementioned Mayumi and Rin tangle on the ground, which Rimu deadpans off as ‘playing doctor’. XD Nadeshiko ends up finding Mayumi’s wallet after she has already dashed off in a panic, and ends up burdening the far-too-helpful Rin with the objective of returning it.

On the way out of the school she ends up being hit on by at least 2 different people.

The first of which is Generic Ugly Loser Guy, who gets 2 points for trying. Pick-up lines do definitely need to be rated more awesome. Approve.

I wonder how she sliced the bottle in half there (in her demonstration of self-defense). That’s some raw magic skills.

The second is the typical running gag with Itsuki blindly hitting on people without knowing who the hell they are. We’ll file this one under ‘oops.’

She ends up in the cafe with Asa, who takes up the position of really nice advice giver again. Innuendo and stuff happens.

Rin shows up again, not being able to find Mayumi on his own. The two go for a bit of a ride in Nadeshiko’s strange-looking Volksmagen (sic) car. Do they even sell much VW imports in Japan?

Nadeshiko finally returns to her tiny apartment, where she holds a very amusing imaginary conversation with her mother on her answering machine. And also fanservice. (really now, did you not see that coming?)

Flip forward to the two ‘arcs’ converging at the public bath, where Mayumi stares at the wangs of little kids all day. Pedo.

The two girls share a bath scene with vaguely less fanservice than the Shuffle! standard for bath scenes (or did they not label it R-15 as of ep. 11?), and mention how much they just might have in common.

Two hard days, two different ways, and, uh, lots of panties. o_O That’s this series for you.

Next time: More plot, less panties, more loli, less Mayumi.

-CCY

Double digits!

Admittedly, my Shuffle! viewing has tapered off a bit after finishing the brilliantly epic 21st episode . ‘Tis the season of unnecessarily rigorous AP exams, and my anime watching and blogging has suffered as a result of it. But, on the good side of things I can finally catch up with the backlog of Shuffle! posts that I need to get done.

That said, less whine, more Sia.

This episode is, I believe, the temporary conclusion for her arc, but by no means is this fight winding down.

Rather Sia’s obsession with Rin kicks into high gear as we get the typical confession-at-the-beach sequence which turns out to be a scarily planned-out dream by Sia, right up through the marriage at the chapel and the well-wishes of the rest of the harem.

We see that this is not just Sia’s beliefs but also her fathers as he takes along Rimu to play a lot of dress-up as part of practice for Sia’s wedding. Can’t say if Rimu’s having fun in this or not (like she smiles anyway?) but she does look damn cute with her hair down, loli or not.

The next few scenes consist of the rather surprising news that Rin and Sia are going to get hitched. Less surprisingly, this news is rather unfounded in any sort of truth but everyone takes it a bit too much to heart – perhaps because it involves their beloved Rin.

Kaede in particular has a lot of very lonely scenes in the house, something that will be elaborated on in the later episodes. With Rimu out with God-chan and Rin ‘taken’ now it’s a very quiet and sad mood in the house, as Kaede is demoted to ‘quiet person who sits around and cooks/cleans.’

The lighting and sound is excellently done in these scenes to portray the loneliness the characters feel. Even the usually cheerful, if not shy, Nerine gets in on the action. Sad girls in chair.

And this is just a drill, too. Wait until we get the real confession…

Anyway, somewhere in the mix of the contrast of happy God and sad girls we get ugly fanboys, who luckily beat the crap out of each other this time for reasons I have happily forgotten to screencap and take note of. Also on a good note, they WILL be phased out in the coming episodes.

That’s a happy ending if any.

Asa also seems to be getting on a bit of Kaede herself as she is very subtly (not) surprised at Kareha going all shiny in a loud manner over Rin and Sia’s ‘engagement’. Her feelings for Rin, while not as apparent as the others are obviously there behind the genki girl exterior. She even calls the Fuyou household later in the episode, not to speak with Rin but to have a presumed strategy meeting with Kaede. The two have work to do to get their status to the forefront, but somehow you know all it takes it time.

Sia is surprisingly different than most harem girls in that she’s rather keen to keep the peace within the group. While she’s not aware of her father’s blatantly obvious plans to pair her with Rin (even quicker than she imagined), she does mention many times that she doesn’t intend to make this a fight to the death over him. Yay for a cooperative harem!

Anyway, flip over to the eyecatch and Rin coincidentally meets Nerine in a cafe, all dressed up. Gee, I wonder why that happened… Demon-chan is equally fervent to keep his blue-haired daughter in the race and so we get a bit of a juggling act as Rin tries to keep the harem happy.

However, this is most blatantly not Nerine’s arc, as Rin’s plot-exposition walk with her is cut out, leaving us in the dark.

Instead, we get more sad Kaede. She just takes it all this time and has nothing to dish out. Isn’t it sad, Kaede? She in particular personifies the Shuffle! belief of keeling over and giving up once there’s a hint that your loved one is going to end up with someone else (as shared by herself, Asa, and Nerine).

Back to Rin and Nerine in the park where they met for the second time. Sia is quickly losing ground, as much as she doesn’t know it, as Rin spends almost as much time with Nerine in this episode as Sia.

And Nerine gets the real first strike achievement of first serious (yet obvious) confession. Holy crap. She’s serious. Rin’s quickly getting put into a situation where he’s going to need to act quickly…

Sia finally beings to consider the harem ending, as she realizes that she’s been acting rather selfish the last few days and not considering any of the other girls. Sia really doesn’t want to lose her friends in Nerine and Kaede and thus decides to pursue Rin a little less competitively for now – although the Sia in the mirror seems to have different thoughts…

But let’s come back to that later, as Sia’s father comes in at the usual inappropriate time with his usual inappropriate wedding plans. Amusing violence follows, this time with a censorship card – that’s how bad it is. XD

In good news, however, beating the crap out of God-chan really does seem to rejuvenate Sia.

The episode ends with Sia and Rin ending up playing Kanon in the classroom at night again (without the sword-age, of course), and Sia officially places herself on hold now, keeping the peace in the harem.

Things are looking rather good for Rin as the chaos in his life is balancing itself out a bit, but what comes next in Rimu’s “arc” is going to be a ride…

-CCY