Fushigiboshi no Futago Hime 45
Bright goes to King Rando of the Windmill Kingdom to ask for the kingdom's seal, which would make Bright king of the Mysterious Planet. However, the king doesn't quite believe what Bright says and would like some time to think about it. Bumo suggests they come up with a plan to make Fine and Rein look bad. Bright doesn't want to hurt Fine, though... but victory's near, Bumo says, letting out a huge evil laugh (^^;;)
Fine and Rein go to the ballroom, ready to win (yeah, like that'll happen..). But of course Altessa's going to be the princess that wins. Sophie says that this is her last chance (gakeppuchi - lit. [on] the edge of a cliff), so if she doesn't win she'll be stuck a loser. Fine and Rein do the gakeppuchi dance and Sophie joins in. Thank you, Sophie (^^;;) Bumo watches, ready with some surely evil plan. He spreads a rumor that a treasure of the Sun Kingdom is in the garden maze. Auler comes up to Fine, Rein, and Sophie, telling them to hurry along since it's about time for the party. He extends a hand to Altessa -- for a second she blushes, but then goes back to the usual tsuntsun, saying that her leg's just fine. The rumor Bumo started spreads around the ballroom, eventually reaching Fine and Rein. They want to check it out, but Shade thinks that it's a trap. But everybody else wants to go, so off they go to investigate the maze.
The princess party starts, but without any princes or princesses. The king hears that Fine and Rein have taken everyone off to search for that treasure in the maze. Bright walks in, praising the king for having such a wonderful party. The king's now convinced that it was a plan by the Sun Kingdom to mess up the party (*sigh*...)... Now all that's left is to come up with a plan to keep Fine and Rein lost in the maze -- Bumo calls it the... wait for it -- maigo wa iyaaaaiyaaa (maigo - a lost kid) plan. Bright and Bumo do the iyaiya dance at the appropriate part (^^;;) Bumo lets out yet another evil laugh, but it seems he's laughed a bit too much as his hip goes (^^;;)
Fine, Rein, and the rest arrive at the maze, ready to search. The walls of the maze were originally higher when it was built, but now they're lower so that you can see the whole maze. After entering the maze the walls suddenly grow higher and separate everyone.. yup, a trap.
Fine tries to find her way out of the maze, but keeps coming upon dead ends. She's getting hungry (of course)... Shade busts through the wall with his whip, ready to lead her out though. Not exactly the proper way to get through a maze, but anyways... she trips, but Shade catches her. Nice shot of the two of them there for the EcFa (Eclipse/Fine) fans ;) Meanwhile, Rein waits for her prince Bright to save her. A prince does save her... but it's Tio, digging through the ground like a dog (you're a lion..). Of course Altessa and Sophie end up lost in the maze together.. Sophie says that something feels a bit odd...
Sophie's certainly good at scaring Altessa. Thank you once again (^^;;) The sound that scared Altessa was actually Auler breaking through the wall with his sword. Auler, happy that both of them are okay, hugs them. Altessa blushes again. Uh-oh, the change is starting to happen ;)
Everybody makes it safely out of the maze. Exactly how did Leonne get out, though? Well, everybody except for Miruro. Everybody asks Fine and Rein to use the prominence to find Miruro, so they do, opening up a path through the center of the maze. They hear Miruro singing the OP (sono ki yaru ki kiai juubun) and find her in a dark dead end.
ミルロかわいいよミルロ！
Miruro kawaii yo Miruro!
Miruro knew everybody would come to help her :)
Everybody returns to the castle to get the party started, showing off their dances.
Sophie does her Windmill Spin on poor Tio, and Leonne and Solo do the samba.
The Seed Kingdom princesses do their dance on Naginyo's arms, Fine and Rein do their special iyaiya dance, and the best princess and best prince actually do a proper dance. Miruro kawaisu~
While everyone's dancing, Bright finishes his plan, getting the king to give him the kingdom's seal, thereby making him king of the Mysterious Planet... Auler and Altessa are the last pair up to dance, and what a dance they show us. Altessa seems to be having quite a lot of fun. The audience is very much impressed with their dance, so it would seem that Altessa will be best princess. However, Bright announces that he, now king, will pick the winner -- he picks Fine. The hall goes silent (^^;;) Fine says that obviously Altessa deserves to be best princess, and the audience applauds. Auler gives Altessa the medal, but Altessa gives it back to him. If he weren't there she wouldn't have been able to dance as well.
He's the first person that danced better with her than her brother did. And there's the deredere. Fine and Rein are extremely interested in this happening, being of that age... yeah ;)
Altessa's pretty much the main character now, isn't she? Never would have thought she could be this cute, but it happened. An excellent example of the tsundere character type, this time going from tsuntsun to deredere rather quickly all thanks to Auler. You the man! He might be an idiot like his sister, but he's very much a gentleman. I can like this couple ;) Meanwhile, in the other relationships... Some Fine and Shade, but not exactly a whole lot going on there. Suppose they'll keep it like this 'til the end (^^;;)
Anyways, the animation this time was the best it's ever been. Everybody looked really, really, really cute, with Altessa and Miruro perhaps getting a bit of extra attention. Style was somewhat similar to episode 25, but it was a different animation director this time, Sumie Kinoshita. GJ! :)
Next time, Fine and Rein get an invitation from Bright. Animation looks like it's back to normal... perhaps below normal...
In other Futago Hime-related things.... as I mentioned, DVDs 4 & 5 are on way, and I've preordered DVDs 6 (release on the 24th) and 7 (release March 24th). The first pressing of DVD 7 comes with a nice extra -- a box to hold the first 7 volumes:
Preordered as soon as I saw it. Miruro and Leonne look really cute ;) Other extras on the disc include clean OP/ED and some commercials for the DVDs. If you're interested in getting it, CDJapan has it, so do it quickly if you want the box.
I mentioned this in passing on the shoutbox, but in case you missed it. A posting on Tatsufumi Tamagawa's (episode direction, storyboard for a few Futago Hime episodes) blog would seem to indicate the other princesses will be coming back for the second season. In response to someone writing that they were looking forward to Gyu!, Tamagawa-san basically wrote that though the outfits changed, the content is still the usual "taste", perhaps even powered-up a bit. Up until now, Fine and Rein cound't see each princess without going to that princesses' kingdom, so they worked hard on each character's placement and role each of those episodes, but this time Tamagawa-san thinks it'll be much easier to cover it, and also thinks it'll be pretty fun. So, hopefully we'll see the other princesses going to school with Fine and Rein. So long the second season keeps the things that make Futago Hime unique then I'll be happy :)
"Altessa's pretty much the main character now, isn't she?"
I know what you mean. I was just thinking about it today, and I realized that she may very well have had more character development than the main characters!
Anyway, this episode was very much happiness for me ^_^ AltessaxAuraa is canon, yay!
But can Bright really become King without the stamp from the Sunny Kingdom? It seems to me that if he only needed a majority then he shouldn't have needed the Windmill Kingdom stamp...
That's ok, I don't want Fine to be with Shade, anyway. She's mi-- I mean, she's not ready for that sort of thing! Also, Sophie needs some attention, too. >:|
I started watching this anime last week and have seen only two episodes so far. But I think this is a pretty funny anime. Each princess has a different charactor and can see that very clearly. Gakeppuchi dance may be cruel in a sense but they take that pretty well and it is nothing but funny. What a shame only a few episodes are left. Is it true that they will show the second season? If it's so, does it start right after the first season is over. I hope so.
I really like this episode.
Fine and shade are a perfect couple ^^
I hope they be together.
I wanna see the next episode too its sooo exiting.