Fushigiboshi no Futago Hime 13
We left off last time with Fine taking an unexpected ride off with Eclipse. There's no telling what Eclipse could be doing to Fine, so Pumo and Rain hurry up and try to track them down in the forest. They hear what seems to be Fine, but it seems to be something else...
Eclipse's dino goes a bit wild, throwing Fine off and finally stopping at the river, calming down. Eclipse feeds it, and Fine wants to do the same, asking its name and trying to feed it food. Eclipse walks off so Fine follows. He's gathering wood, so Fine offers to help out. While running around gathering wood, Fine's hand happens to touch Eclipse's... she gets rather red. Her heart starts beating faster. She's always wanted to talk to him... She asks why he always appears in front of them. His gaze meets hers, making her heart beat that much faster. She doesn't know why... her stomach grumbles before she can get anything out, though. Thankfully, there are some bananas on a tree nearby, so Fine uses her monkey skills to climb up and fetch them... forgetting that she doesn't have a tail anymore (^^;) Eclipse catches her, making her get all red again and her heart beat faster. Her heart must be weird or something, she thinks. Nope Fine, nothing's wrong, I believe what you're feeling is love~ ;)
Meanwhile, Rain and Pumo are still searching for Fine when Prince Bright shows up out of nowhere. He's there to check things out since he's heard some rather bad things about the forest -- travelers that have gone through have had rather bad things happen to them. Bright puts Rain on his horse, and away they go.
Fine and Eclipse seem to have lost their way, so Eclipse tells Fine to stay put while he finds the way back. Fine absolutely won't do that, begging Eclipse to take her along. She says that the dino must be scared too. Regina? She's not as much a scaredycat as Fine is. He's not a bad person at all, she thinks -- he must have a reason for his actions...
Fine and Bright (and Pumo, too) end up coming back to that same tree where they were before. Must be some kind of trick or something... Fine hears Bright and Rain's voice and rushes to them, with Rain rushing towards Fine's voice. They run up the sides of a big tree, meeting each other at the top...
And then things get more than a bit weird. The tree branches turn into steps and then Fine and Rain change clothes and cosplay as Eclipse and Bright, respectively. And Pumo... he's dressed up as a girl, and talking like one to boot. And Tio's there too (he's been showing up everywhere recently, hasn't he?), dressed up as Leonne, though nowhere near as cute. He makes a quick exit, and then Bright and Eclipse show up... cosplaying as Rain and Fine in dresses, respectively. But they don't make quite as convincing girls as Shiratori (from Mahoraba) does, not by a long shot (^^;;) The bottom drops out and Fine and Rain fall into a lake....
And we're back in the real world where Fine and Rain are trying to swim... they're actually laying down in the river. So Bright and Eclipse heard everything? Yup...
And so we get the iya iya dance (embarassed version). Nice tsukkomi by Pumo: "Isn't [doing] that embarassing?" ;)
The four sit around a fire, and as soon as Fine sneezes Bright gives her his coat. Rain notices and tries doing the same, but she doesn't get any attention... Eclipse gets up to leave, and Bright asks where he's going. The two seem ready to fight it out, but Fine and Rain stop them. The darkness suddenly grows around them so there's no choice but to do it. Prominence Dress Up! And Fine and Rain drive the darkness away (wow, the Prominence was straightforward in its workings this time). But that didn't really fix anything, so they try to do it again to get things back to normal... out of power...
Those shining eyes show themselves in the tree again, with a voice saying it'll show more dreams to them. Eclipse whips out his... whip and brings the creature out of its hiding place. He's Baku, and he eats dreams. And the dreams are so yummy, he wants to give everybody a taste of it. It's more fun eating with more people, right?... Fine, Rain, Eclipse, and Bright get visibly pissed off. I don't think they want any more dreams (^^;)
Outside the forest, Baku apologizes and goes back. Regina comes running out of the forest, coming close to Fine, so Bright jumps and takes her out of the way. Rain notices.. If something happens to Fine, Bright won't forgive Eclipse. Rain finally makes the connection... Eclipse gets on Regina, glancing at Rain before saying he has no interest in anything other than the Prominence -- he could care less about Fine. He tells her not to come with him again. She's a nuisance.
Fine and Rain ride Bright's horse, with Rain visibly not too happy with how things have turned out. Rain and Fine trade some heated words... Pumo gets a feeling that a storm's gonna be coming soon...
修羅場キタ－！！
shuraba kita---! (for those who missed the definition of shuraba... "fighting scene", "scene of carnage". Often used when two girls are fighting over one (or more) guy's affections)
And Pumo would seem to be right. All kinds of relationship flags went up this time, more strongly than ever before. We seem to have ourselves not a triangular, but a rectangular relationship set up here, looking something like this: (→ = "likes")
Rain → Bright → Fine → Eclipse → ?
It would seem that Rain-chan is going to be the loser here. Poor thing.... While Fine seems to have it good -- she came to sense her feelings towards Eclipse sooner than I thought. Amazing that won out over her appetite, at least for a bit ;) Anyways, I never woulda thought that we'd wading deep into the swamp of rectangular relationships in a show like this. I would expect things to eventually turn out well, with perhaps Rain x Bright and Fine x Eclipse pairings, but we'll see how nice the writers wish to be ;)
Should also mention that this episode brings us 1/4 of the way through the show. Been absolutely a joy to watch so far, probably the most fun I have every week, as I'm sure y'all that are watching it can attest to, so much fun you just can't stop watching it. And you just can't get the OP out of your head easily, either :)
Next time... Pumo trains and Fine and Rain fight it out. Should be fun :)
Certainly an interesting episode - I didn't expect Fine's 'relationships' to pop up, either, but in a way it really makes sense. I mean, a princess has gotta marry a prince, right? There aren't that many to choose from. There's Tio, but who wants him? (Although that *would* get you Leonne-can as a sister-in-law...*ahem*)
And by the way, a Baku is actually a spirit from Japanese mythology - a (usually) friendly dream eater that can turn nightmares into good dreams:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku_(spirit)
I absolutely love this series, dunno where to post this but thank you for subbing it! Brings a smile to my face everytime ^^