Raw: Very superficial understanding. Overall impression was that the fight scene was unnecessarily interrupted by an over-long dialogue between Touma and Kaori.

Chinese sub: My Chinese reading isn’t all that good either, especially for traditional (rather than simplified) characters but I did get the gist – even though Touma got KO’ed physically, he won the debate on points.

Quality English sub: Oh, this all makes sense. All that blah blah/pera pera was important background and plot information. The viewer was given the history, present situation and future to-do alongside Touma and also, at least in my case, empathy with his rejection of Stiyl and Kaori’s methods.

As Stripey was telling me, in some series and/or certain episodes of some series, understanding as close to 100% of the details and nuances of the dialogue is essential to the full enjoyment of the anime. I suppose the moral of the tanuki’s story was that until there is clarity of understanding, judgment reserved may be the fairest course.

Which is also why I’ve yet to make up my mind about Blassreiter. I’ve seen the last few eps raw but I will need the subs for the final arc to make up my own mind about whether the series was really excellent or just above average.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.

Mentar’s recommendation carries a lot of political capital with me too.

So, in addition to Mentar carefully anticipating and answering all my objections and worries (principally GONZO, then again Seto no Hanayome was enjoyable too – are they finally getting their act together?), there was also the invocation of the Shizuka Itou Doctrine for MOAR pink-haired kick arse goodness.

In contrast to the males, Amanda has been a constant pleasure to watch and hear over the first nine episodes that I’ve seen thus far. Particularly when she talks to Malek and Shizuka Itou says the Zaku trigger word, ‘Oneechan’, over and over again. Overall, there have been some surprises but the bigger, more interesting picture seems to be coming to the fore and I hope the series will go from strength to strength.

©2012 hontou ni sou omou?. All Rights Reserved.