Newsletter 166, May 14th

... such a shame Erin wasn't around, especially because of what was present in Lucky Star... actually, that was probably a GOOD thing.

Claymore
Lucky Star
Black Cat
Mai-Otome
009-1
Fate/Stay Night
Darker than Black

Claymore 18- On the run from the Organization in order to find Raki, Clare and Jean find themselves found by Rubel rather quickly, and he gives them orders: to go to the North, where they’re to help take out Awakened Beings… and there’s also the fact that Raki had headed up that way himself. Clare and Jean find themselves among 24 Claymores who’ve been assigned to eliminate all Awakened Beings in the north… and it’s also revealed that they’re to exterminate the Creature of the Abyss Isley that is the master of this region as well. After getting split into various groups, the Awakened Beings watch the Claymores all group together, before they make the first move, taking out quite a few people as the Claymores themselves go in battle, and find out just how deadly the Awakened Beings are.

Lucky Star 6- Still on vacation, they use a day off of Konata’s cousin in order to go to the beach and have their fun. After that, there’s time in the bathhouse (where a very interesting topic comes up…), and finally Kagami and Tsukasa are supposed to clean their rooms…

Black Cat 5- With Train having failed to kill his most recent targets, he is warned by Chronos to go back to his old ways or face the penalties. However, Saya has influenced him to the point where he’s gotten free will, and thus he leaves the Chronos numbers, saying he makes his own choices. With this problem, Creed is assigned to eliminate Black Cat… but he proves to be no match for Train. More goons arrive to kill the both of them, but Creed’s obsession with Train (read: he’s probably gay for Train) has him kill the goons as Trains vanishes. He gives his gun to Saya for safekeeping before going off again, and meets up with Creed once more, who has an offer for him: to join the group he’s creating to topple Chronos and the current governments. Train refuses… and to make matters more interesting, Number 1 of the Chronos Numbers has shown up to kill both of them herself.

Mai-Otome 12- With Mashiro having gotten herself separated from Arika and Nina, and then later fainting and being dragged off, Arika is forced to play the Queen and Nina her Otome in order to greet the visiting prince. Mashiro has been taken to a slum along the river, where she befriends a boy who’s an immigrant to the country. While Arika and Nina keep the prince busy, Mashiro is given a different look at her city, one she was previously ignorant to: that of those who are suffering beneath all the glitz and glamour. We also soon find out that the prince is actually a fake (he is a she), and after a bit of a conflict, thigns get straightened out, as the “immigrant” is the actual Prince, and the fake his sister. Garderobe wanted the Prince to ally with Windbloom for power via political marriage, but after what he’s seen, plus the Otomes being so young with a dark fate, he refuses, and Arika wonders about a name brought up that seems to be a stain on the Otomes.

009-1 9- In the beginning of the episode, Mylene takes out an enemy agent, who utters an apology to someone named “Little Billy”. Afterwards, she ends up meeting with a family of three, and the father seems to be very proud of the stuff he and his brother did together, as he takes her through a tour of the town they’re in, such as where they went to school, and he elaborates on all the stuff he and his brother did together, and it’s quite obvious the two were quite closer, and he admired his twin. However, Mylene is taken to the home where the two brothers grew up together, and there she learns something: that this man is called “little Billy”, and the agent she took out earlier was his brother. Despite having his loving family, he’s more motivated by getting revenge for his brother… and thus, Mylene is forced to leave his little family without a father; she sheds a tear as she walks away from the scene.

F/S N 15- With Archer killed, Saber, Rin and Shirou are forced to run and make a strategy to get out alive. The only problem: Saber is running low on mana (essentially lifeforce), and Shirou is unable to provide her with any… though Rin makes a suggestion on how he could restore the mana, by more or less connecting Shirou and Saber together. Thus she performs the ceremony, which is rather intimate (though completely watered down from the original version…), and Saber is refreshed. They come up with a strategy: Rin with ambush Berserker when Saber provides an opening on her. Shirou wants to at least be of some help, and we find that he’s able to take sticks and convert them into a bow an arrow. Thus begins he next battle against Berseker, and just when Rin seems to have killed him… it turns out that because of who Berserker once was (Hercules), he must be killed 12 times total in order to be eliminated, and he’s only been hit 5 so far. Thus, in a moment of panic, Shirou tries to visualize a sword which will defeat Berseker once and for all…

DTB 6- With Carmine, better known as Havoc in his hands, Li attempts to get information out of her regarding what happened five years ago at Heaven’s gate, when his sister disappeared (damned siscon…). Carmine says she doesn’t know; since she lost her power, all her memories of that time were also erased. We learn from her that Li, even before he was a contractor, was a deadly and merciless fighter, and hence the name Black Reaper. However, he seems to have softened, and she wonders if he’s really a contractor due to lack of a price (or at least one that she can see). We see flashbacks of when Carmine was in the hands of a family, and things seemed rather peaceful back then. However, with Li determined to get any info possible out of her, and the other Contractors looking for them as well, Li decides to take Carmine to Hell’s Gate… but she asks should she get her powers back, that she is to be killed. They head in the direction of the Gate, and everyone is watching them; we see that Carmine is undoubtedly getting her powers back, but Li manages to talk her into a calmed down state instead of killing her. When a storm brews, they run; Carmine is taken down anyways, and he’s almost captured; only his team gets him out of trouble. When Li fights with the man connected to the Syndicate, he takes off, but Yin is able to halt him for a minute, before he walks away anyways. And the British Secret Service now has their own problems to deal with.

Rollcall:
Jeff
Dave
Nick
Steve
Tom
Andy

umm i believe steve was here this week too!!!

Thanks for catching that (figures him leaving early that day makes me forget he was there)

he's easily forgettable