Meet Touga's younger sister, Nanami. Cute, intelligent, scheming, and totally in awe of her older brother. In short, she's annoying. This episode brought this series back into perspective -- after all, it is a television series, and we can't expect a huge budget for each and every episode. Animation was much more limited than in the previous two, with a lot of 'pan and hold' shots that we typically see in low-budget productions. One item that's bothered me with the Hasegawa Shinya character designs is the lack of pupils in the character's eyes. I find this rather uncomfortable to look at, perhaps because we've become so accustomed to associating the fully dialated pupil with being drugged. Personally, I think that the animators are missing out on one of the classic means by which Japanese animators have conveyed the emotions of their creations...

A lot more humour was evident here as well; and in keeping with the tone, we see considerable amout of use of super-deformed character expressions, especially in the case of Utena herself.

The soundtrack continues to be a very strong point in this series; it's well scored, and works very well with the scene at hand. I'm especially fond of the string pieces used in this episode.

But when the final scenes at the dance finally arrive, I was mostly disappointed. While Nanami's little ploy to embarass Anthy was typical, the convenient manner (and almost ridiculous) way Utena comes to her rescue felt very out of place. I'm sure the writers were trying to stress Utena's commitment to her goal of being a "prince" herself, but I found the end result awkward.

The interaction between Touga and Utena holds a lot more promise, however. The tension between the two school leaders is razor-sharp, and alludes to a much more interesting conflict to come. Hopefully, the future will bring something a little more substantial than this episode.
- AN, 99.03.18