The last episode of an all-too short lived OAV series, the crew put out an interesting mix of writing and animation for this one. This episode give us quite a bit of character backgrounds, and some progression of relationships as well. The plot is more substantial than the previous efforts as well, tackling a not so nice side of unfair competitive practices. Watching the hapless staff of Yuugen Kaishya forced into part-time work was funny enough; the build-up of Karino discovering Ayaka working as a waitress was even better. Music is rather questionable, though -- the run through the Hadja temple sounded suspiciously like late '70s pop group Blondie's Call Me with a couple of additional chord progressions thrown in. Animation though was great -- there were some wonderful compositional layouts involving the temple, but the real kicker I thought was in the final fight scene between Ayaka and Mukyo. Someone obviously paid a lot of attention to detail in laying out and arranging the fight scene, and the effort really shows. The bonus is, they also managed to throw in a touch of humour as well. A developing relationship between Karino and Ayaka is nice to see; too bad this is the last episode. I want more! - AN

I *liked* this episode. The story is still quite light; a rival has moved into town and is taking over. Even so, there's plenty of humour and funny stuff happening that it's a lot of fun to watch. Particularly notable was the call from the phone company, and the argument between Ayaka and the woman at the precinct (specifically Mamoru and the old guy). There's a bit of character development as well with Ayaka and Karino but then... well you'll see. Of course there is a final showdown between Yuugen Kaishya and the Hadja. Why some bad guys can't put words of more than one syllable together when they get upset is a bit beyond me (see this a lot in KOR actually). I especially liked the way they arranged the Buddhist "temple"; I've sometimes wondered about the layout in some of those things, although the layout reminded me more of a castle than a temple. Still, the overall animation while not fantastic was lots of fun and the acting continued to be very good. Really makes you wish they kept on with this series but it probably didn't catch on too well with the younger crowd. - JYN