Amber seems younger and younger looking every time we see her. Assuming that it’s not just my imagination, this could lend some credence to speculation that her obseisance is aging in reverse (growing younger).

Coupled with the fact that we’ve already seen an obeisance that causes aging, in Alma’s case, as well as Amagiri’s warning to Amber that “there’s a limit to how many times you can use your power” back in episode 16, and it seems like an entirely reasonable assumption to make.

We caught the witch! Somebody call Factory.

I seriously felt like I was watching an episode of Witch Hunter Robin for a minute there in the beginning.

It seems that in many anime series, in particular I’m thinking of Read or Die and Samurai Champloo here, Americans are depicted as being either moronic or manipulative, and always uncooperative. Not that I feel this stereotype is completely without justification mind you, but still…

Yin’s arc in episodes 13 & 14 really served to highlight the fact that she and Hei have an unusually strong bond between them. They certainly proved to have excellent teamwork in this episode.

It was quite interesting to be able to see Yin in a more active role, providing realtime intel during Hei’s Sam Fisher-style infiltration.

Alright, was anyone else feeling that sort of James Bond nostalgia when Wei made his returning appearance? I mean his face is even scarred from the previous battle, for goodness sakes!

However, this ensured yet another epic fight sequence so I was actually quite thrilled. I’m aware that it’s often an overused story element to have a particularly interesting villain mysteriously return to exact his vengeance, but given how mysterious the whole nature of the contractors and the gate incident is, I didn’t feel cheated.

While I am glad to see Wei Zhijun finally back in action, I was a bit disappointed with the fight scene. The bullet time stuff seemed a bit contrived, and just overall the fight lacked the dynamic feel of their last battle.

Besides, blowing up trees is so Naruto.

The mysterious new contractor’s power of teleportation, being able to go virtually anywhere on a whim, seems like it would be pretty convenient. You could zip over to the coffee shop to grab a drink without having to so much as lift a finger. The whole losing your clothes bit would get rather bothersome after a while, though…

“Yes, I’ll have a double-shot and, uh…what? Oh, no, no creamer thank you. Yeah, my…clothes are back at home, sorry about that.”

The Pandora guys are serious business.

For some reason whenever Hei dons his “Black Reaper” mask I’m always at the edge of my seat. I think it’s great that his persona is unassuming and polite when he’s just going about his normal business. The juxtaposition between that and the hard-edged professional killer look is quite entertaining. Every time I see that mask I just think to myself, “Oh, it is so on.”

While Huang, Yin, and to an extent even Mao have all gotten some character development and backstory, Hei and Amber are still highly enigmatic. Small hints have been dropped here and there throughout the series, but we still don’t really know much about Hei, which is disappointing because he’s definitely one of the most interesting characters in the show.

With only four episodes remaining, it just doesn’t seem like there’s enough time to really develop the remaining characters and their relationships. My fear is that we’ll be left with more questions than answers at the end of the day.

Fortunately, based on the episode 22 teaser, it sounds as though we may finally get some exposition that will unravel a few of the mysteries and resolve some of the loose ends.