Two short stories, only one of which actually involves a Phantom Book, are combined into one episode this week. While not as exciting as the previous two episodes, I think that the main point of the combination was to introduce the new character before getting further into the plot. Both of the stories this week worked well with their half-episode time constraints, each telling an interesting story and resolving it nicely. I guess that there is something to my theory from my last post that the problems surrounding the Phantom Books will probably be based off of human failings, since the first half of the episode deals with the desire for knowledge while the second half deals with greed. That's not to say that it wasn't without its failings; the first half seemed to be resolved a little bit too easily, and the second half pushed my suspension of disbelief a bit with the convenient and little-too-obvious ending. This is probably the weakest of the episodes so far, but I'm glad that these stories were combined into one episode instead of dragged out over two so that it will be easier to get back to the more action-oriented part of the story. The new character is Camilla, apparently a childhood friend of Huey's, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Avril from Gosick. However, this character is far more intelligent than her last-season lookalike with a decent knowledge of books and the ability to easily manipulate Dalian with sweets. Her only quirk seems to be a penchant for random outfits, but since this is Gainax I'm willing to let that one go. With a lack of "unlocking the library" this episode, they have to have their fanservice somewhere, right? It's too early to say what kind of role that she will play in this show, if at all, but I welcome another adult upgrade. Images from NicoNico.com.
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