November 11th, Newsletter 187

Kaze no Stigma
Tsukikage Ran
Gunslinger Girl II
Pumpkin Scissors
Glass Fleet
Kenichi History’s strongest Disciple
Ghost Stories

Kaze no Stigma 14- As supposed “payment”, Kazuma takes Ayano out for a fancy meal (and she denies that it’s a date to her friends). Unfortunately, at about the same time, another practitioner by the name of Catherine arrives in Japan, intent on proving she’s better than the Kannagis. So, after Ayano take care of some criminals who tried to rob the place, Catherine ends up next ruining her meal. And Kazuma also decides to investigate a yoma that seems to be haunting the building… letting the two girls fight each other, at least for a while (including Ayano unknowingly taking out the yoma). Since Catherine has a familiar that seems to constantly heal itself, Ayano gets a hint from Kazuma, and purifies the bonds holding Catherine’s spirits together… which in turn causes a huge explosion in the building. Kazuma tells Ayano how to clean up that mess… and then, Kazuma still wants a meal, so he and Ayano go out to a ramen stand (though he still saved an expensive wine bottle…)

Ran 5- Meow ends up running into an artist who offers to paint her beauty… though when he meets up with Ran, he turns out to just be an artist after any “beautiful” women. Ran ends up refusing… but while they talk in a bar, they overhear three men sobbing about how their wives left them… and as Meow later discovers, it turns out the owners of the bar actually just use the bar as a front while they kidnap the women. This leads to her (and the artist) getting captured. But leave it to Ran to later on also discover what’s going on... and she and Meow take care of all the kidnappers, freeing the women as well. And the artist abandons both Ran and Meow to use another woman as a model…

Gunslinger Girl II 9- This time, the Agency is to take out some high political figures who will be attending an opera… meaning that the girls have to get dressed up (and they enjoy every moment of it). And as one of the handlers explains, all operas seem to have very common themes, since Italians love tragedy… and as the opera goes on, Henrietta and Rico take out the two targets.

Pumpkin Scissors 16- Mr. Meann receives a visitor from a secret Society, the Silver Wheel Society… and it turns out he’s been doing the drug trafficking in order to get into said society… but the visitor says it is not up to him. In response, Meann has his men open fire on the visitor, who pulls a Hei and takes out the majority of the men with blades up his sleeves. Meann has his troops immediately halt, and in a true coward moment, begs for forgiveness… and the visitor leaves just as the elite Claymore squad shows up to handle things… and leave it to Section 3 to show up as well. Alice tells Roland that he can go and deal with the High Temperature Trooper, while she’ll take on the Claymores (who can’t move without authorization against her). And she also has Martis keep an eye on the big guy… thanking him for getting Section 3 into all this trouble, so she can fight for her ideals.

Glass Fleet 9- Vetti continues his false advances on Rachel, the Pope’s daughter… and despite all his sweet words, she can see right through his act (hell, we all know the guy is gay). Meanwhile, in order to keep “his” army with strength, Michel goes to a planet to recruit a former ally of Vetti’s, his financial advisor… and after confirming to Ralph that marrying Rachel would be purely political, he ends up suffering another attack.

Kenichi 6- Since Kenichi has now gotten himself involved with Ragnarok, he has to face a trio this time… two of them aren’t bad, but it’s the boxer that he has to be worried about. So, he has to get training from Appachai… who, because he was trained to kill, is trying to learn to keep his attacks from being lethal on Kenich (and just about succeeding). Thu, Kenichi enters into training with him… and Appachai has learned to control his punching. His kicks, on the other hand… But Kenichi survives and continues training to defeat the boxer.

Ghost Stories 3- This time, the group encounters a set of stairs that apparently cause darker wishes to come true… which means that one of their group suddenly gets ambition when a wish allows him to become the lead. So, with a ton of actor references in the episode, the group discovers that it’s the fourth stair where the demon was sealed… and due to broken statue, it was unsealed. While they have the statue, the stairs were demolished… fortunately, another set of stairs is used in the play. The cat-demon is content to let the other one roam free… until he learns that there’s a line in the play which would hurt even him. The group leanrs how to take out the demon, and with another weird chant, they’re able to seal the demon once more.

Rollcall:
Jeff
Dave
Tom
Erin
Andy
Ryan