Freezing

Typical "breather" episode, comapred to last streak of 3rd Year's plotting and fighting. It was nice to see all those girl in those dresses for certain.

Although, I do miss the original couple eating contest from manga, though mostly because Satellizer's burger...errr, eating method is hilarious.

Annnd now we're getting to Godspeed arc. I wonder how they'll handle it. I'm hoping they'll just follow the manga - because then it'll be awesome. And I want to see some Nova smashing for once.

The main bad thing this week was the ending. Kazuya's Freezing at the end was pure asspull, especially how it seems to have been changed into ZA WAURDO, rather than actual "immobilize stuff" Freezing. But besides that, it was pretty decent for that type of an episode.

Also, I don't remember that last conversation scene in the manga and Stella crying on top of that, well not that I didn't like it o/

It was certainly a nice episode, and it was good to see some anti-Nova action for a change.

The beginning of the arc was certainly different from manga's, with Kazuya meeting Cassie and all, but they did managed to carry through Cassie's feelings and fears - that she entered Genetics mainly because of her father and doesn't consider herself determined enough to lead other Pandora's, as her fight with Satellizer demonstrated back in flashback.

What I didn't like is how they just cut out the whole relationship between Cassie and her Limiter. For one, it gave you a bigger kick when Cassie gets offed (or so the show wants you to think) by Nova back in Manga, with her screaming for his help. Furthermore, his confession was a part of what made Cassie reconsider her joining the Chevaliers, while in anime he's just some random nameless guy who keeps screaming her name. I do hope they'll touch on this in later episodes, but still...

The possibility of Kazuya being attracted to Satellizer because of his sister's Stigmata is certainly and interesting plot bunny here. It certainly wasn't there in the manga, but I'm quite pleased with it. One more hop for the pair to overcome. And I'm eager to see how they'll work together now since things will get real ugly, real soon, and they'll need their teamwork just to survive, let alone win.

Can't wait for Novafroms now.

I'm having rather mixed feelings on this one. One one side, we finally got our Novaforms, but on the other...I don't know.

I was honestly expecting them to go more with what happened in manga, mainly that Novaforms stormed Academy from all sides, curb-stomping third years along the way. Instead we have them randomly chopping some gate, whacking guards and awkwardly running forward. It didn't look bad, just silly. And the manga battle between Attia/Ingrid and Novaforms was just awesome, and had some punch character-wise. It gets gutted. Again, after what happened with Cassie's fight.

The part about Satellizer breaking out into physical fights over Kazuya is now getting really old. Okay, okay, we get it, she doesn't know how to convey feelings and is super-sensitive inside, but does she really have to try and chop Rana with that sword every time she gets angry?

I was also disappointed about how the issue about Satellizer being replacement for Kazuya's sister just gets blown over with some mumbling of "I'm not your sister!". Sure, whatever. But if you reel in a new plot bunny, you at least have to develop it besides the most obvious.

It was still watchable mind-you, and the next episode will (most likely) finally feature some good, old smashing.

But the episodes before, mainly the ones up to the battle between Rana/Satellizer and Arnett/Cleo were just better.

Or maybe it's me just reading more and more of Freezing managa since then, which frankly, does everything just that much more better.

But hey, this episode had absolutely fantastic eyecatch. In the end, isn't it all that matters?