Fairy Gone

We often think of fairies as those little mythical creatures with some supernatural powers. We also think they are mostly harmless and at most just playful and prankish. But time to shatter all that pleasant stereotypes you have on fairies. Because what if fairies were tools used for war! Ah yes. Damn humans trying to harness the power of others just to kill each other for supremacy and in the name of justice whatever. So if you’re not prepared to have your childhood memories of good little fairies being destroyed, do not watch Fairy Gone at any cost. Well, I don’t think anybody’s general and overall perception of fairies will change. But you’ll never know. See what The Fairly OddParents did?!

Episode 1
As narrated, the Unification War lasted so long. Lots of casualties, lots of damage until the war ended when Eastald was unified under the emperor of Zesskia. Fairy Soldiers who were employed from all sides of the war suddenly find themselves with no place to go. In current year, Marlya Noel is hired as a guard for some auction but she keeps getting awed by the items in the backstage. Hence, Free Underbar who is the head of security for this mafia group, Gui Carlin has to remind her many times to get back to work. I guess it’s cue to introduce some of the basics like fairies and how some special bottle that imprisons them is the only reason why they are able to see them. When the Black Fairy Tome goes on auction, several staffs start to die horrifically. Veronica Thorne is a mercenary and she can summon fairies to do her bidding as she steals the tome. With the crowd panicking and trying to escape, Free and Marlya go suppress the panic but Marlya recognizes Veronica. Seems she is the person she has been looking for all this while. However Veronica claims she isn’t the person she knows. Free who is a Fairy Soldier, uses his fairy to fight with Veronica. When a stray shot breaks a fairy bottle, Marlya grabs it and what do you know? Flashbacks of her younger days. I believe there is more to it. Waking up, she goes to stop Free and Veronica’s fight. Marlya claims she joined Gui Carlin as the quickest way to find her and she has searched her for so long because they are the only survivors of the town they came from, Suna. With Veronica not interested to go back with her, she continues her fight with Free. And Marlya stops it once more, this time summoning her own fairy. While Marlya is in shock, Veronica manages to get away. Free discloses that he is actually from the special illegal fairy regulatory force known as Dorothea. He was doing undercover infiltration mission in Gui Carlin. Under the law, because Marlya has now illegally possessed a fairy, she would be arrested. But to ‘circumvent’ this, I guess now Marlya has to join Dorothea if she wants to continue looking for Veronica. Veronica hands over the tome to Damien Carme but he could immediately recognize this tome is a fake.

Episode 2
Marlya narrates she is an unlucky person because those involved with her get bad luck. In contrast, Free narrates he is a lucky guy. We see him go through some surgery to become a Fairy Soldier. Then in the war, his friends protected and died for him. Yup, that is lucky in the worst sense for him. Free reports to his superior, Nein Auler. Though his infiltration mission failed, she wants him to rewrite his report as she wants to keep Marlya’s mysterious fairy possession to herself. Free and Marlya then go rendezvous with Serge Tova and Klara Kysenaria to expose some illegal artificial fairies by the Arcame mafia group. An illegal transaction is going to happen as they stake out and wait for the relevant parties to arrive. Klara detects one of them as a Fairy Soldier and it looks like he might be on to them. Free and Marlya then head down to take action but it seems the carriages are all gone. Free then clashes swords with Wolfran Row who is a Fairy Soldier he once fought alongside with during the war but is now a member of Arcame. Marlya’s fairy helped save her from a certain fate as Wolfran gets away. Free and Marlya go after him. Wolfran tells his guys to use the artificial fairies to fight. After dispatching them, some of the men try to fight back and one of them got injured. Wolfran silences him. Free and Marlya go after the other carriages but eventually the driver also ends up dead. Wolfran again. Heck, he killed all his men and left no witnesses!

Episode 3
As narrated, during the war, fairies were hunted till near extinction so as to become tools for Fairy Soldiers. It is said there were about 300 Fairy Soldiers and when the war ended, only 17 of them survived. Wolfran being one of the survivors returned home only to find his wife and daughter dead. Wolfran sees Beevee Liscar who is a mercenary leader to sell him some artificial fairies. Because the artificial fairy plant that Free raided is empty (Wolfran cleverly clearing his tracks again), he goes to see Axel Laboo who is an informant to look into Wolfran. Free and Marlya see Marco Bellwood who is the ministry of fairies vice minister. He talks about the history of different coloured fairy tomes as well as the stolen tome was reported to be in possession of a fairy scholar. Hence he wants them to go to Isharat and see Cain Distarol. Arriving there, Free is not happy to see Bitter “Sweetie” Sweet, an associate member of Gui Carlin. With that kind of name… Free knows the kind of troubles this woman brings, the way she shamelessly flirts with him. Apparently she is also here to see Cain. What a coincidence, Axel is also here but he is observing from a far. Cain shows them his fairy imaginals when a fairy sneaks in and wreaks havoc. This has Damien to go check on the safety of the tome. However it is a ploy by Axel to reveal its hiding and then steal it. Axel runs throughout town while Sweetie tenaciously runs after him. Eventually she corners him. The tome or his life. With Free here, she calls him the government’s dog and the likes. When Axel tries to escape, she shoots him. He gives up on the tome and escapes. Think it’s a little too late? Now Free and Sweetie fight over it. Marlya fires a warning shot but Sweetie summons a fairy to restrain her.

Episode 4
Free and his Fairy can’t match Sweetie but Marlya and hers can outlast her? Sweetie retreats and after Marlya retrieves the tome, she passes out. She dreams of her past in Suna with Veronica. That fateful day when soldiers came burning down her village. Veronica left her so she could be a decoy to the soldiers. After nearly a day, Marlya wakes up. Talking to Free about mafia auctions becoming common showpieces today, because Veronica crashed into the Gui Carlin auction to steal a tome, they ask Cain and Damien how they got their hands on the tome. Because this isn’t an official inquiry from Dorothea, they are not telling. Marlya asks if they know of Veronica but apparently they don’t. Later outside, Marlya thinks they are liars but Free reasons they can’t join the ministry of fairies and continued to be private fairy scholars is because they don’t want to be shackled by the government. A strange couple sits next to them, Patricia Pearl and Jonathan Passpiere. They order something but leave before their order arrives. It is then Free realizes the tome has been stolen by those Gui Carlin members. The duo give chase and end up in the underground catacombs of a chapel. With the enemy blindly sniping at them, Free tells Marlya to hide as he moves forward for the hunt. He is puzzled if their goal is the tome, wouldn’t they be better off just escaping? Unless the target is him! Realized a bit too late, here’s Patricia coming to get you! Meanwhile Marlya has to face off with creepy Jonathan who thinks he is some sort of artist. Yeah, this guy can somehow close up on you and loves to give you pain! Pain is a blessing! WTF. Since Marlya can’t use her fairy, she is reduced to running away. When cornered, who is going to save her? Don’t hold your breath. It’s Veronica!

Episode 5
We have some flashback on Veronica’s uber tragic life as a kid. She tried to assassinate the new king of Tsubal, Ray Dawn whom we all know from the looks of it as the guy responsible for destroying Suna (or at least seen from that perspective) but she hesitates after pulling out her gun in public and he owns her with his fairy. Now Veronica jumps in to fight Jonathan. This ‘mad artist’ is no pushover since he can do all sorts of parlour tricks in the name of art. Especially with his fairy as an exploding chicken lizard whatever. Marlya can’t stand being useless and just watch so she manages to finally summon her fairy to distract. Enough for Veronica to take her to safety outside. Meanwhile Free has a hard time with Patricia. But once he got his groove back, Patricia realizes she can’t win so she escapes and leaves behind the tome. What looked like Veronica rekindling with Marlya, mad Jonathan returns so Veronica kills him with her fairy. And then back to cold old Veronica. She doesn’t want Marlya to get involved in her assassination of Ray. Yeah, looks like she still hasn’t given up. So forget about the old Veronica. That Veronica you know is dead. Bye. In the aftermath, Free and Marlya join other Dorothea members in the pub they frequent. I guess Marlya’s welcome party is guised as an excuse to introduce a few more Dorothea members as well as some old farts who were heroes in the last war.

Episode 6
As narrated, after the war ended, Golbarn Helwise surrendered his status as emperor and became a Prime Minister. 5 people who played an important role in the war were granted special positions and were known as the Five Dukes. However they died or were killed in extraordinary fashion. The only ones remain are Schwarz Diese and Ray. In town, an artificial fairy model malfunctions and almost harms a civilian. Free’s fast thinking has the model subdued. The model is then taken to Griff Mercer, the assistant vice minister for the ministry of fairies. He checks and there is nothing wrong with it. Nein then calls up Free and Marlya. Apparently there is news about the real Black Fairy Tome. She sends Marlya and Klara to see the informant, Buz Sebastian but this fatty thinks he can have his way with the ladies. Until all his men get their ass kicked and they pointing their daggers at his throat, now he becomes their b*tches. So he mentions about a recent auction where this tome was put up for sale. The winning bidder is an agent for a well-known circle called Black Four. Marlya and Klara tail that agent, Dice as he boards a train. It seems Sweetie has also caught news of this but she is a second too late and missed the train. Marlya and Klara search the train but they can’t find him. Thinking he might be in the compartment, they will search when the train is at the next stop. In the meantime, cue for Marlya to ask Klara how she joined Dorothea. She lost all her family during the war and after Nein saved her from those rape face bastards. At the next stop, they search the compartment but he is not there. Then they spot him getting off and chase after him. I don’t know where he was hiding that the girls couldn’t find him. Is he a master of disguise or something? Eventually they catch him but he remains tight lipped during interrogation. When Axel pops up before Free just to remind him he still can be useful, Free asks about Dice. Rumours say that this guy works for Gilbert Warlock, a high ranking member of Gui Carlin.

Episode 7
Sweetie is at Gilbert’s place in hopes he could just show her what Dice gave him. However he refuses and shows her the way out. Meanwhile more artificial fairy models go haywire. Nein is supposed to moderate between the meeting of the ministry of fairies and minister of the military who are at each other’s throat, passing the blame for the malfunction and jurisdiction of power. Dorothea is supposed to be neutral but is requested by Schwarz to just side the military. Both the ministry of fairies and the military send their men to the workshop of mechanic Hanns Efmed to find any abnormalities in the model. Free thought he spot Wolfran but could he be just seeing things? No Wolfran but Axel. Seems somebody wants to see him. Nope, not Wolfran but Sweetie. It seems she is offering Dorothea to work together to get into Gilbert’s place again. So Marlya and Klara have to doll up again to please that old guy? Robert Chase exchanges notes with Free about Wolfran manufacturing illegal models for Arcame. He may be here to disrupt the anniversary of the end of the war taking place in a few days. Later Robert remembers about Hanns because he had a man named Eddy Lloyd working under him. However he quit many years ago and hasn’t been heard since. Eddy was the designer of the old Psyden VII artificial fairy model. Though he was put in charge of the fairy maintenance division, he wasn’t pleased with this demotion. After he voluntarily resigned, he went missing. Rumour has it he joined Arcame. Gilbert won’t let young ladies change his decision. He is very well aware of Sweetie’s abilities to memorize everything at first glance. Sweetie continues to talk and ask in a way that has Gilbert admitting he has that stuff, the proof that Dorothea needs. Sweetie then exposes these young ladies are from Dorothea.

Episode 8
Using their fairies to pin down Gilbert, Klara also sends the signal for the rest of Dorothea to storm in. Sweetie then forces Gilbert to lead them to some secret underground room. Cunning Sweetie ditches them after the secret door opens. You mean they can’t open it again? Shouldn’t they just break it down using a fairy? Like how Free did? Yeah, but he broke down some other wall. Did he have the blueprints to the place? Anyway, in this secret room, there lies the Black Fairy Tome. Sweetie has escaped but didn’t take it. Meanwhile Daniel Keys from Security Bureau suspects Hanns tampering with the new models and arrests him. Because of that compromise, the new models that were supposed to be the symbol of unification will not be used for the ceremony. Robert gets permission to investigate more about Eddy. To his surprise that is not stated in the records, he was a workaholic and had a son, Ted Livingstone who is Hanns’ assistant. Talking with Hanns, he admits of not noticing Ted’s feelings that he may want to avenge his father. Oh, what’s this? The old models have this override function?! Hanns pleads for Robert to save Ted whom he has also treated like his own son. During the ceremony, Ted is making preparations to cause havoc. He notes the unification is a farce and Golbarn got rid of those who didn’t obey him. Just like how they did to his father. Using a special whistle to make the old models attack Golbarn, luckily Dorothea manage to stop him in time before any tragedy happens. It is noted that only Schwarz jumped to protect Golbarn but Ray just stood there minding his own business. When Ted is arrested, he is still crying foul about everything. Free tells him that it is okay to not forgive but they have to accept the war is over. It is an era where murderers are judged fairly. This means Golbarn is just a man like all of them. That’s why you don’t kill him.

Episode 9
Thanks to Schwarz’s heroics, he is rewarded with anything he wants. In that case, he wants a fairy weapon. Although he says this is to protect the emperor in case of emergency, some are sceptical. Fairy weapons are those weapons wielded by the Seven Knight and have killed many Fairy Soldiers. As Ray was part of the Seven Knights and of course in possession of one, it is only right Schwarz has one to balance it up. Hence he chooses Fratanil, the fairy weapon that belonged to the late Garlan Battle who was the chief of the Seven Knights. Hence Dorothea will escort it to deliver to Schwarz’s residence. Wolfran passes a message to Liscar. But he won’t join in the fun. That night as the train passes, it comes under heavy attack by Liscar’s mercenary group. Liscar uses his fairy to knock the train off its rails. Thus we get to see Marlya’s flashback of how some lone grandpa took her in, taught her hunting until the day he died. Poor girl buried him and started believing she is a cursed child. Marlya wakes up and Dorothea is engaging in battle with the mercenaries. When Free sees Liscar, he realizes the odds that are against them. Liscar was one of the Seven Knights and you bet he has his fairy weapon with him. Free decides to use Fratanil so Oz Mare goes to cover him by engaging with Liscar. Not good enough to match Liscar. Then Free fights him using Fratanil but he isn’t good at using the fairy weapon. Marlya tries to snipe the mercenaries but Liscar’s assistant, Sophie keeps closing the distance to take her out. Marlya could have died many times had not Oz come to her rescue. Oz takes in a lot of damage from enemy’s fire while protecting Marlya. When he could no longer move, Liscar finds it is a pity that he can’t fight him again and to put him out of his misery, kills him.

Episode 10
Everyone mourns over the death of Oz and other dead Dorothea members. Oh, Fratanil got stolen too. Free feels responsible? Marlya feels responsible? Can we just move on? Marlya is most effected since this plays up her devil being the cursed child. But she still has a job to do. This time, Free leads his team to Kal-O where Ray rules. Their job is to check if the fairy weapon and artificial fairies are within their stipulated parameters. Ray can tell Marlya harbours hatred towards him. He has seen a lot of people with that looks on his face. With an extra day, Marlya goes to see Jingle who is the boss of the mafia group, Biaklay. Unlike Gui Carlin and Arcame, they follow the law? Uhm? What?! Before she came to Dorothea, she was working as him as his bodyguard. He asks her to come back since he considers her as his family. As she is still thinking that she is a cursed person, look on the bright side, nothing happened to him when she was under him, right? Meanwhile we see Fratanil in the hands of Schwarz and he has that smug look on his face. Robert reports to Nein that Ted has been in contact with Wolfran who provided him devices that interrupt the models. Free then comes in to see Jingle. Can’t be here just to say hi, no? Free claims responsibility as the one who convinced Marlya to join Dorothea. This doesn’t impress Jingle because he might took responsibility but doesn’t have the determination to see it through. He won’t accept entrusting Marlya onto his hands. Free claims he has the determination. When it comes down to it, he will risk his life for Marlya. They may not be family but they are comrades. Marlya breaks down as she doesn’t want to be responsible for the death of others. It always comes down to her being protected. Free tells her not to run away. Did she not come to Dorothea to accomplish something? I guess she cries harder this time but it’s a sign that she’s freed from her doubts and ready to move on. Before they depart at the train station, Ray sees them. He wants them to deliver a letter to Golbarn. When he does, appropriate measures will be taken.

Episode 11
An ambassador in Hybranz is rudely awakened as the army storms in to kick him out. It seems Hybranz is declaring sovereignty and will no longer be part of Zesskia. Golbarn receives the news and felt betrayed by Schwarz. Everything has gone according to his plan. Because he has Nein and Dorothea to support the suppressive force, she is given permission to use her fairy weapon. Golbarn then reports to the emperor who himself strips Schwarz’s title and orders him to be defeated. By the time Free and his team return to HQ, they realize that Nein and others have left for war. Only the supporting staffs are left behind. This means Free has to deliver the letter to Golbarn himself. He does so and it seems Ray has got wind about Schwarz’s rebellion. Uhm, a bit too late this warning? But that is not all. The letter also states the war at Hybranz is just a diversion. No wonder Nein is puzzled why those soldiers aren’t putting up any fight and easily surrender. But it’s too late as the enemy is attacking the main palace. Damn, Liscar and his mercenaries just slowly waltzing towards the palace and shoot any dumb soldiers who can’t even shoot straight at them?! WTF?! Schwarz is seen with Wolfran. His plan isn’t to monopolize the fairies and having a free competition, this will give rise to new development and reforms, opening up a new world. Free and his men are the only ones in Dorothea who can counter the enemies attacking the palace. Free has a fairy weapon himself. It belonged to his late friend. He’s good in handling the sword. Did he have practice with it away from our eyes? I thought fairy weapons are sealed? Free finds it odd that the enemies are using attacks as decoys as he tries to figure out their true motive. Liscar and his mercenaries have finally reached the main palace. Even so, those damn soldiers still can’t hit him with their shots as he slowly walks in! They really have Stormtrooper aim!!! No wonder Liscar can whistle all the way while challenging them to shoot him right in the forehead! But playtime is over. Time to get serious in rewriting history.

Episode 12
Liscar and his men waltz in and just massacred all the soldiers. Either they are too good or the soldiers are just bad. Schwarz talks to Wolfran about history. Golbarn was the king of Cidal and launched an invasion of neighbouring Timoon. Garlan took Emperor Castal Harol from the imperial capital of Mazria which was under Ledrad’s control. Order was maintained by Ledrad’s manipulation of the emperor in which Schwarz’s team them was acting as accomplice. When the war was over, Schwarz thought Golbarn would become the emperor but he instead remained loyal. Perhaps the fear of the stigma of being the usurper. Once all this is over and Schwarz has the emperor in his hands, those pretending to be Golbarn’s ally will defect and leave Zesskia en masse. Free finally finds Liscar and they fight. But Free doesn’t intend to defeat Liscar himself. With the help of Marlya and Serge, they push Liscar into a corner. It’s time so Liscar gives the signal for his men to withdraw. Schwarz now storms his way to the emperor’s room. So his excuse is to protect him? After killing all the soldiers? Noticing that Wolfran is missing, he sees Ray. Schwarz thinks Wolfran is also working under him but Ray easily kills him. That was fast. Schwarz is stunned that he is so powerful but still kissed up to Golbarn. Well, Ray never liked Schwarz in the first place. Marlya wants to go after Liscar for revenge but is stopped by Free. He reminds her that they have done their duty as Dorothea. The enemy has retreated from the palace and that they have won.

Episode 13
As the palace undergoes repairs, this episode fleshes out the past of Suna that was peppered throughout the first half. Ray and his brother, Jurgen often visited the forest where the fairies reside. Suna was a place blessed with fairy primordials that it is a fairy village. But fairy villages over the world dwindled due to excessive fairy hunting. Then there are those who worship fairies and consider them as pure and innocent. If that is the case, does it justifies anything they do? It is that pureness that makes them a threat. Ray’s father, Thori was one of the many guardians who protected the fairy forest along with Ivan and Olek. When an Esteemed One was spotted, Ivan tried to distract it but ended up sacrificing himself to appease it. One tragedy after another because it was the same day his daughter, Marlya was born. And that same day, her mom, Tereza who gave birth to her, died soon after. Deira, Suna’s fortune teller wants the ritual conducted to appease the Esteemed One by finding the blessed child. After all, the stars already pointed out the cursed child. Thori was against this ritual because the last time, it sacrificed 4 blessed children and 1 of them was his sister. Hence Thori sacrificed himself by leading the Esteemed One deep into the forest. As Marlya grew up as a cursed child, she was raised by Jurgen and his wife. She became friends with Veronica who was the blessed child as she didn’t care about Marlya being a cursed child. Then one day, Ray marched into Suna with his army. Disregarding Jurgen’s advice, he has his men burn down the place and kill everybody. Because he views fairies having no will of their own, it is foolish to let them run loose. Also, to end this war, he decided to eliminate the fairy village just to control the excessive power that would otherwise make people go astray. Of course Ray killed his own brother as the other villagers get mercilessly slaughtered. Veronica as we have seen vowed revenge and she became the bait to let Marlya get away. Now, Ray is being celebrated as a hero as he returns. Marlya knows revenge won’t change the past but Veronica thinks differently. He’ll get what he deserves.

Episode 14
Dorothea is escorting Ray back to Tsubal. So can Veronica ride her bike and catch up with the train? But wait. The bridge explodes. Gauging from Veronica’s reaction, she isn’t the one who set up the bomb. With Ray saved, they spend the night in a nearby abandoned castle. In a room, he is visited by Wolfran and Michel Conner, a descendent of the Red Fairy Tome. Ray believes those out to kill him are Schwartz sect of the Arcame remnants. Of course the latter’s target is also Wolfran for turning traitor. Deep in the knight, truckloads of artificial fairies are spotted. I bet those pea shooters can’t stop the rampaging trucks. Dorothea goes into formation to maintain order. Wolfran suggests Michel take Ray and escape. Veronica sneaks in hoping to ambush Ray but is met with Wolfran. They both fight and when they draw out their fairies, Wolfran understands Veronica’s situation after knowing she is a Suna survivor. And then Free and Marlya come into the picture. Guys fight with each other but Veronica calls it quits and escape? Marlya follows her. So we get a glimpse of how Veronica was saved by Damien who is a descendent of the author of the Black Fairy Tome. Damien observes Veronica interacting with a fairy in his home and then absorbing it into her heart. Now the girls sit and talk nicely about their past. Until their ideals start to diverge. As you know, Veronica wants to kill Ray and isn’t amused that Marlya is now protecting him. Marlya understands how she feels and even though killing Ray won’t bring back Suna, they both have each other. Sorry folks, no yuri time here but eventually Veronica remains steadfast to her believes and leaves. Marlya vows to always find her even when she gets lost. Meanwhile the guys continue to duke it out. How can Free understand if Wolfran don’t explain anything? Ah well. Both sides taken enough damage. Time to call it a night. Before Wolfran escapes, he asks what Free is fighting for. What is he protecting. What will he have left.

Episode 15
In the final day of the war when Olbany the Ledrad king announced an official surrender, he also took his own life when many of his soldiers were still fighting to protect him in the battlefield. Free failed to stop Wolfran from leaving after the war ended. He realized he didn’t understand a lot about him. Free reports to Nein about the recent incident. It is believed that Wolfran has betrayed Arcame because it left Schwarz dead and Arcame on the verge of being wiped out. This info came from Robert who interrogated an Arcame member, Gail Dope. Dorothea turn their attention to eliminating Arcame. It is not easy task as Arcame doesn’t have a chain of command. So they have to individually wipe out each hideout. Free then ropes in Axel in hopes he could get more info out of Gail. It leads to Dorothea storming into the residence of Christoph Rahn. He is the last son of Olbany but not the son of the queen. They search his place for evidence but nothing so far. It is believed he supported the rebels by disclosing a secret underground pathway into the palace. As a royalty, he knows such route unlike the unified government and hence told it to Schwarz and Arcame. Now that Christoph is not home, they believe he has fled and in hiding. We take a short detour seeing Marlya still having low self-confidence. Still not over Oz’s death? Still consider yourself a cursed child? Leave it to Serge to say how everyone in Dorothea will gladly lay down their life to protect others. So believe in us. Marlya crying like that, I assume she’s over it? News of Christoph has been found in the slums. His body. While it looked like he killed himself, another quick take shows that somebody killed him. As Axel discovered his body first, he is suspected and arrested despite he denied doing anything. But we see a flashback that Axel met Christoph and talked. Seems Christoph wanted to meet Liscar and get his support but Axel disagreed seeing he knows a lot and this would put him in danger. Axel then swiftly killed him.

Episode 16
Griff realizes that part of the many confiscated items from the cargo ship of an island port town is the real Black Fairy Tome. Since this is too much for him to handle, he reports to Bellwood who in turn reports to Golbarn. Hence the sending of Dorothea there to investigate. Damien and Veronica are sneaking into the admin office where the tome is kept but looks like somebody has beaten them to it and left trails of dead guards. That guy is Eajay Daven Thor who is one of the top executives of Gui Carlin. Veronica fights him but is no match for his fairy. Plus, he has a fairy weapon. Damien tells her to escape. We hear Eajay talk about Crucia Albastora who wrote the Black Fairy Tome and believes Damien is his descendant. Eajay’s ancestor, Colen Thor wrote the White Fairy Tome and did a lot of extensive research. He believes that as Albastora was a student of Colen and hence stole many of his teacher’s works, took credit for it to write the Black Fairy Tome. Sweetie and Patricia are also here to steal the tome but seeing Eajay around, this guy is bad news. Hence they go meet Damien and Veronica in hopes of teaming up against Eajay. Thanks to the fire on the admin office, the island is cordoned off and nobody leaves. Damien spots Free and Marlya. He goes talk to them in hopes of extracting some info. Meanwhile the ladies talk about Eajay and here comes this guy looking to pick a fight with them. Sweetie takes Veronica hostage in hopes to strike a deal with him. When that fails, Patricia attacks with her fairy. Too much to handle? Run! Sweetie’s turn. Too hard for her too. Escape! Veronica, your turn. Come on, ladies! This guy too tough for you to beat?! She too flees. It gets complicated when Veronica flees into Marlya. Free takes on Eajay but his sword breaks. Eajay has changed his mind and challenges anybody who can get the tome from him. Of course he isn’t going to play fair and uses a hostage to allow himself to escape. Marlya questions who Damien is because he seems to know Veronica.

Episode 17
Damien is also arrested and brought back to HQ for interrogation. But he will alone speak to Nein alone. Damien reveals he is a descendent of Albastora instead of Carme (the family who created artificial fairy models). Having said so, he knows all the contents written in the Black Fairy Tome. Meanwhile Free and Marlya wait outside as they talk about the fairy tomes divided into 5 pieces: Original, red, blue, white and black. Among them, only black doesn’t exist but 200 years ago, Alan Bach tried to compile all of them but only the black part was removed. It is believed he deliberately split it into 9 parts and encoded them. It could be worth a lot, that’s why many are after it. Damien continues his revelation to Nein that the Albastora clan wanted to deleted the Black Fairy Tome before it got released because those who read it might crave for it even more. Of course Bach secretly retained a copy and now there are some trying to assemble it. Not just Gui Carlin but other groups that are far more dangerous. Nein then sees Bellwood to confirm that Gui Carlin stole that Black Fairy Tome and wants to use this chance to eradicate that mafia group. He gives his permission. Free sees Sweetie and knows she is hiding here as this is the safest from Gui Carlin who is also out for her blood. He wants her to spill everything about Gui Carlin and in exchange, Dorothea will not chase her anymore. Nein then presents a list of those closely connected with Gui Carlin to Golbarn. Some are high ranking ministers and rich businessmen. Even some helping in the unification after the war. Golbarn gives his permission for this operation. But if this sting turns out wrongly identifying the culprits, Nein will take responsibility and resign. Hence we see Dorothea going into full swing to arrest all those people. One night, Free and Marlya secretly take Damien away on Nein’s orders. The manhunt for Eajay is turning out to be the biggest manhunt ever so if some find out Damien is here, they might target and kill him. Marlya wants Damien to stop ordering Veronica to do things. He denies and that she has her own reasons for doing so. Whether or not she wants to go ahead with the revenge, it is up to Veronica herself to decide. Damien thinks everyone is alone and Veronica won’t come back to him now. Marlya disagrees. Veronica still has her.

Episode 18
Nein reports to Bellwood the several high profile arrests including some traitors within the government. Because she also suspects some corruption within the ministry of fairies, Bellwood will thoroughly investigate his staff. Later Nein talks to Damien about Bellwood who is a descendent of Hel S. Bellwood, the first fairy scholar and creator of the Fairy Tome. And also something about an old religious sect called Eins Order. Sweetie and Patricia are in Mazria where Eajay is holing up. Knowing that Dorothea will also be here to take action, they will use this commotion to steal the tome. As Dorothea infiltrates via the secret underground passageways, they stumble into a section where lots of corpses are dumped. They are failed surgical experiments of fairy soldiers that Eajay is trying to do. Eajay talks to his right hand man, Quatoe about the chicken and egg problem: Did God or fairies come first? For fairy scholars, the fairies did as this follows the teachings of the Eins. Eajay doesn’t care as he will use them as he sees fit. Eajay gets word that several men from the lookout posts are dead. Get ready for action. Dorothea has their hands full in dealing with the Gui Carlin mafia but also Quatoe who can summon several fairies. He is one of the few successful cultivated Fairy Soldiers. Nothing like a few trust in your comrades to have Dorothea beat the whole lot of them. Eventually Free sees off Quatoe to have a final showdown with Eajay. Oddly, they fight on a flimsy wooden scaffold. I can see how this is going to end. Eajay getting desperate as he rants about fairies should be set free and not used by anyone. Humans and fairies will live together in harmony. Eh? Wasn’t he trying to take advantage of the fairies? Somehow conveniently, Free makes a nasty slash across Eajay. Eajay wants to take him down with him as he cuts the ropes. Only Eajay falls to his death because Marlya jumps to grab him to safety. Wow. Can she even do that? Is this the power of trusting your comrades? I thought summoning a fairy would be easier, though… Eajay’s death means the end of Gui Carlin. But Veronica is seen taking his fairy weapon. As Dorothea retrieves the Black Fairy Tome and prepare to return to HQ, they are ambushed by Wolfran. Even more shocking, Michel is using the same fairy as Oz.

Episode 19
But the fairy goes berserk and doesn’t listen to his command. Marlya could ‘hear’ the fairy’s voice claiming it doesn’t want to fight. In the end, the fairy leaves Michel’s body and vanishes. When Marlya tries to interrogate him, he claims that the Black Fairy Tome is now complete and their ideal world will begin. No longer will it be ruled by man. Marlya reports this to Nein. From what Michel says, it could mean that the ministry of fairies could be behind this as they have the remaining volumes. So having this last volume means they have the complete set. They realize the twisted system when a Fairy Soldier dies, their fairy organs become the properties of the ministry of fairies so as they could use them again. Marlya then tells of the fairy’s voice she heard. She feels weird about this because she didn’t undergo a fairy organ transplant like Fairy Soldiers. Nein reveals she could be fairy possessed. It is a rare occurrence whereby a fairy possesses a human directly. This is the same for Veronica and Ray. Could it just be a coincidence that they come from Suna? Marlya was never told about the details about this since they were forbidden to enter the fairy forest. Nein thinks Damien can enlighten them about fairy possessed. Meanwhile Wolfran gives the final volume of the tome to Bellwood and he is very pleased. Damien deduces that Bellwood’s goal is to resurrect the Divine Beast said to be equal to God. In the past, it happened before and turned the prosperous ancient kingdom of Tupal into a desert of death. This means Bellwood’s next step is to secure a fusion, a fairy possessed organ. Damien requests to see Golbarn and he will explain everything from the past to what he has done. Golbarn is disappointed that yet again another trusted comrade is a traitor. He asks Free that they were enemies during the war. But why is he now working with the enemy he once fought? Because he doesn’t want to see another war like that ever again. Golbarn gives the directive to arrest Bellwood and all his accomplices and leaves this entirely to Dorothea. That night, all the units surround the building of the ministry of fairies.

Episode 20
As they barge in, they realize the fairy weapons have been taken away. Entering Bellwood’s office, he isn’t here but a suicide bomber! Had Free not acted promptly by using his fairy to throw away the bomb, they could’ve been goners. It is believed that Bellwood is the leader of Eins while Griff and Wolfram are his lieutenants. Knowing their next step is to get a fairy possessed, Marlya informs the rest about her fairy possessed condition. They are surprised at first but make no big deal of it. Marlya is still Marlya. Another one of those unfounded worries blown away. Dorothea spend their time trying to look for Eins. They have no leads until they look at the confiscated records of Bellwood and Griff’s unusual long leave during office. They visited odd places and one of them being Wolfran’s hometown. Free and Marlya go there to ask the locals. An old man reveals Wolfran was devastated to learn his wife and daughter died. He became disillusioned he fought the war for nothing. Though there is a grave for them, it does not contain their bodies. Wolfran was then approached by Bellwood and they talked for a long time. Meanwhile Wolfran visits Michel in prison. The latter telling him someone in Dorothea is fairy possessed. Wolfran gives him a lethal potion to make it look like natural death. Free and Marlya are in the next town to find Olek, someone who is associated with Bellwood. But when that name rings a bell, Marlya returns to Suna to find Olek living as a recluse. He didn’t die then when Ray’s soldiers attack. He talks to them about the balance and bridge between the worlds that the fairies play an important role. Also a brief history of Tupal how man wanted to be superior to fairies and instead of summoning God, the Divine Beast is actually a demon. So those who were going to be used by Tupal as sacrificed, ran away to Suna and hence it is the origins of this land. Marlya is shocked to learn that Veronica was supposed to be the one offered as a sacrifice. Because when you’re giving a gift, you want it to be the best, right? A few years ago, Bellwood did come here. Because Olek was poor, he revealed all the fairy secrets for money. In the end, Bellwood and is men captured the Esteemed One. Free and Marlya hurry back but as they stop for the night, Marlya is out by herself and thinking about things when she is approached by Wolfran. Griff enters Golbarn’s office and kills him with his fairy. So this is how saving the world looks like?

Episode 21
Since Marlya won’t go with Wolfran, time to summon those fairies and fight. Marlya can hear his fairy saying it doesn’t want to fight. She thinks she can save him but he laughs at that idea. It’s not like she knows everything about him. Wolfran flees when Free comes to her aid. When they return to HQ, they hear about Golbarn’s assassination. With Eins knowing Marlya is fairy possessed, Nein wants Marlya off the case. On the contrary, Marlya wants to become the bait to lure Eins out. It is dangerous but her comrades promise to protect her. Ray comes to town to seek an audience with Harol. As he wants to help Zesskia in these trying times, he will relinquish his current position and take Golbarn’s post as Prime Minister. Harol agrees and appoints him. Wolfran reports his failure to capture Marlya. But with Golbarn’s assassination, this has brought all the fairy possessed into the same area. Because where Ray goes, Veronica will be waiting to kill him. Then there is a riot in the prisons. As some prisoners run free, Axel is confronted by Wolfran who wants him to deliver a message. Ray learns that Marlya is a survivor of Suna. So he summons her to talk privately and the moment he does, he calls out his fairy to attack hers. This is to test her ability to hear what the fairy is saying. As he too could hear the fairy’s voice, he tells her not to listen to the fairies. It is the voice of the people that they must listen. This is a world that humans built and the balance the fairies are trying to maintain no longer exists. He reveals the reason he burnt down Suna because he once thought he should be the only person to be fairy possessed. Knowing that Veronica is fairy possessed and wants him dead, they need to find her quickly to keep Eins from using her. Don’t have to tell that to Marlya. And then it’s like Marlya just realized her fairy pet, Chima could be useful after all. Remembering it can probably smell others with fairies, she has it sniff out Veronica’s whereabouts. Gee, never thought of this before, huh? What convenience. And when it sniffs Veronica hiding behind some door, Marlya tries to convince her to come under Dorothea’s protection since Eins is after her. As we expect, Veronica isn’t buying into that and still wants revenge. Veronica is still reeling from the suffering of the fairies and believes humans are to blame. And then Veronica just ‘vanishes’ once more, leaving Marlya behind. Her voice didn’t reach her… Axel sees Liscar and delivers the message that he is needed for the ‘final stage’.

Episode 22
A state funeral is held for Golbarn. Dorothea escorts Ray to the place but of course, enemies attack. With artificial fairy soldiers blocking their paths, Dorothea has got to find alternatives to get Ray to safety. Free once more clashes with Wolfran but this time the latter is using Fratanil. Eventually Ray’s escort comes under attack. He is forced to fight Liscar and Ray is no pushover. Until Ray gets injured, Nein switches with him to fight the war crazy mercenary. He even gives her fairy weapon so as to fight on equal terms. Marlya and Robert reach a secret safe house. After Robert leaves to find medical help, Veronica pops up. I guess now is the time for revenge. Since Marlya can’t shoot her, Veronica goes all out to fight Ray who can only defend himself. The fight takes a breather, allowing Ray to explain what he did was unforgiveable and that he isn’t seeking forgiveness. He believes people like them (the fairy possessed) shouldn’t exist in this world. Also, ancient beings have been misleading people and should be destroyed, thus his destruction of Suna. If man wants to kill, he should do it with his own hands. Marlya thinks he is lying when he says he has no regrets. Because this is not the first time Veronica tried to kill him. She did so before and was arrested but each time he released her. He did so because he regretted his actions. But because of this, she gets to see Veronica. For that she is grateful for him. Ray doesn’t deserve to be thanked. Only hated. Marlya doesn’t intend to forgive him either but hating or killing him won’t make things better. Yeah, Veronica so confused no wonder she’s getting so emotional. Even more so when Ray apologizes from the bottom from his heart. Cue for Marlya and Veronica to get back close together again and give each other some hope. Sorry to ruin this (yuri?) moment because Griff is here to take one of them and kill the rest. Ray protects the ladies with his fairies to let them escape. So he pays the price as Griff drags him back to his base, puts his fairy organ into the Esteemed One. Or is it the Divine Beast? It roars back to life. Beginning of the end.

Episode 23
With the Divine Beast turning everything into sand, Bellwood and his Eins fellow gladly embrace the new era. Yeah, I guess they found their salvation. RIP. Do Marlya and Veronica have enough time talking about escaping and surviving? I mean, Marlya just reunited with Veronica and now she wants her to leave to be safe? Didn’t you promise from now on you’ll be together? We get it. You’re family. No time for such talk. The Divine Beast is rampaging. Nein finally kills Liscar. But he dies a happy man. Nein also took on a near fatal damage from him. Sophie is about to kill her but Dorothea reinforcements are here. It’s like once Liscar is dead, all his men lost their vitality. Yeah, Dorothea so sharp shooting and killing all of them off! Even Sophie! Can’t believe she easily died like that. Back to Free and Wolfran’s fight. We know Wolfran isn’t going to listen to his words about being free and moving forward. He just wants to destroy everything after his family’s supposed death. But Free has the better will. After cutting through Fratanil, he won’t kill Wolfran. He knows nothing will be solved. What good will it do if they kill each other? Only survivors pass on their knowledge and that’s how they get better. And yeah, Free isn’t such a kind person to kill him. Free notices the Divine Beast came out from some cave. He thinks this is where Eins’ base is and heads there to find some answers on how to stop it. However only Griff is there. Looks like he wasn’t stupid enough to sacrifice himself. So he intends to be the one who will create a new world order? Typical megalomaniac but at least he was sneaky enough to use others for his goal. Free fights him and is surprised that he has a fairy weapon too. But Free won’t have to fight him alone. Wolfran joins him. So now Wolfran is also a changed man? Don’t want to die now, huh? As Marlya gets closer to the Divine Beast, she can hear its voice. Seems it doesn’t want to destroy humans but has no other choice, Time for Marlya to be a heroine. She’s going to save and free the Divine Beast.

Episode 24
Eins’ goal was to let the Divine Beast wipe out civilization and let the fairies rebuild the world as they see fit. However Griff knows very well the Divine Beast will not entirely wipe out humanity due to some limitation. I mean, isn’t that why humanity still survived after Tupal’s downfall? Hence Griff’s plan is to become the new leader of the survivors. Yeah, great goal. Only if Wolfran didn’t kill him! Good grief for Griff. Haha! Whoops. Meanwhile Marlya and Veronica realize that their fairy weapons keep them safe from being turned to dust. The plan now is to cut open a hole in it, then summon a fairy to go inside and destroy its fairy organ. So this is how to set free the Divine Beast? Okay. Never try, never know. Of course it is harder than it looks and Veronica gets impaled! Oh no! So kind of the Divine Beast to give the ladies some time to talk it over because you know somebody’s death flag is coming up. So after Veronica telling Marlya to live her part, she pushes her into the hole while she herself gets turned into sand. No time to cry over sand. Veronica’s fairy joins with Marlya’s and now she has a fusion of a badass fairy. At least Veronica now lives inside her, no? With Free coming by, convenient transport to get up close to the Divine Beast. Enough for Free to slash it open and Marlya using her new hybrid fairy to fly inside and destroy the Divine Beast once and for all! Just endure the big sandstorm finale. And then we have Marlya talking about the fairies will be gone with everything else because humans has lost too much. But Free remains optimistic as long as somebody remembers, what they’ve protected will still be there. And so he wants to remember and know more about Veronica? Indeed. Marlya has lots to tell him but first she has to stop her crying. In the aftermath, humans continue to live and rebuild their lives. We see snippets of what happened to other characters like Axel being arrested again, Damien joining the ministry of fairies, Nein still heading Dorothea instead of contemplating Prime Minister post, Wolfran back in his hometown and Sweetie and Patricia travelling the world! You go travel, girls! You’re free! Free and Marlya continue to work hard at Dorothea since there is still the possibility of using fairies as weapons. Well, as long as humans are still around…

Fairly Gone To The Dogs
Oh well, at least the good news now is that Marlya doesn’t have to further chase after Veronica as she can now be easily found at one resting place. HAHAHA!!! Oops, sorry. But you get what I mean. Too bad no potential future yuri. And with quite a few characters dead, it doesn’t seem likely that anybody is going to pose a new threat and become the next megalomaniac to take over the world or repeat the disaster of destroying it. I mean, all those really suspicious guys whom you will suspect to be evil underneath their skin or the potential individuals or organizations to misuse the fairy power have all met their demise. Maybe the king. Maybe the military minister. But they look more like wuss who could get their asses kicked without Dorothea’s protection. Just exaggerating but I can’t dismiss that feeling. So the world is safe for now to give fairies some breathing space to live until mankind rebuilds itself. Well, if history has ever showed us, it has clearly repeated itself here.

Sad to say that the story is all over the place and it is really hard to pinpoint what is actually going on. Firstly, it would be wrong to just blame it all on the producers of this series, P.A. Works. You see, unlike many other studios who adapted stories from sources like manga, light novels or even video games, P.A. Works have been trying to produce original anime series over the years. From the recent (and I mean that by a few years ago) Irozuku Sekai No Ashita Kara and Tenrou: Sirius The Jaeger right back up to their early days producing Angel Beats, Hanasaku Iroha and Tari Tari, Fairy Gone is yet another one of those original works. I agree that creating something new is quite hard and a herculean feat but given their years of experience, I thought they would have improved. Maybe they need more time? I don’t know. Not my place to say. But Fairy Gone isn’t one of their greatest original works if I should say the least.

It’s nice to see them trying to break away from the high school teen drama that I often saw such as Hanasaku Iroha, Irozuku Sekai No Ashita Kara Tari Tari, Nagi No Asakura, Glasslip and Haruchika. But Fairy Gone isn’t their first supernatural series. RDG: Red Data Girl, Another and even Uchouten Kazoku are considered supernatural themed animes they have produced before. With Fairy Gone, they’re trying to incorporate some dark themes and elements into the series and with some action too. Something like Tenrou: Sirius The Jaeger but replacing the vampires with fairies.

It is very unfortunate that instead of learning the lore and setting of the fairies (which I believed at first was going to be the core of the series), instead it dabbled more into human politics. With that kind of title, naturally anyone will be inclined to think that fairies would be the main star and focus of this show. But instead we got politics especially for the first half AKA first season of the series. What’s this about some hidden agenda to disunite a united Zesskia? Bits and pieces of information about the fairies are made known to light later on but considering where we have gone and arrived at, it felt too late. Even so, the fairies still do not amount to anything much. And those fairy scholars, I thought they would be something big but I guess they needed to cook up something for history lessons of fairies. Because it didn’t really matter what colour the tome was and who the original fairy author was, it was just that black one some cult order needed to bring Armageddon. The rest didn’t matter anyway but it needed to be mentioned so as if to make it look ‘meatier’. Hey, at least that’s how I felt.

So aside the human politics, they try to put in several other mini plots in hopes of making it all interesting and then everything just comes together and culminates towards the end. Well, I don’t think went smoothly for me. Because most of the time I felt confused and everything was one big wild goose chase. For instance, Dorothea keep trying to track down and chase that Black Fairy Tome. The contents and whoever wants it are unknown until plot convenience says so. So in the meantime, we have Dorothea chasing down mafia clans like Arcame and Gui Carlin in which both organized crime syndicates got conveniently wiped out as the story progresses. Then there was that assassination attempt on Golbarn and Schwarz obviously having ulterior motives. And oh yes, I almost forgot. Veronica still trying to assassinate Ray. That felt like one of the longest side plots ever. Veronica biding her time and waiting for the right moment to just kill that old dude while every other plots happen in between. It just feels odd. And in the end, Veronica didn’t sully her hands taking that guy’s life and Ray somewhat repented but sometimes when I think about it, the long wait for revenge felt wasted. Ah, a true friend who persistently spams and virtue signals you why you mustn’t kill. Good thing, right?

Another reason why I find this series hard to follow is because of the locations. I know, this is a fantasy world and there are really made up countries and kingdoms. So in the initial episodes where the story is starting to roll and all, I got really confused when they were talking about this certain country to that certain country. Like, where the hell is that? I mean, where the heck is Rondacia?! Kal-O? Where’s that? Which country borders it? Hybranz? Sighs… It gets worse when they start stating places but also state in parenthesis that it was the former region of a former country. So much more confused!!! And they also put the year or something but my brains are too lazy to think if this was 5 years ago or 10 years ago or 50 years ago… You get the idea. I believe there was a map shown of the continent this world is set on but it is very brief and unless you pause and study it, normal lazy viewers like me aren’t going to remember the geography of this world. Making it worse, the newly unified countries of Zesskia all look the same. You know those same boring brick buildings you see here, they’re abundance too in other countries. It’s like they don’t have any landmarks of their own to distinguish one country from another. No wonder I’m so confused.

Incorporating fairies into soldiers means that you’re going to expect some sort of fairy fighting, right? Well, it might look novel at first that humans who are implanted with fairies get to summon them to aid them in battle. However this novelty wears off very fast. Because you realize the fairies don’t actually don’t do much sh*t except rumbling with each other in the background while the humans duke it out with each other (in which this is what the action scenes mostly focus on). Hence summoning fairies to fight sometimes feels redundant and just a mere sideshow to fulfil the criteria of using fairies in a fight. Come to think of it, summoning fairies to fight feels like a creepier and twisted version of Pokemon battles! It is with great misfortune that this is the ‘biggest’ roles the fairies will ever get to play since they won’t usually last long and will be re-summoned back into the human owner after a while. Yeah, didn’t make any headway. So why continue the fight? Besides, it saddens me that the fairies fighting each other are more boring than the humans fighting! Some fairies have their own special abilities but they are hardly used and what we usually see are just fairies roaring, charging and ‘wrestling’ with each other. That’s about it. Though, my favourite fairy still goes to Serge because it is like an arm blaster! Best fairy in terms of firepower.

It feels weird that a Fairy Soldier whenever he/she wants to summon his fairy, he/she has to put his hand over his heart to activate it. Strange, why? Because it feels like they are about to get a heart attack! No, seriously. When they first did this pose, that actually crossed my mind. What the heck is this cardiac arrest pose just to summon their fairy?! So I suppose there could be that one time when Dorothea got trolled because some old guy just got a heart attack and they thought he was summoning his fairy. Psyche! No fairy. Just a normal heart attack. And it must be a safety mechanism that when the fairy owner takes enough damage, the fairy disappears back inside. Because I don’t remember seeing anybody dying with their fairies summoned out so I can’t say that when the fairy dies, the owner also dies.

As for the human characters, well, I already said the story is in a mess. Hence the characters didn’t do any good to make the story interesting. And because of all the human politics, it got messier. Some minor characters just live up to their role sufficient for plot convenience like those mafia guys. For instance, why the heck do we need that Eajay character for? Like as though they needed some final boss fight to truly bring the demise of Gui Carlin. Yup, that mafia clan is done. Can get them out of the way now and let the other real plot surface. And why do we need Liscar in the first place? Some war crazy person who was once part of the Seven Knights just to add to the action sequence? You betcha. Because it was really a no brainer that he and his mercenaries waltz right into the palace while killing all the inept guards. Like, WTF was that all about?! Oh, they also kill him and the rest of his troops so as not to worry about this faction. How convenient.

As for the main characters, they try to flesh out Free and Marlya but with all the convoluted plot in between, sometimes the drama and their character back story feel forced. Like how Marlya at first keeps feeling guilty because of her cursed status and it took quite a while before she accepts her comrade’s trust. Good, because now she gets to go save Veronica. Yeah, spamming that Suna flashback from time to time. Like as though plot convenience once again rearing its ugly head so that Marlya could finally change Veronica’s mind about revenge or something. Speaking of her, being an assassin and biding her time just to get that single revenge, I don’t know if she is serious or not. I mean, how long has she waited for this moment? Perhaps she doesn’t really want to kill Ray as much as she wants to make us think we do. She just needed somebody to convince her to stop. After all, aside plot convenience, isn’t it more than just coincidence that Marlya stumbles into Veronica in so many occasions? Could it be today that Veronica changes over a new leaf? Not yet. Still got a lot more episodes to go. Heh. And Free… Shucks, don’t remember too much about him except his best friend got killed during his soldier days so he’s just trying to move forward and continuing living. To say he is Marlya’s pillar of strength isn’t accurate either. But without him, she might have followed Veronica’s footsteps albeit in a different fashion.

And this Wolfran… You think he is the real baddie but a veteran like me has the guts saying that good looking guys like him aren’t as bad as you think. Sure, the cliché revenge guy who wants to kill everything because his wife and daughter were taken away and he had no more reason to live. Maybe this guy is like Veronica too. He just needs somebody to stop him and he doesn’t want to really destroy everything. Yeah, because letting some monster killing innocent children all over the world who is unrelated to his revenge seems like a big dick move. And so they try to keep you guessing about Wolfran. Once a Fairy Soldier, he is now with Arcame? Nope. Working for Ray. Somewhat. But gotcha! He is really in cohorts with Eins. Haha! Man of no principle he is right. Now he is back fighting alongside Free. Okay. I guess that’s for the best. It is ironic that Veronica and Wolfran atoned their ways one by dying and the other by living. Is it me or am I starting to notice that blonde heads mostly are the troublemakers here?! From Veronica to Wolfran, we also have Griff and Patricia too. Sophie is a minor blonde too. Sweetie and Liscar aren’t but it would be really damning and suspicious if they were blondes…

Art and animation quality, I guess they are pretty okay. Considering this is done by P.A. Works, there are lots of good looking people here. Like I’ve pointed out before, this isn’t their usual high school teen drama so lots of very mature woman here if you’re not into those younger teen type. The fairy designs are, uhm, hideous! Worse, they are made from CGI so their movements are really one kind. I think they want to make fairies look not like your typical Tinkerbell and hence all the vicious monstrous looks. But sometimes it feels like they are Halloween rejects. Really. Like, Marlya’s fairy comes off more than creepy than scary. I mean, what the heck is that maiden supposed to be?! At first I thought this world was going to be steampunk but it is more like some European dystopia. As said, the gloomy atmosphere and architecture is one of the reasons I couldn’t tell apart the countries. I said steampunk because earlier on there was this bizarre vehicle that moves around not on wheels but via artificial legs! It seems so creepy for a vehicle to move like a scurrying spider or something! I really want to know the mechanics of how this actually works and how it gives the passengers a smooth ride. But subsequently this contraption is slowly forgotten because it’s more convenient to just use your ordinary wheels, right? Yeah. Doesn’t take up space and it’s just so much simpler. And some of the character designs, well, I thought Serge looked like a descendent of Beethoven. Really. And Damien… This guy should enter the Jesus Christ look-a-like contest!

Voice acting is rather okay, recognizing a few veteran seiyuus such as Takehito Koyasu as Damein, Kenji Tsuda as Griff, Hochu Ohtsuka as Bellwood, Yuka Iguchi as Patricia and Shizuka Itou as Sophie, Hiroki Yasumoto as Eajay. The other casts are Tomoaki Maeno as Free (Mika in Kuutei Dragons), Kana Ichinose as Marlya (Asagi in Irozuku Sekai No Ashita Kara), Ayaka Fukuhara as Veronica (Lugh in Trinity Seven), Yoshimasa Hosoya as Wolfran (Reiner in Shingeki No Kyojin), Minako Kotobuki as Sweetie (Tsumugi in K-ON!), Eizou Tsuda as Ray (Heinemann in Muv-Luve Alternative: Total Eclipse), Ayaka Suwa as Klara (Chris in KonoSuba), Yoshiki Nakajima as Serge (Nitta in Hinamatsuri), Mie Sonozaki as Nein (Hazuki in Happy Lesson), Kouji Okino as Robert (Tetsutetsu in Boku No Hero Academia), Hisao Egawa as Liscar (Shiranui in Nabari No Ou), Takaya Hashi as Schwarz (Inuarashi in One Piece), Shouto Kashii as Golbarn (Deadwing in The Reflection) and Shinji Kawada as Axel (Shino in Naruto).

All the opening and ending themes are sung by [K]now_Name. I read many viewed the first opening theme, Knock On The Core to be an epic piece. But personally, I think it’s just another rock music. Not the kind to my liking but it does fit the pace and tone of this series. It’s the same for the second opener, Still Standing but adding more dramatic tone to the rock song. Hence I prefer the ending themes like Ash-like Snow (first ending theme) especially the heavily pounded piano accompaniment with the rock music as well as Stay Gold (second ending theme) which is more of a slow rock (I don’t know why, some parts of the song like the electric guitar solo remind me of Joan Osborne’s What If God Was One Of Us).

Overall, I guess it is somewhat true and now that I myself have confirmed it, this series is not as good as Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi E (though this one isn’t all that good either but at least they could transform into their beast mode and fight!). Messy and confusing story plots and less than interesting characters as well as the atrocity of turning fairies into secondary features of the show are the main factors putting many off. Especially the typical human politics of typical evil human nature. Some things never changed. It does have some decent fight scenes but not enough to reverse the train wreck it has become at this point. It really had lots of potential but didn’t quite develop well enough to make things interesting (especially the history and lore of things pertaining to fairies). Maybe it didn’t have enough episodes to flesh things out properly but if it is not well thought out in the first place, no number of episodes is going to do any justice. Just like how no number of fairies killed is going to bring any form of balance or justice. Man can burn down and kill every fairy and the Divine Beast can turn everything into sand in its wake. But nothing can still stop bad animes marching away into our lives! Poor fairies. I think The Fairly OddParents have better treatment of fairies than this!

Jinrui Wa Suitai Shimashita

The end is near. Just like the vicious cycle of life, everything that came into existence will hit its peak before its decline and ultimately its demise. Like humanity. If Armageddon or the end of the world doesn’t hit us first, then the slow and gradual path of our decline to extinction would be in store for us. So was it better to be wiped out like the dinosaurs when a huge meteoroid slammed into the world? However, don’t get the wrong idea about this series that I am going to blog. Jinrui Wa Suitai Shimashita isn’t a gloomy dramatic and depressing anime about human life on the decline and the verge of extinction. Instead, this is a supernatural comedy. Yes, you read that right. Be prepared for some laughs instead of tissues to wipe away those tears and runny nose.

Our main protagonist is a nameless girl whom we all shall officially call Watashi (that translates as I, me or myself). I guess this is only so because different characters in the show call her differently. What’s the purpose of having a name when humanity is decaying away and no future to remember you? But that’s not the point. Watashi is a mediator from UNCC (United Nations Conciliation Commission) and her job is to mediate between humans and fairies. Yes, you read that right again. I’m not sure if somewhere in the history of mankind that these little 10cm tall creatures with a permanent smile on their faces (can they ever open or close their mouths?) popped up. But unlike humans, you could say that these creatures are the most ‘prosperous’ beings in terms of technology. They have this unexplained ability to come up with mind blowing technology that we humans won’t understand. Simple yet mysterious. The next mankind?

Unlike many other animes that go in chronological order, this series is one that doesn’t really follow such order. At least for the arcs. I remember watching Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu’s episodes was a major headache because of the plot jumping here and there so it’s quite difficult to put things together in perspective to understand. However for this series, due to the random nature of each arc, you won’t really feel that strain of racking your brains to understand what has happened. There will be minor factors to point out and make you realize that this episode’s timeline is definitely somewhere before an earlier episode but whatever major happening in that arc stays in that arc. No worries on whether or not it will have a major impact in other arcs or not. Good or bad thing? Maybe humanity has declined so much that we don’t even bother putting up stories that are in chronological order anymore.

The Fairy’s Secret Factory

Episode 1
Watashi arrives in Camphorwood Village to help out the locals as a mediator. I suppose she is famous enough to warrant several fan girls. Not that she is too happy about her popularity either. Because all the men are going out for a communal hunt, Watashi is left in charge of them women and wants to lead them. Especially turning all the chickens that stopped laying eggs into meat. Guess what he meant? Can’t see the picture? Now what do you do with a knife in hand? I suppose the fan girls are only good at fawning so that leaves Watashi to do the dirty job of ‘murder’. Then suddenly it’s like the chickens know they’re going to die and do a Chicken Run! They’re escaping! There goes their meat. And looks like the community won’t have any since the men returned empty handed. Back at her home with Grandpa, Watashi notes how they should be happy with what they have and don’t mind forgoing meat for several days but this shortage isn’t just affecting humans. They are also affecting fairies. Yup, these cute little beings may not look like it but they possess supernatural technology. It’s Watashi’s job as a UN mediator to liaise between humans and fairies. The fairies love sweets, candy and chocolates but due to the shortage, Watashi puts it that they might not be getting them sooner. How does next year sound? Don’t worry, she has made her own gum but the fairies aren’t pleased since unlike sweets, you can’t consume them. But when Watashi mentions about mankind’s slow path to extinction and the scarcity of materials, the fairies hope to spend more time together. While the fairies frolic in a wooden box, Watashi tastes her own gum. Horrible. Next day, Watashi receives word from UNCC office that suspicious items are being circulated in the village. There is a pile of goods on their table and the brand indicates they are from Fairy Co. Humans should be grateful but they’ve become too scared to touch processed foods from unknown sources. But thanks to them, the marketplace is livelier again. Watashi’s mute assistant whom I shall call as Assistant (duh!), shows a bunch of supplies in his hands. Despite not able to say a word, Watashi can understand him perfectly. Can she read minds? Assistant didn’t trade or use vouchers to get them but got them free. Oddly, the stock is resupplied when no one is looking. The food tastes what it expects to be so Watashi has Assistant take them back to Grandpa to test if they are safe to eat. She spots a hair growth tonic among the supplies. Next morning, her hair has grown back to waist length!

Remember about the chicken incident? Watashi thought that incident would be forgotten but it seems there will be a meeting to discuss about the issue. For 6 gloomy hours, there were only deadlocks and arguments. Till Grandpa suggests that they spread out and search for them. This has Watashi to learn about a business strategy: Never hold meetings because the outcome is determined before the meeting begins. So as Watashi and the fan girls are looking for the chickens, suddenly they see a real headless skinned chicken! It’s dancing and flashing its butt to them! What the?! They try to catch it but it escaped. Watashi can’t let the people know about her ‘failure’ so she uses information manipulation and intimidation to tell the fan girls to keep it a secret or else… Unfortunately rumours of the running headless chicken spread to the entire village. Heck, there is even a photo of it! Since that’s the case, Grandpa says they have to investigate. Well, Watashi wasn’t planning to slack off but she thought she could close this case before anybody finds out. Isn’t that the same? Upon closer inspection, there is a logo of Fairy Co on the chicken. So how do you track a company that is operated by fairies? Use a fairy as a compass! Make sure to pay chocolates as payment. So Fairy Co… The cartoonish building is made out of blocks and jigsaw puzzles? Anyway they see a nearby cabin, thinking it is the main office. Noticing everything inside is manmade and not designed by fairy, a human receptionist then greets them. He briefly introduces Fairy Co as a company with 200 years of history before giving them a tour to the food factory. Seems the machines make food ultra fast but it tastes bland. I guess that’s what you get as trade off if you manufacture something by the masses. Receptionist doesn’t know about the distribution of these foodstuffs since he was hired only 3 days ago and still learning. After all, he had the easiest job of standing around while his clothes and food are taken care off. Watashi theorizes that the fairies restored the factory operations but Grandpa cautions that the presence of a human makes it suspicious. Next, a robot bread called Loaf explains how bread is made. Then it goes on to make an amazing statement that bread these days taste horrible. He wants Watashi to eat him as pity for his existence. I think she lost her appetite. What’s more, Loaf splits himself into half! Holy cow! Is that blood?! That’s not strawberry jam either?! WTF?! Bread bleeding blood? Well, at least it’s fresh. Haha! Anyway the ‘blood’ is mixed carrot juice bread made for kids who hate carrots. So now do you want to eat him? No thanks. Watashi completely lost her appetite. What a waste to the loaf… Watashi narrates that she really wouldn’t want to learn the secrets in this factory but as a mediator of UNCC, her duty is to solve the mystery.

Episode 2
Receptionist adds he never met his employers as everything had been handed down via writing. Suddenly they realize Grandpa is missing. Receptionist goes to look for him but he never came back. Watashi and Assistant got lost. She decides to use the fairies help in exchange for something fun. Assistant wants to do the honours of telling a joke but the sketchbook narrative about a village with 7 children and how they all tragically died and the culprit was the last child, it made things even worse for the fairy. Now he’s all gloomy. Then Watashi and Assistant got separated when the conveyor belt starts running. Watashi almost got disposed by a chewing machine had not been the unseen hand of God (at least this is what she calls it) pulls her away. She is surprise to see Cultural Director here. Seems in addition to being director of UNESCO’s cultural division, he has been made this factory’s manager. He got promoted from that receptionist job and from the sounds of it, this guy is power and position crazy. Of course he panics when he hears Watashi is here to do an inspection. Yeah. That dreaded word. She accuses him of illegal goods smuggling but he doesn’t know what’s going on. She nails it directly about taking responsibility, compensation and punishment. Although he has never met the upper management, Watashi makes a deal that she will go see them and talk to them (because Director won’t give up his position). But when Director thinks about whistle blowing would lead to heroic actions to public support and thus the new factory CEO, he agrees to accompany Watashi for this greedy evil scheme of his. However he falls right down into a hole. Watashi walks through the corridor and has a feeling they were all separated on purpose. She enters a room to see the upper management completely made up of… Headless skinned chickens!!! Pok! Pok! Pok! Because she can’t understand chicken language, a fairy pops up to translate them. I think Watashi doesn’t want to hear their evil gloating and profanity on the human race. The fairy then gives her a pair of spectacles to have a clearer view of what the chicken says. Literally. There are subtitles now! The chicken gloats about turning this factory into a weapon of mass destruction to destroy humans and fairies without ever knowing what hit them. Too bad Watashi was busy adjusting the specs to have a clearer view of the subtitles that she didn’t read what the chicken said. Summarize it! In short: Kill all intelligent life forms and take over Earth. So what now? She takes out a knife. All the chickens got scared! Going to cut them, no? Note all the profanity they say in chicken language! While she got distracted with the fairy, the chickens drop a cage on her.

Suddenly Assistant comes in to take film shots of the chickens. This causes the chickens to flee for their lives but Assistant closely tails them and continues to film. Watashi gets out of her cage when she realizes perhaps the unseen hand of God has bended the metal bars for her to go free.  Now we see the mass murder of chickens. When Assistant is chasing the chickens, they ran through the entire factory. The chicken workers got so scared that they ‘committed suicide’ by jumping into the manufacturing machine! WTF?! Now you’ve got canned chicken, bread chicken and even chicken t-shirts! Assistant corners the chickens on a cliff and with no way left, they all jump to their deaths. Oh Watashi. How the hell are you going to explain this? When she returns to the factory, she sees Grandpa, Receptionist and Director in a room that could be opened from the inside. Then here comes the train with food. Guess what sandwich this is? Yup. Chicken sandwich. Don’t you feel pity for chickens? Grandpa concludes that it wasn’t just the chickens that gained intelligence but other foodstuffs like sardines and jams. Just that they weren’t equipped with any faculties to express it. Now that the evil chickens are gone, what is going to happen to this place? Well, Director is certainly promoted to CEO now. Time to gloat it. Grandpa thinks they should tear down this place but Watashi says the fairy is gone. As a matter of fact, he shows them a packaged fairy. He guessed they were packaged up when the chickens took over. Watashi frees all of them and in the end, the truth eludes her since the fairies didn’t really answer her question about operating this factory to help out with the shortage. Next morning when she wakes up, to her surprise, her own hair passes the hairbrush to her! She realizes it was the one who saved her from the disposal machine and bended open the cage. Wow. Now her hair has a mind of its own. Lastly, the village children are dreading their weed soup. Oh God. They’re going to have this for the rest of their lives unless a miracle of birds raining from the sky happens. Suddenly several skinned chickens drop down on their feet! It’s raining chickens! Thank you God! Let’s feast on the meat! Since then, skinned chickens have become offerings for children. And as oddly pointed out, whenever chickens are touched by human hands, they generally stopped moving. I guess a good chicken is a dead chicken.

The Fairies’ Subculture

Episode 3
Watashi is stuck in a space where there is nothing but whiteness. To see how she got into this predicament, we go back in time whereby her graduating classmate, Y came by in a newly bought steam car. From what I understand, she used 3 years worth of vouchers to start on the down payment. That’s a long way to go… Though Watashi doesn’t consider Y her friend, she notes they are ‘partners in crime’. Y is working on the Human Monument project, a structure dedicated to celebrate human history, technology and culture. From Y’s ranting, Watashi summarizes she is not serious in gathering data and planning to fool around. The owner of a large mansion recently passed away and inside it is a treasure trove of photostat machines all preserved well. There are also lots of discs and she plans to use the machines to print out what’s on them. Watashi reads a homoerotic manga at the bookstore and is captivated not by the odd homo storyline but the art and drawing techniques that she calls lost technique rather than lost technology. Y starts printing the manga and plans to conduct more research on it. From the way she puts it, she is getting hooked and totally loves this dark subculture and wild fantasy. Soon she comes out with her own homoerotic manga called The Camphorwood. Volume 1. Yup, there’s going to be more. And it’s in full colour and fully laminated in B5 size. Isn’t she supposed to be working on some monument project? Soon, volume 2 comes out. Watashi fears the fairies would find out about this because of their tendency to have fun and copy others. She hopes Y would keep it an underground secret but it’s too late. She has mobilized logistics to spread the culture around! If there was once a category called fanzines (doujins), Y’s The Camphorwood has given birth to a new genre called manzines! Just think of it as something yaoi. Not long, Y starts receiving boxes of fan letters! Some totally love her work while there are detractors who complain about her work distracting them from work. But it was interesting, right?

Soon there is a rise in competition because there are several other manzine publishers copying hers. Y is devastated but Watashi points out this is how culture spreads. Y won’t give up easily yet when she notices Assistant. She never new Watashi had him and accuses her a traitor for living the good life. Plus, this relationship makes it hetero instead of homo, thus defying this current subculture craze. With the new influx of manzine publishers, there are even clubs formed, seminars offered and a huge crazy following. Doesn’t this feel familiar in a certain time? Y finally realizes a new manzine called Cinnamon and it becomes the greatest manzine ever. Soon she starts living the indulgent and luxurious life. That might not continue because her logistics decide to ditch her manzines claiming there were too many of them to stock in their trucks to a point it is not enough to stock other supplies. Distribution is on her own. That’s when Y comes up with an idea to hold a manzine fair. See that long river of fans waiting to get into the hall? Yup. Very familiar scene, no? The fair begins with competition among publishers very intense as manzines are given away free. In the end, Y wins the battle of giving out the most copies because she was on home ground and utilizes her photocopying machines. But I guess it’s victory for everybody too since every volume went out of stock. And oh, Watashi didn’t even buy a single copy. Good girl. One day as Watashi looks for Grandpa and Assistant, she doesn’t see them around but stumbles upon a manzine book on Grandpa’s table. She flips through to see empty panels and before she knows it, she is absorbed into the book. Nothing but whiteness all around. Y is also there. Could they be in a blank panel? Well, sound effects in kanji words seem to pop up from above their head.

Episode 4
A door opens and they head into the next panel to see Assistant. Because a door didn’t open, they figure they need to do something exciting for that to happen. Assistant suggests they create their own drama. What kind of drama? Play chess. Boring! Soon they feel the panel descending and the room slightly darker. When Y theorizes they’re inside a manga with empty panels, there should be some background and props. Assistant starts drawing and whatever he draws comes to life! Even the bread tastes good. With that, they feel the panel ascending and the brightness resumes to normal. Also, the door opens to the next panel. This one feels a little small so Y pretends the ceiling is crushing her for her friends to escape. This excitement opens the next door. Y deduces if the manga is interesting, it ascends otherwise boring ones will descend. This is for the sake of popularity and if they become boring, the manga becomes cancelled and for them, it might be something grimmer. Maybe they will lose their lives? Don’t joke around. Figuring out the lighting indicates their popularity and how many readers are reading it, the more interesting it is, the more readers will open up to read. And so the trio went on creating their own exciting drama in different panels. From battle mangas to sports to love romance and even food themes. As they are resting, Watashi remembers she forgot her knife left behind in the previous panel. Assistant draws a door to go back and what Watashi sees are fairies. They are editors of this manga? So all this is their doing? They say they can leave once there is an ending or the series gets cancelled. You don’t want to know what happens if it’s the latter. Y learns to end this manga, they also have to retain their popularity. They come upon a board that shows their rankings. It seems there are other similar mangas around and they are lying in sixth spot. Y decides to make it exciting like the fair but ends it with a cliff-hanger by confessing she is a killer. Watashi knows this is going to be a pain but plays along anyway. Although she killed nobody, the suspense was enough to lift them up one spot. Yeah. Whatever. The story is falling apart since Y is turning everything upside down.

So Y goes on a cliff-hanger spree as every panel ends with some shocking revelation. “I am… Your father…”. She didn’t say that but you get the idea. The greatest entertainer is the greatest swindler… By the 178th panel, they achieve top spot. Now what? Assistant cuts a hole in the panel to check the editors’ comments. Their comments allow them to track how well they are doing. So Y continues doing what she does best so much so both the story and commentary become random. What the hell? Then they start dropping places because people are getting tired of the same old thing. When Y sees a winch and activates it, she notices the panel becomes bigger. She uses this to do some cool cowboy action-cum-posses (think of it as a full page spread) and this increases their position. But it soon becomes old and they’re on the descend once more. Since they’ve mixed every bloody genre, they have to spend time fixing the story and eliminate loose ends till they ended up in some variation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Their popularity plunges so Watashi tells Y that the readers have lost interest in her style. So how unpopular are they now? Not only they have no colour but they turn into simple sketches! I guess they’ve hit rock bottom. As Watashi falls, the fairies fall along with her. She laments how an old mangaka is deemed useless with no skill once his manga gets cancelled. The fairies throw her a penalty, which is a letter to say she has to carry on the family business. Watashi notes she’s already doing that. Watashi is awakened by Grandpa back in the room. Y and Assistant are just waking up too. Was it a dream? But that fanzine is missing now. Noting how hard the fairies’ manzines are, she puts it on the ban list.

The Fairies’ Homecoming

Episode 5
A little monolith seems to have fallen from space and made a crater in the land. But Grandpa thinks it’s a prank and since it isn’t space worthy to satisfy him, I guess that’s the end of it. At town, Grandpa introduces Watashi to Director who is here to inaugurate the Human Monument. There will be lots of exploration to be done especially the city ruins near Camphorwood. Watashi wonders if it can be done since there isn’t enough electricity around for bare necessities but they assure her they discovered a functioning satellite and will use it as charge up. Since Watashi is part of the exploration team, she has to be involved. From her tone, I could say she rather not participate. So running errands for Grandpa, Watashi remembers 3 days ago she bumped into a fairy but she was too busy to talk to him. She felt guilty for ignoring him and lamented she should have paid more attention to him because fairies have a habit of making an impact like an asteroid. Then she meets a bunch of them. They are saying goodbye because the electromagnetic waves are coming and will kill them. Well, they tried to warn her, right? Time is short so they give her a book to read and a charm. You’re on your own. From what I understand from the book, the number of fairies you meet per day determines how lucky you are. Say a disaster befalls on you, the more fairies you meet, the higher chances you have from being saved but they all seem absurd. The lesser the fairies, you’ll still be saved but these ones seem more down to earth. Of course, no fairies mean you lose or die. At the town square, Watashi notices a strange girl. This girl, Pion (so she thinks) could tell Watashi was analyzing her. Seems she has memory loss. Although she has not forgotten about her mission, she has forgotten about the location of her companion. Maybe they moved? The only description she can provide is “Oyage”. If Watashi comes across any leads, be sure to tell her.

The exploration begins as Watashi is paired with Assistant to look around a small park since Grandpa won’t have them searching critical areas like the power collector or else they would lose electricity. They stumble upon a weird building and enter its elevator. Assistant presses a button and I think the elevator ‘jumps’ through different floors.  Coming out, they see a skeleton with words inscribed “Oyage” next to it. Seen this somewhere before? Have a bad feeling? They have no choice but to advance and after walking a considerable distance, they open the door to find themselves high atop the city centre. They finally receive incoming call from Grandpa (there are no signals inside the building). Grandpa can’t come to their aid since he doesn’t know their position. The batteries died out. Just great. Continuing through the maze, Watashi decides to have a drink. It’s their last water. The charm breaks and falls into her cup and out comes a fairy! I don’t know how it contorted itself into this shape to survive the waves. He’s okay here since there are no waves. Using the fairy as compass, they go search for water. Apart from a familiar monolith among the junk, the fairy points out the water. Isn’t that a nasty green slime? Well, that’s what they drink. It starts attacking and melts the knife Watashi uses to defend! Hostility! Oh, there are others too. They come in different colours. Run! In an examination room, they on a computer to see a blueprint of the place as well as its logic behind the building’s design. Due to fear of the waves, this city is designed to shut them out so you can say they are like shut-ins. They got so used to living safely that they become afraid to go out. A slime attacks them and Watashi hits it away with the monolith. Did she win? Perhaps not because the slime activates a vicious robot dog! Before Watashi becomes part of its kill statistic, Pion pops up and smashes the dog up. She thanks Watashi for providing the electricity.

Episode 6
Pion’s search for her companion led her to this place but she ran out of battery. However she claims she is totally human despite operating on a power subsystem. Watashi realizes the slime acts as a cradle to recharge and the monolith disappeared after contact with the slime. As they wander around, Pion is convenient to have around has she has tremendous strength and can download the entire map of this place. Suddenly they are attacked by a guy in a robot. Looks like this dude doesn’t remember his name or mission too. Watashi guesses he is the same type as Pion. Calling himself as Otarou, he won’t allow them to take him back and sends his bulldozer to rid of them. Pion fights it but causes the ground to cave in. Everybody starts falling in. Just when Watashi and Assistant finally find water, here comes Otarou trying to kill them. I don’t know if that is even called justice. He summons his slimes-cum-servants to transform into a… Huge black cat! Watashi immediately surrenders, putting a damper to his fighting spirit. Assistant wanted to fight too but was taken away by her. Now who is he going to fight with? Out from the lake comes a giant Nautilus. As the cat beats up the squid, Watashi notices slime and fairies are flying out from it. I don’t know how the fairy merged with it by collecting slimes and playing with it. Then Watashi receives call from Pion that she has defeated the bulldozer but is now recharging. But she can fire a microwave beam at their location. They just need to make sure the cat stays in a certain place. Watashi asks the fairy for help but it seems it lost its motivation. Where did all the hype went? As instructed, Watashi throws the fairy into the squid and it becomes more powerful to fight back. With the cat in the middle of the lake, Watashi cues Pion to fire as the microwave roasts the water and defeats the cat. Otarou is bent on killing Watashi when Pion drops in to save the day. Because of the hole in the ceiling, the electromagnetic waves flood the area and it seems Otarou is disheartened that his memories will come back (because he is programmed to self repair when that happens). Likewise for Pion, she realizes something. She isn’t human. We all knew that… After everyone gets out from the building, Grandpa picks them up but he looks mad.

Later Watashi and Pion go to see Otarou in the tent. Watashi has discovered their true names. Otarou is Oyage, which is actually Voyager. Pion is Pioneer. Watashi remembers they were probes sent by humans to explore deep space. But were they in humanoid form? Pion says when she ventured into space, she felt cold unlike here. The difference triggered her self-conscious. Oyage disagrees because they were self aware from the beginning. The first thought he had was not wanting to venture into space. It has nothing. A decade ago, a signal started to message them to report their date. They wanted samples so he used this as an excuse to return. He notes they still have to go back and travel the void space till they finish their final mission of discovering alien life form. Pion says they are probes and must carry out their orders. But is she prepared to follow them through? He points out on some of her missions, she decelerated near Uranus, analyzed and concluded something and got scared of some result. Why did she chase him down then? She did not receive any orders to do so. It’s because she too wanted to come home. Tears start trickling down Pion’s face. Oyage notes this place is warm. Do they need to go back out there in the cold? Pion says they have to because their homecoming is over. In the aftermath, the exploration team rejoices after learning about the probes because it would provide them data on human history and accelerate Human Monument project. They’ll be heading back to space the next morning. However Grandpa comes rushing to Watashi that the generator is damaged and their link to the satellite is lost. Somebody sabotaged them. Well, Watashi is a bad liar and actor, right? Seen it right through her teeth. Grandpa hands her over to the authorities and she got interrogated. Well, at least she destroyed the evidence. They got so mad at her that they even forgot why they were mad in the first place! Thankfully the punishment was light and she wasn’t stripped of her mediator position because she is on good terms with the fairies. Wow. Connections saved her skin. However Grandpa would have her hair cut as repentance. Later Pion thanks Watashi that because they lost their electricity source after their generator got damaged, their mission is postponed indefinitely. They don’t have much battery capacity left because 1 hour of winding = 1 minute of energy. Well, at least this is the best they could manage.

The Fairies’ Time Management

Episode 7
The fairies are happily eating their sweets and think more humans should make them. Well, they’re lucky to have them since the decline in human population means a decline in the number of confectioners. The fairies would love to make clones in that case but was quickly shot down by Watashi. That’s morally wrong. While taking a walk home, she thought she saw a dog in a distance. Perhaps it’s the hazy mirage that she saw the dog turned into a human. Watashi dislike the idea that Grandpa asked her to pick up his assistant at the rental home near Lamb and Olive around 1pm. Noting her watch is spoilt, Grandpa gives her a new one. That’s a sundial, no? Can she read sundial? Apparently some woman gave it to Grandpa before he met grandma. Besides, he pointed out she wasn’t his first love and though beautiful, they were separated before long. Along the way, Watashi meets a fairy who gives her a banana to eat. No taste. What the heck did she just eat? The fairy promise the next one will have taste before disappearing. Nearby, Watashi sees a group of fairies kicking ball. Thing is, the ball looks like a head of a fairy! It was when Grandpa passes by in his Roman chariot and lectures her about a thing or two to go pick up his assistant. Watashi meets the doctor in charge of Grandpa’s assistant but was told he went missing. Watashi goes into the forest to look for him. She happens to meet herself. Clone? But she is unaware this pleasant woman is herself (at least that’s what I think) and they casually chat. They arrive at a hearth in the forest and before Watashi realizes it, she slips on a banana peel. Next thing Watashi knows, she is outside UNCC’s office. She saw herself again but disappeared. She also felt a little dizzy and her memories a little fuzzy. Then it’s like a sense of déjà vu. Grandpa told her to go pick up his assistant. She needs a new watch so Grandpa looks around and couldn’t find one till he realizes the sundial on her wrist. Watashi denies stealing it because she would’ve stolen a mechanical one. After meeting the doctor, a fairy gives Watashi a banana. It tastes good this time. Then here comes Grandpa in his chariot. Unsurprisingly, Watashi somewhat knew what he was going to say. Then meeting herself again at the hearth before slipping on the banana peel. Yeah. She knew this was going to happen.

Watashi finds herself being given a banana once more. She spots that dog again in the distance. Umpteenth time lecture by Grandpa followed by that talk with the doctor. Watashi learns the assistant despite unable to speak, is smart enough to wonder who he was. Watashi feels ashamed for disliking on him in the first place.  At the hearth, this time there are 2 selves of hers! Casually chatting with them, guess what happens next? Yeah. Banana trip! The entire déjà vu reruns again and this time there are about a hundred clones of herself making sweets at the hearth! They claim the fairies wanted sweets and that’s why they’re making them. Watashi talks to the fairies who confirm they made the hearth and found lots of help. Watashi thinks she has been here multiple times but can’t remember what she was doing here. The fairies say she won’t because this place is disconnected from the past. To put it in an easier word: She’s in happy land. Say what? Happy for whom? Then they give her a new banana model to eat. Banana has a new model? What’s new with it? You eat it and you slip on it. Wow. The scene restarts again as Watashi realizes her sundial is gone but she has a feeling she knows the assistant is wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Seeing her clones making sweets, she too can’t help join in. Yeah. She’s making banana spring roll. Remembering her mission, she asks if everyone had seen the assistant. They know she’ll find him soon and when asked about his description, they ask her back what she would like him to be. On closer inspection, she notices no one wearing the sundial and then… Another banana slip. The fairy thanks Watashi by giving her a new banana model as gratitude since they had lots of sweets. The fairy claims everything will return to normal and that the disconnect is gone. With Grandpa turning up, he asks about the sundial in which she realizes it is lost. As they enter town, they see lots of dogs wandering around and amidst the pack, the Hawaiian shirt assistant is petting one of them.

Episode 8
This feels like a replay of the previous episode but with several parts in more detail. On the first time Watashi was told to pick up Grandpa’s assistant, she was told he wasn’t an ordinary person and is somewhat undefined. He was a sole survivor of some ethnic minority and was passed around before ending up in Grandpa’s custody. Grandpa can’t really describe his traits because he doesn’t leave much of an impression. If he had to describe him, he was probably a buff kid. Then meeting the doctor, Watashi notices the word she uses to describe him: Obscure. On the third round in meeting the doctor, Watashi finds it odd that even though the doctor spent time with him, she never actually met him. Though she has all his records but the moment she took his eyes off him, she forgot how he looks like. As though he vaporized from her memory. Bad memory? Maybe but the thing is, she is unable to recall anything about him. Worse still, she can’t even remember his personal traits. Adding to that, because he grew up alone without parents or friends, no one taught him language. Watashi wonders why a smart person would wander around for what purpose. She was motivated to find him this time till she stumbled to the hearth. By the fourth time, the doctor even felt strange about her conversation with Watashi but continues her description on the assistant. Since no one was around to define him not had he seen others and been defined and was a blank canvas, perhaps all he wanted was a personality. Watashi thinks the problem itself is lack of understanding. In one of the déjà vu, Watashi thinks she spots the assistant in the Hawaiian shirt (which I later found out was Grandpa in his younger days!). She goes to talk to him and he seems pretty energetic. Yeah, he talks. Seems like a hyper active happy kid who doesn’t hesitate to sweet talk Watashi! He wants to procreate! Before Watashi could lecture him about sexual harassment, he throws her an apple to eat and wants to be known as Ringo Kid. Hope nothing strange in this one. He surprises her by touching her boobs! She’s going to sue him! Another surprise is when he pecks her cheek.

Watashi walks with him as he rants about why he is interested in procreating and wants to enjoy his life to the fullest. He notices her sundial and becomes interested in it. He thinks she doesn’t want it and takes it but Watashi says she’s only lending it to him. He wants her to become his girlfriend but she’s clearly not interested. How can a hyper guy like him be sincere? True enough when a pretty girl passes by, he changes his attention to her and before long, he agrees to follow her around town. Watashi wanted to reason he came from another planet. Like that was possible. On the fifth time, she notices her sundial missing but seems to clearly know some of the assistant’s traits. Watashi joins her clones in making sweets and gathering banana ingredients from the fairies, she didn’t understand the latest banana model that tastes great but sends her too far back (I’m guessing too far back in the past). Then when she asks if they have seen the assistant, upon closer inspection she notices not all of them had the sundial missing. Some of them were wearing it and some were wearing her old watch. Watashi describes the assistant and one of the defining traits she would like him to have is to leave a lasting impression on others. The clones agree since they too feel the same way. I guess it’s impossible to lie to yourself, eh? On the sixth time where they meet the assistant in the town filled with dogs, when Watashi meets him, the first thing she asks is if he has found what he was searching for. Watashi realizes he has managed to understand his identity that was developed alongside other people. Because he never had parents, he had to cheat a bit. This means he was listening to others on what they had to say about him as he was unable to discern his own identity. And it was at the tea party where he could learn it. However Watashi couldn’t remember about the tea party. Ah well, human memory isn’t that reliable. Yeah, even Grandpa couldn’t recall about the sundial. Back at the office, they notice the dog Assistant brought. When asked what kind of dog it is, they are surprised he talks for the first time. Grandpa understands this Time Paradogs are dogs created to restore space-time by offsetting temporal paradoxes. Whenever someone travels through time, the universe cancels out the paradox and gives it the shape of a dog. Understand all that? Don’t worry, I’m as lost as Watashi. Watashi welcomes Assistant and shakes his hand.

The Fairy’s Survival Skill

Episode 9
We see a fairy being bullied by his peers! This leads to an appeal letter sent to Watashi and to sum it up, it’s an SOS. Grandpa explains that due to the boom in fairy population, there had been cases of bullying and thus a stressful life. He reassigns Watashi to take a small group of fairies to a remote island. She may be there for at least a year. No way! Too bad she has no say. At the beach, she tries to lift the gloom of the fairies by talking about building their own nation. We see they are in need of serious emotional help. Yeah. They want a tyrannical and oppressive country. They even have a name for it: Fail Country! Serious emotional problem these little dudes have. That’s because the pier Watashi is on gives way. Before it sinks, Watashi and the fairies hop onto the boat. Next thing they knew, they are stranded on an island with nothing. What’s worse than that? Stuck with gloomy fairies. When Watashi accidentally accepts her title as the new nation’s queen, it lifts their spirits. On day 2, they build a nice antique cabinet for their queen but she would’ve preferred a bed instead. Thinking they’re good woodcraftsmen, she is about to ask them to make a boat to escape when she realizes they multiplied. They ask if it is okay to stay on this island and build a new nation. Too bad Watashi vaguely hints that she would help out and it was misinterpreted that she accepted that. By the end of the day, at least Watashi had a decent bed. A fairy gave her a list on inventions to create. Religion is also a creation? Anyway all those on the list are no-go. By the third day, Watashi notices some walls and doors around her bed. Then she goes off to tour around the island. We see the fairies booming in growing fields and even industrial plants! At the end of the tour, her home is completed! Complete with toilet too! She even had clothes made out from the island’s finest spider silk. At the end of the day, they even have electricity! Pineapple powered! Now she can have hot water bath. This is this life.

I’m sure Watashi enjoys her reign as queen as development and civilization life progresses on this little nation. That’s only the fourth day. Wow. By the fifth day, Watashi makes sweets to appease her entire nation of fairies! However soon, the cocoa crops failed and she notices the lake’s water quality changing. Blame it on the industrial wastes… When a fairy shows her a lily plant that tastes like candy, Watashi notes that despite fairies are unable to make candies, they can cultivate plants that produce them. She orders all research to be poured into breeding different strains and flavours of this plant and by day 7, the island mushrooms with colourful candy plants. Watashi continues to make sweets as a hobby instead as duty so everyone spend their free time in celebration. With nothing else to do, she even allows the construction of monuments as the fairies wish. Just like any civilization, there is bound to be a time it will fall. That comes in day 8. How quick time has passed. Monuments have popped up all over the island to a point there are not plants left. The environment is destroyed and the water plant is down. Oh my God. Seeing the dire straits they are in, Watashi wants them to take down the monuments and make water their priority. Gloomy times are here again. Electricity became scarce, genetic manipulation on plants was banned to allow the land to heal and sweets were rationed. The fairies no longer had work or entertainment. She realizes she needs to make a decision. On day 9, Watashi wants to tear down the remaining monuments and make a boat for the main land. It’s time to say goodbye. More gloomsville… However she feels like something is trapping them because it kept raining. Only the island is raining and by the 14th day, after she explains her plan to leave the island, it dawned to her that the gloominess of the fairies was contributing to the rain! That bad, huh? Then the island is flooded. Morning comes and Watashi finds herself stranded but on the main land. The island has disappeared. The fairies want her to be their queen over their new nation again but she dismisses them. I guess that removes the evidence. Grandpa and Assistant come by, worried of not hearing from her. Grandpa notes there was a sizeable island that house 3 rare species of spiders… And from Watashi’s guilty reaction, he has a feeling she had something to do with it… So who is responsible for the spider’s extinction? Watashi gets up and returns to her familiar everyday life.

The Fairy’s Earth

Episode 10
Watashi is one of the 12 last members of graduating class before the school was sent packing. She was sent to Camphorwood as a researcher and mediator under Grandpa. It beats working in the fields anyway. He assigns her to manage the books, an easy job like she wants. Despite that being true, she says she merely wants to match her job with her physical strength. Grandpa takes back what he said and thinks she should suffer a bit. He has her go observe the fairies in the places he marked on the map and is given only a bread as lunch. That’s harsh. How should she greet them? Is there any customs? None. Just go with your guts. She didn’t meet and fairies on her visit to the dump. She reports back to Grandpa who tells her on the contrary there are many hiding there. He lets her read the journal of his predecessor on his encounter and observations with the fairies. Seems he stated out enthusiastic and with each passing day and the crazier it gets, he becomes less motivated. Why are there only steak and wine? Though Watashi wants to have an easy life, she won’t have it by doing nothing. Returning to the dump, she sets a trap for the fairies to lure them because she remembers Grandpa telling her they love sweets and fun. She even brought necessities to observe and record. After falling asleep and waking up, she spots a bunch of fairies munching the sweets and having fun. She wanted to make a good impression to meet them but she trips and sends all of them running away in fear. She sees 3 of them hiding in a trap and ‘kidnaps’ them home. Realizing they are still scared, she thought of telling a joke. I guess it’s a bad joke because she asks if they want to eat snacks or become the snack! They wet their pants but don’t worry, fairies urine are made of pure water. She breaks the ice by giving them leftover candies. Easily pleased. That’s bribery, no? The fairies wonder if she is God. She dismisses it and puts it this way. She is the old humanity while the fairies are the new humanity. Watashi gets a hang of their crazy conversation. Seems they don’t remember they come from the dump or when they are born. In fact, did their number just increased by one?

Because they don’t have names, Watashi decides to name them as she wants to be their friends and doesn’t want to reduce them to numbers. After all that fooling around, she names them Cap, and Nakata while the remaining duo name themselves Sir Christopher McFarlane and Sir Chikuwa. Grandpa could tell Watashi’s distress looks because she is trying to figure out names for the rest of their buddies! She already has 50 of them. He compliments her on a job well done for being friends with them this quick but warns her to prepare herself tomorrow since she plans to check on them again. To her surprise, the place is no longer a dump but a futuristic metropolis! Remembering Grandpa’s words, when fairies gather, they will do something fun. Watashi’s appearance in the metropolis has them activate a robot defence. But since she comes in peace, I guess all ends well. Then she sees Nakata. What happened to the other trio? Surrendered? She realizes they are not very organized and don’t have good memory because Nakata doesn’t remember about the name thingy last night. She is here to give names to his friends when all the fairies start lining up to be named! Oh God! Noticing how fast they multiply, she puts her foot down, causing them to ball up. She apologizes she can’t name them but hands them a dictionary to pick a name of their choice. The fairies are overjoyed and call her God. Next day, Watashi is surprised to see a monument of her! She is officially God now. Imagine if this spreads to the fairies across the world. She’d be in their history books. Not bad, maybe? She passes the God title to Nakata. He tries to touch her back but she says only a person can be God once. Soon it becomes havoc because Nakata tries to pass his status to other fairies who are running away. God becomes the devil as the fairies evacuate the metropolis and in 10 minutes, it all crumbles and becomes dump once more. All that’s left is her statue. But it beats having a bad reputation, right? Grandpa sees her statue and notes how they must have really loved her. The destruction can’t be helped as sooner or later it will happen because this is how current humanity operates. He praises her for a good job well done of making this far in a few days but advises she must take it easy while dealing with fairies. He pushes her and she accidentally bumps and destroys her statue. I guess that in the end can’t last too.

The Fairy’s Secret Tea Party

Episode 11
This flashback was when Watashi first started schooling at 10 years old. She had to start from the lowest grade but will skip grades if she proves herself to be more intelligent than she is. On her first day, she finds her dorm room locked and a riddle note that tells her the key is behind eternity. She assumes that time only stops when the clock is broken and heads to the clock tower. She finds another riddle message that tells her she will only find the key when the animals are sick. She gives up and returns waiting outside her room, only to be given a reprimanding ticket by some assistance robot called Ryobo 230r. After showing she is locked out, Ryobo removes the lock for her. Next day, she bumps into Y who tosses her the lock. She was excited when she solved her first riddle but became disappointed and thinks she’s a bore. The other girls think she’s bullying another student. In class, Watashi remains reclusive, not wanting to befriend anybody. Not even to a nice girl named Curly. Despite doing well in the test, Watashi became the target of bullying because she is older than everyone. But Watashi didn’t fight back. She accepts her fate and in a way ‘shields’ the bullies and blames herself at fault. The Principal sees her studying diligently in the library and is glad Grandpa sent her to study under him. They were good friends. He is impressed she is reading up a difficult subject on fairies. Despite her hardworking attitude, he notices she has hard time making friends. She declines his offer to help in any way. One night Curly visits Watashi in her room because she heard she will be advancing a grade due to another superb showing in her test. Curly felt sad she had to go but Watashi puts it this way. A problem will go away and everything will return back to normal. Watashi hints that Curly is the mastermind behind the bullying, the reason why they can’t be friends because the ‘truth’ will come out. She also accuses her for being sympathetic with her so she could control her. One evening at the ruins, Watashi manages to save a fairy from several naughty boys trying to dissect it! Back home, Watashi talks to the fairy and is surprised he is happily living alone. The fairy gets depressed when she hints being alone is not fun. She tries giving it a sandwich but I guess he settled for a sugar cube that he could munch on. The fairy is happy as Watashi introduces him to a book with myriad of sweets and candies. Due to ingredients shortage, she can’t really make lots of them. The fairy hints that he will disappear. Is it because of loneliness? Not if he gets more sugar cubes. Ryobo continues to always malfunction outside her room. Watashi always straighten it back to its path and thinks maybe it has an outdated map in its memory and perhaps the floor layout changed.

During dinner time, the bully boys accidentally bump into her. Once more, she cleaned up her own mess and took the blame. Curly wanted to help her but Watashi remains suspicious of her as the mastermind. Curly dismisses everything and sets it straight she approached her because she wanted to talk. Why won’t she open up? Because she doesn’t want to get to know anyone. That includes Curly. That night she wakes up screaming. She’s finally at her limit. Enough is enough. She realizes she is lonely. She really wanted friends. She did not want to be laughed at. It hurts when they bully and make fun of her. She wants to quit school. The fairy pops out from her pocket and provides a simple solution: Join him. Watashi couldn’t remember what happens next. She was able to focus on her studies and skip grades. However Curly too has advanced the grade but this time she bears the brunt of the bullying since she is younger than others. Everyone ignored her. One day, Watashi helped Curly retrieved her skirt from one of the bullying. She dismisses she was helping her out but it was enough for Curly to be happy. She wants Watashi to be her sister! No, her mother! She’s the only person she could trust. Watashi panics and decides to try reverse psychology. However claiming she was being sympathetic so that she could laugh at her backfired. Because Curly is happy that she cared. Soon Curly becomes her roommate. How did this happen? Curly forged Watashi’s signature as consent. Oh dear. Future con artist. Noticing she has baked lots of cakes, Watashi don’t want her finding out whom she baked them for and lies that it’s because she wanted to be more social. Though, she can’t remember what it is that she didn’t want Curly to find out. Curly invites her to be a member of the tea circle called Wild Rose Society. From the way Curly is bugging her, I guess she has to come. Upon meeting the other members for the first time, the first thing Watashi asked was how to quit. Not interested, aren’t we?

Episode 12
So as Watashi becomes part of the tea circle, the bullying also stops. She impresses them all with her sweets and even had lunch with them. Can she refuse? One day, she notices a torn page from a book that looked like a building blueprint. The rest point out it must be that girl Y whom they call Silver. She was a member of this club before Watashi but always kept to herself. Wild Rose Society’s main activity is to study the legend of the fairies’ tea party and it was what Y was interested. Of course since it’s a time consuming activity, all they do is offer new interpretations on those researches. A year later, Watashi advances another grade, leaving poor Curly behind. Watashi is now the same grade as Y. She didn’t like those girls in the society and points out their beauty is only on the surface. One day Watashi spots Y in a hurry and dropped a book. Watashi picks it up and makes a list of books missing from the library. This leads her to Y’s secret room. Y is shocked that she is able to find it. Watashi found this location after doing some research based on the hints from the torn page and Ryobo’s constant bumping into her wall. Y thought she couldn’t solve simple riddles like the one she gave her a year ago. However Watashi easily explains her answer regarding that riddle. It was based on Solomon Grundy and the key was to find a copy of that book that was returned on a Friday (because Solomon Grundy fell ill on a Friday). The reason Watashi didn’t continue was because she thought more riddles would greet her instead of the key. Now it’s Watashi’s turn to hit Y’s nerves. To summarize, she points out Y’s fetish for ‘relationships of boys who are more than friends’. Yaoi. BL. Get the picture? This secret room is a painstaking assemble of that collection. Because of her pride, stubbornness and superiority complex to preserve her fake image, she used this hidden room to indulge in her fantasies. But Y mentions she joined Wild Rose Society not to access such books. But rather they invited her as she was having trouble fitting in. She was hoping to find a club where she belongs. Y hopes she won’t tell this to anyone and is even willing to make a deal.

Walking through the dark corridors, the school seems to have lots of unused spaces that are uncharted. Never think before building? She is going to show them the real personalities of the Wild Rose Society members. First up is Hana’s room. There is a diary that meticulously details all those who upset her. In short, a grudge book. Hey, doesn’t Watashi’s name appear too often? But she was so nice to her? Yeah. Don’t judge a book by its cover. The closer you are to her, the higher your chances of upsetting her. Next room belongs to Majou. There is a heavy book. Inside contains all the hairs from the girls she collected!!! FREAKY!!! And because she is obsessed with Watashi, there are a few pages dedicated to her! With her hair strand! FREAKY!!! The next room sees a couple of them stripping, drinking, badmouthing, uncouth and the entire place messy like a pig sty. Guess whose is the last room? Curly might seem like playing doll but she’s treating it as Watashi! What is more disturbing is the fact she randomly snaps and takes out her loneliness frustration on the doll! In the end, she stabs it furiously!!! Oh sh*t! How can Watashi go back tonight?! So have you freaked out enough yet, Watashi? Can you stomach anymore of this? Y points out the rarity in finding someone you can trust. In this particular environment, the weird ones are left unchecked. That’s why Y tested Watashi then. She had no hidden sides and is a bad liar. Plus, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with these mentally unstable girls. A brat that is easy to understand is more relaxing to deal with. It is then that they both team up to secretly find the real fairy tea party. Their weird combination drew lots of attraction but they manage to make the fifth grade by then. Because there wasn’t any bad blood, there was a reconciliation party for Y and the other Wild Rose Society members. But soon, those members graduated and left and once more they were alone. Only Watashi, Y and Curly were left. They have yet to find the fairy tea party and continued searching in hopes that they would solve the mystery and make everything clear before they graduate.

The trio venture into a room containing very old Ryobo models. Wondering who put them here, Watashi thinks it’s the fairies when she suddenly remembers about them. She rushes back to the ruin pondering who on Earth she could have forgotten about them. However she couldn’t find any and the boy she asked told her he had never seen one. The next day, an announcement was made that the school was going to be torn down. A graduation ceremony was held but it was a sorry sight. Curly breaks down in Watashi’s arm as she neatens the curtains as her last duty of the society. Back in present time, Y visits Watashi and tells her how she stayed in school after graduation. Turns out she got a job but that job was at the school. She also brought a yearbook which she compiled herself. Before she leaves, she asks if Watashi knows anything about those robots. She has one in her trunk. Watashi takes Ryobo and in her room, the fairies confused her by saying it can be fixed but not restored. That’s because unlike humans it has no soul. Then popping out from Ryobo is that fairy she first met at the ruins. Watashi is overcome with emotion. That night she dreams of having a fairy tea party with the fairy. Despite not remembering much in detail, she notes once she wakes up, everything will slip away like dreams always do.

Specials

Of course when you buy the DVDs, there are little short specials called The Humans’ Law Of The Jungle that lasts around 2-3 minutes each. Due to the random nature of this series, the specials are also as random. Just that they are probably too short to be made into an episode as a whole. But it’s still fun to watch as we see the trouble Watashi gets into when she tampers with tools believed to be made by fairies.

Special 1
As part of Watashi’s job as a mediator, she is inspecting several suspicious goods circulating in the village. One of them includes a bottle with a spare cloud. Don’t ask. She thinks the goods lean more towards pranks than dangerous but she collects them just in case. Another tool she found is a spoon. When it actually got stuck inside her head, she takes it out to find it filled with flour. She continues to scoop up endless amount of wheat flour from her head to make sweets. Is this what her brain is made out? Though the result is that she has a mountain of wheat flour, she has shrink into fairy size!

Special 2
Watashi knows the spoon is the cause of her shrunk in size and notices the number on it decreasing. When Grandpa comes in, she is happy to see him. However he thinks she is a fairy and couldn’t understand a word she says. She tries hinting him via hand signals to convey what she says but somehow everything looked simplified. Still, Grandpa doesn’t get her and thinks he will tell Watashi that the she is here. Now that Grandpa has left, it is up to Watashi to venture out to seek the help of other fairies to return to normal. Unfortunately she got attacked by a bird! Food!!!

Special 3
Luckily the bird got stuck with Watashi’s egg shell helmet. She runs and stumbles into a house. Yameta the hamster greets her and he seems to be proud that they are the sole intellectual civilization on Earth. Whatever. Yeah well, do rodents make light bulbs? Talking about that, Yameta explains it was invented by the brightest hamster in the family but was eaten by their natural predator, the weasel and died. Then another hamster rushes in to report another of their friend has been eaten by a weasel so everyone goes off to do an emotional burial for him.

Special 4
The hamsters are running away from the weasels’ attack. Contrary to our beliefs that weasels are cute looking creatures, they are quite the evil blood thirsty vermin they are! Too evil! Watashi’s spoon gets caught in a can but in a way it saves her life because the weasel’s attack sends her flying away into the air. But she drops into the river. Thankfully she is pulled out by a frog. Actually, a fairy underneath that sophisticated frog suit. Frog prince fairy? Don’t they look different from conventional fairies? They look more like mini elves.

Special 5
Watashi is taken to the fairy village. They try to figure out her solution but she concluded there wasn’t any so let’s give up. Yup, she starts having fun in the village, indulging in leisure activities. One day there is a problem of them unable to acquire any sweets but Watashi thinks she can make some. She scoops a spoon fill of flour from her head as the rest notices the number further reduces. Soon Watashi passes out. When she wakes up, she finds herself shrunk another half size. The fairies are amazed with this special phenomenon and hypothesizes that the spoon was converting her thoughts into flour. In other words, it can convert mental abilities into powder. They think if it was so, it wouldn’t be fun without scaling one’s height with the intelligence lost. So the one who made this was thinking this was an idea of fun? Watashi thinks not. She can’t understand why the rest are laughing. This is a serious issue. Is she laughing too? Maybe she’s going mad. Maybe she’s scared. Somebody help her…

Special 6
The fairies bring Watashi to God’s house. Supposedly somebody who can make sweets and give people names. Say, isn’t this her own home? Feeling nostalgic? Noticing flour around the place, they proceed to make sweets. Little does Watashi know, the number on the spoon soon drops to single digit and before she knows it, she passes out. All she feels is just to sleep and worried if somebody would feed her pet ladybug. A cookie comes up to her. It smells good and she eats it. Mmm… Tastes good. When she wakes up, the fairies have finished making a mountain of sweets and are ready to dig in. Suddenly it dawns to Watashi that the sweets are her brains! Don’t eat them! Because… Because… Because they’re poison! In the end, she ate all the cookies by herself. At least she didn’t grow fat. She returns back to her normal size and though the number of the spoon sits at 280, she remembers it used to be 322. So this means some of her brains are missing, eh? Maybe that’s why there are some things she can’t recall. Being back to her normal size means that the hamsters look like normal non-talking furry rodents and the weasel… It’s not so threatening at all. So cute! Was it all just an illusion? Watashi tickles and feeds it.

Regression Depression…
If I should say, this series is quite entertaining and fascinating by itself. Although there are many instances that still baffle me, but if I take it lightly with a pinch of salt, I find this generally enjoyable. For example, the time loop arc was a little confusing to me and I had so many questions of what happened about this and that so much so that I had to go online and do a little research and read up on that arc’s summary before understanding the gist of it. Had I never found out Ringo Kid was Grandpa, the big question mark would have still be hanging around my head on the big difference in Assistant’s character then and now. The play on the word Time Paradogs with Time Paradox and its explanation was equally confusing. Why didn’t everybody remember about themselves when they see themselves or someone familiar? Like shouldn’t Watashi have recognized herself or Grandpa recognizing Watashi when he meets her as an old man? So you see, thinking for answers about these questions only brings me more headaches. So if I accept it at face value, everything will be alright because it all ends well, right? Did it? Ah well, my memory isn’t that good anyway. First sign of decline?

The decline of humans isn’t the focus of this series but Watashi’s misadventures with the fairies and other characters. Thus despite the fact that we know humans are on the gradual path to extinction, it doesn’t feel so due to the several comical and baffling moments. Especially the headless chicken arc. That was hilarious! You will know the true meaning of fear when you see headless chickens trying to take over the world! Or the part where Loaf splits himself in half! Such light hearted sides take our attention and focus away from that setting. Sometimes it just feels that the place is just uninhabited and void of humans and a country that is just poor. Well, my perception of when human is on that self destruction path, it should be an aftermath of a great war so much so you could see rubbles of buildings laying waste all around. It isn’t that noticeable in Camphorwood. Maybe there wasn’t any big war to begin with. Besides, there is no indication to say how long humans have been living such a declining lifestyle. It could be years or decades. It could be many centuries that have passed.

Watashi as the main heroine is an amusing protagonist. While on the outside she may look like a caring and polite person, she is also to an extent cunning, scheming and manipulative. It’s like she has 2 sides to a coin. It is not that she is a bad person, what she usually does is that she tries to take the easy way out of situations that are seemingly difficult for her to handle. Otherwise, she would just go with the flow. What makes her funny (and why mainly this series is funny) is because of her comebacks, retorts, punch lines and sarcasm. Yes, it is her ability to rebuff the situation with her witty sarcasm that makes it funny and the reason why I look forward to hear her talk and pay attention to her speeches. In addition to her sweets baking skills, it’s like she has a knack for retorting since the situation usually doesn’t go her way the wishes. If stand up comedy was alive, I think she could make a decent living as a comedian. Too bad when humanity is in decline and the basic necessities are scarce, you don’t need someone who tells jokes just to lift the gloom, right? Or do you?

The fairies are of course the biggest mystery in this series. How they make their technology super fast or multiply in a blink of an eye are equally mysterious. We are not even shown a hint of how something happens because when it happens, it happens. Most likely our tiny human brain won’t comprehend if we even were explained. So whether it is true or not they can make inventions and even phenomenon that only God could make (such as the time loop), it is best to not think too much over this. After all, what would you get once you have unravelled the mystery? Where would all the fun be? There is a reason why they kept themselves hidden from humans and only Watashi is an exception due to her skills in making their eternal favourite sweets. Also an amusing bunch themselves, they aren’t that perfect (in humans’ eyes of course). Seems that they favour quantity over quality so the things that they make tend to end up with inferior value. Maybe the more the merrier? A herd mentality too? Because if one fairy wants to have fun, the rest would love to join in. They also seem not to comprehend about things like life and death. It feels like because of their short attention span and disorganized memory, they live for the moment. Be happy now. Whatever comes, it comes. And even if something bad is going to come, they could make a ‘joke’ out of it. Even if it’s some negativity. Easily depressed? Well, at least they don’t stay long that way if you know how to make them happy.

The other characters in the series seem sufficient and only to support Watashi as the protagonist. Grandpa may be the coolest character due to his cool ways and doesn’t lose his composure easily. I wonder about his hobby of collecting guns. Did you see the vast collection on his walls? I’m not sure if it is banned but after all that fighting and wars, humanity has declined in population so it makes no sense to kill each other anymore now that everyone is struggling to even have the basic necessities. Everybody has his own quirks. Just like Assistant. That single episode he spoke proves that he is no mute. Why can’t he just open his mouth and talk like everyone else? Maybe he is one of those rare people who would prefer to speak through his actions. Literally. And how Watashi could understand every single word he says is indeed mind boggling. I don’t think she is wild guessing. After all, being with him for so long, she could understand more or less what he wants to say. Y’s yaoi fetish proves that such subculture really dies hard in the future. But do you think that having such a depraved fetish is considered a decline in humanity? Who am I to say such interests are immoral? To each his own. Despite this quirky fetish of Y, I guess you could say that she is a better friend to Watashi compared to the other mentally unstable girls of Wild Rose Society. Yeah, everyone is in serious need of emotional help. Whether or not humanity is rotting away, such personality problems have always been a thorn in society. Talk about driving human to extinction with such creepy dark personality problems.

The production studio of this anime is AIC ASTA, which is one of the many divisions under the big company of AIC. Under this name, they were the ones who did Sora No Otoshimono series, Bamboo Blade and Tokimeki Memorial animes. The drawing and art may seem simple and sometimes like sketches. Sometimes feeling like a show for younger audiences in the sense that the surroundings are colourful enough. But I guess this is to keep in line with the comedy theme. That’s why this is one reason why I feel humans aren’t on the path of decline. Even in supposedly dark and ruined places, it doesn’t feel scary at all. When technology that involves the mysterious fairies, the buildings and inventions can range from realistic to cartoonish. Cute yet scary.

Mai Nakahara plays Watashi and when I first heard her, I thought how similar she sounded to her other role as Juvia from Fairy Tail. Just loose the lovey-dovey fawning. Despite Assistant had no lines throughout the series and that single line is all you ever going to hear, I am surprised that Jun Fukuyama was the one voicing him. No matter how much I strain my ear and replay that line again and again, I just couldn’t make out it was him. He is neither like Code Geass’ Lelouch or Kyoukai Senjou No Horizon’s Toori. As for the fairies, there are several seiyuus who voice them. They include Hisako Kanemoto, Satomi Arai, Yumiko Kobayashi, Chika Kobayashi, Saki Ogasawara, Asami Sanada, Satomi Akesaka and Nozomi Sasaki. I can’t differentiate them because they sound nearly the same. Picture this kind of voice. Try talking like a cute alien without emphasizing too much on your emotion. Yup. That’s how fairies generally sound. Hearing Pion’s voice too, I thought it was somewhat familiar. Till she went “~de arimasu”. Then I was like, doesn’t that sound like Ricotta from Dog Days? Who else could it be but Nana Mizuki! The other casts include Miyuki Sawashiro as Y (Shinku in Rozen Maiden), Unshou Ishizuka as Grandpa (Bunta in Initial D), Nobuyuki Hiyama as Oyage (Madarame in Bleach), Natsuko Kuwatani as Doctor (Yue in Mahou Sensei Negima), Hisako Kanemoto as Curly (Ika in Shinryaku! Ika Musume), Ryoka Yuzuki as Ryobo (Ino in Naruto), Kazuya Ichijou as Director (Zafira in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha), Kurumi Mamiya as Loaf (titular character of Hamtaro) and Tomomichi Nishimura as Principal (Anzai in Slam Dunk).

Listening to the rock opening theme, Real World, it very much reminded me of the opening theme in Sankarea. It’s no surprise seeing both songs are sung by Nano Ripe. I think I’m starting to identify her unique ‘drunk’ voice by now. The odd and amusing about the opening animation credits is the funny dance that Watashi and the fairies are doing. What the heck are they doing? Pushing air?! I don’t think this will become as famous or catch on like Gangnam Style but imagine seeing a bunch of little fairies led by Watashi doing this ‘exercise’. Weird, no? I tried it out a little while myself but quickly lost interest. Besides, I don’t have that much stamina to ‘push’ vigorously. Hearing the ending theme also reminded me of another familiar song. I noticed how Yume no Naka no Watashi no Yume reminded me of Zettai Shonen’s ending theme. That’s because both of them are sung by the same singer, Masumi Itou. She too has an ‘odd’ voice that’s why I was able to recognize. Imagine a woman trying to put on a falsetto voice. Is it coincidence that both these series also deal with the supernatural fairies? The one in Zettai Shonen is slower and have a more enigmatic feel while this one is livelier, happier and more fantasy-like feel.

The declination of mankind perhaps tries to tell us to appreciate what we have now and not take things for granted. But do humans really learn from history? Take a look at the great empires in the past from Rome to China. After a period of prosperity, it is followed by downfall and before you know it, the dynasties are over and become part of history. Notice that in this series you don’t have the people fidgeting with technology? Can I say that it is a big relief for once not to see people sticking iPads, iPhones, Tablets and other electronic gadgets in their face? So it proves that in dire times, people do can live without them. Therefore be thankful in this age of plenty. People are just struggling to survive. Therefore the other lesson is to live each day to the fullest. You would appreciate things more that way. Of course, back to basics is another key point as seen without technology (not including help from the fairies), people still manage to get by daily albeit it would be better if they had some modern conveniences that cover their basic needs.

It might not happen now or in the nearest future but perhaps this is a sign and of course that one day just like everything in this universe, it will come to an end. But no use thinking about it now because it’s not going to happen so soon, right? Hah. Typical human lethargy. The end of the world at the end of 2012 didn’t turn out true either, right? But look at the way we are devouring Earth’s limited resources and polluting them. In a way, we are digging our own graves right at this moment. Whether or not mankind will gain the ability and technology to travel deep into space to leave the dying Earth (like as in Wall-E), that is another different story. Well, if it is going to be a slow decline to extinction and greatly affects the quality of life to the point it becomes a painful dystopia so bad that one couldn’t imagine, I’d rather have a meteoroid smash into Earth right now to end it all. No anime = no life! :)