*shrugs*

Just a thought.

Sigh. For one, the current arc (from episode 18 onwards) will also be exciting, ^+^

Firstly, it’s not hard to see who’s entitled to more pity in this situation: the draconic idiot Matsuyama vs the students who suffered under him and his merry friends. Who would you choose?

Secondly, imho Mai’s reaction is not really not that excessive. Naru mentioned that the curse would be weakened if spread amongst 600 people. However he also told Yasuhara that he could not guaranteed whether if the curse would be weakened to the point that it would no longer caused death nor terrible misfortune (accidents, victims to violent crimes, etc) to them. Judging from the power of just one of the four kodoku “eggs”, it would be a miracle if anyone actually escaped a terrible end, after the curse-returning. Mai experienced first-hand the power of the kodoku, so we can assume she knows instinctively that for anyone to come out of it in one piece is likely to be wishful thinking.

In short, if the hitogata hadn’t worked, 600 people will be in very deep trouble and worse. Mai didn’t know about the hitogata, so all she knows is that Naru was killing or subjecting 600 people to terrible suffering. 600 unknowing accomplices to a crime they don’t know of, some perhaps totally innocent of its original intent, compared to one single despicable man who (let’s all admit it) deserves death more than they do. Can any feeling human still blame Mai for bursting her top?

Having defended her so, I must agree with you all that her attempt to do a final exorcism was a total act of foolishness, despite having Dream-Naru’s warning to stay away from the danger-spots. She was lucky that Bou-san had came for her. Heavens knows what could have happened if he hadn’t been in time, or was unable to hold them off. It’s true that desperation had driven Mai to this madness, but such is no reason for her to risk her life and more, when she had already winessed the difference in power between her defenses and the evil spirits.

I am honestly a Naru-Mai pairing fan as well so please spare any rotten tomatoes and other miscellaneous eggs, but seriously, I thought Mai went *totally* overboard in terms of her reaction (as mentioned by a previous poster) to Naru’s decision - it made sense that spreading out the damage would be a far better option.

I mean, wouldn’t leaving the curse to run have made Mai et. al partially responsible for the death of the baka-sensei in a sense? *dodges critics and the like* What if the curse had finished just then and they witnessed the 4 evil-thing-a-mi-bobs converging on that one guy, like anyone is going to be able to sleep after that - particuarly Mai.

Long and short of it - loved Naru’s smile and his intelligence (hitogana! genius!), but I definitely thought everyone was a bit *too* patient with Mai, particularly Naru - she really needed a slap on the face or *something* drastic to stop her screaming such thoughtless and mean things. At the end she even says she was ‘thinking’ of apologising ?! Surely that should have been the first thing she should have said to Naru after insulting him so many times!

I’m glad that Mai has grown-up somewhat in this episode, hopefully in future episodes she won’t be so childish, and thus would make her a better match with Naru (now that she has better deductive abilities as well as psychic ones)

p/s: Odd that about the Kanji…

@Impz, I saw you are entering a doctorate fellowship, what are you planning to study? I myself am a professional student and managed to get a B.S. in English (Humanities) and a B.S. in Music L&C. I am currently looking for a good grad. school for asian studies which was my minor. If you need my email I would love to discuss different schools as I was stuck in undergrad at Mizzou which was a great school for mixed cultural interaction, but low on actual alternate cultural studies. We have a large foriegn student body but the different groups are very hard to break into. But we do have an Anime Club!

On subject. Out os curiosity how many eps are scheduled for this series and does anyone know about a second series? I have begun translating the manga and some of the plot differences are astounding as well as the amount of detail left out by the manga. What hooked me on the Anime was the seeming indifference to the norm and the manga seems to magnify that. I would say all the characters seem ttrue to form and that they only leave out the really boring andn pointless stories (MOST of the time) but I would really like to see some of these animated and if it is a short series I do not understand how they can assomplish this. I have a few japanese friends from different areas (Tokyo, Osaka, and Hiroshimo*) and they seem to believe that is a sleeper show and notice that is is slowly growing in popularity but is not even close to being a runaway hit. But with a steady fanbase hopefully we can continue this unusual and though provoking show.

One more question for the masses. Do you think that Naru will actually find himself with one of our heroines? The shippers aside, is the anime really headed in that direction or do you think it will just show the evolution of his character into a more extroverted person who shows his caring more easily?

I hope this comment gets read before the next summary. But I guess I can just paste into the next one.
*Pardon all spelling mistakes and inaccurasies I should be ashamed but even as an editor I am lost without my references and spell check.

Scary supporters and you expect me to go to the dark side, never!

However, it seems like Mai is really turning to become a medium of sorts, one that taps into the supernatural realm in the subconscious mind. It will be interesting when their opinions differ, Masako and Mai that is.

Of course, it is clear who i will support!

Jokes aside, I definitely agree with your opinion about Mai’s powers. What’s interesting about it is that, her developing abilities are somewhat similar to that of a Medium’s.

“coughbackoffMasakocough