First off, Haruhi season 2 was announced! Unfortunately, the animation will be handled by C&S, the same studio responsible for Gundo Musashi, and directed by Mitsuo Fukuda, with character designs by Hisashi Hirai. Kadokawa officials were unavailable for comments.

In other news, JAM Project will be signing the opening and endings to the new, hot-blooded Kyo-Ani epic “Lucky Star”. Lead signer Hironobu Kageyama reported that it will be their “most hot-blooded, intense, song ever!”

Speaking of Kyo-ani, after the series “Lucky Star” is completed, Kyo-Ani will go out of business. Anecdotal reports from Japan say that the OVA quality animation cost so much that they needed more revenue, but due to American fansubers, they lost every yen they had, and couldn’t feed their children. In bloging news, Impz has renounced his hatred of Mech and Shonen anime. He reported that he has already amassed a collection of Gundam models worth $2000, and has Naruto’s portrait plastered around his house.

Brief summary: We continue where we left off in the previous episode. Ryomu has returned, and is confronting the three “sisters”. After aptly defeating Chofei, Ryomu proceeds to go after Ryubi. After some confrontation with Kan-u, Ryubi unleashes her dragon, and goes berserk. After the battle, Ryubi becomes uncontrollable. It’s decided that the only way to calm her is to starve her until she gets close to dying. After a few days, she reverts to normal.

Meanwhile, Kaku and Sousou discuss the failed assassination attempt on Ryubi. Sousou then questions Kaku’s loyalty. Kaku and Kakuka discuss their ambitions and plans while doing evil things in their evil layer…of evil (they “get it on” in Kakuka’s apartment). Kakuka realizes something that he must tell Sousou, and steps out for a moment to go find him. However, he finds himself ambushed by Bashoku Yujo. While it seems like he’s winning at first, his vision blurs on him, and Bashoku gains the upper hand, stabbing him. Bashoku is also using the same weapon as another toushi at Nanyo, which leads Kaku and Sousou to place the blame for the attack on Nanyo, instead of Seito. The episode ends by re-introducing Hakufu and Shuyu.

Comments: Very, very good episode. We get Ryubi’s dragon being awakened, Bashoku’s appearance, some great fights, and the return of Hakufu. Not to mention the fanservice (and this is only the TV version).Screencaps will be coming as soon as I figure out how to take them. ‘^_^ EDIT: YATA! I did it! Screencaps comming in the next day or so.

So, being the new fan to Ikkitousen that I am, I jumped at the chance to read it for free when I found that my local library system had it.

This episode got the story moving some. Ryubi has been a treat to watch, as has been Kanu and Chofei. No real characters were introduced in this episode, but we did get some very good fight scenes.

While I haven’t actually seen the first series, I’ve been interested in the show for a long time due to it’s RotK connection. Recently, I read both the first volume of the manga, and the first episode of the sequel series “Ikki Tousen: Dragon Destiny”. So far, I’ve become an IT fanatic. The combination of sexy girls fighting each other while reliving the story of the Three Kingdoms era is very appealing to me.

This episode begins with a good set of fight scenes between everyone’s favorite eye patch wearing, goth-loli maido Ryomu, and the girl who is the reincarnation of Xiahou Yuan. After that, we are introduced to the three “sisters”, Kanu, Chofei, and Ryubi. The situation is explained to the viewer through the dialogue between the characters, so people like me have some sort of understanding of what is going on. After that, we get quite a bit moe scenes from Ryubi. The episode finishes with a few of the reincarnated Wei characters discussing Sousou, their leader, and Sousou himself rampaging around.

I have to say, jumping into the second season like this was easier for me as I have some understanding of the RotK plot and characters (plus looking at the wikipedia entry didn’t hurt either). Regardless, this was very entertaining to me. While not much happened in this episode, it had enough moe and fanservice moments to make up for it. While the censorship was annoying, it was to be expected.

If I had to rate this episode, I would give it a 4 out of 5. Entertaining, and fun, and newer viewers won’t have much of a problem jumping into the story. Though there isn’t much that happens plot wise out side of the opening sequence.