If only every episode of this series could be this good I would have rated this series a lot higher.  We learn the identity of the gold armor-wearing Archer.  The thought that he is Gilgamesh from the “Epic of Gilgamesh” never crossed my mind even when he used “Gate of Babylon”.  I’ve got to hand it to Shirou though, he stepped up to the plate and took charge for once.  Pretty much up to this point in the series he has been pretty useless.  This episode reaffirms the idea that Shirou and Saber belong together after we find out that he is her sheath, as odd as that may seem.  I’ve never seen him act so smooth either.  Take the scene where he was teaching Saber how to prepare the daikon for example.  I wouldn’t have expected him to teach her like that.  I was actually a bit disappointed with their kiss scene actually.  For something so significant I thought they could have done a better job with that scene.  Every now and then throughout this series I have been wondering what happened to Lancer.  At the end of the episode we finally get to find out who Lancer’s master is.  There are only 3 episodes left and I expect big things from these last 3 episodes.  If the remaining episodes are as good, if not better than this episode then I will quite satisfied with the series.

Including a character like Peorth seemed like it would make things that much more interesting considering how different she is from the other characters. Unfortunately, I didn’t think she really improved the quality of the episode. I thought the episode overall wasn’t all that entertaining. It felt like it really lacked any sort of originality. I had hoped for an episode that would make it stand out above the other episodes. At least the art for this episode was fairly consistent. The Peorth story continues into the next episode. Maybe they will keep her in the series until the end of the season afterall. The premise for the next episode sounds more interesting so maybe it will be more enjoyable.

The series is getting better and better.  I just hope they can keep this up.  In this episode Kyo gets to see the Maihama server first hand.  Of course, he is shocked by seeing the truth with his own eyes.  My only real issue with that scene was he wasn’t as shocked as I would have guessed.  After coming to the conclusion that he is alive with or without a physical body, he is determined to protect the world even in the state it’s in.  Now some people may consider the scene that made him decide to fight a bit cheesy, but I personally liked it.  It was a pretty significant turning point in the series where Kyo chose to fight on his own free will.  Now that he knows what some of his other comrades have gone through his relationship with them will likely improve.  It would be nice if start to learn more about the other characters now.

Reina seems to have her eye on Rihoko now. I guess it’s quite possible she realizes Rihoko may be her daughter. Masane has no clue who Rihoko’s father is. She reiterates that she has no memory from before the incident in Tokyo, which further provides support for the theory. The enemy this time around appears to be different from the others we’ve seen thus far. This is purely speculation, but maybe the person was experimented on against his will and ended up the way we see him in this episode. This may lead Masane to really rethink what she is doing and it might make her hesitant to fight. Many things remain a mystery, but as long as they can keep it entertaining I don’t mind waiting longer for the answers.

It looks like Haseo has found out where to use the virus cores.  Could this really mean that the road to the “Key of the Twilight” is now open?  I believe we have seen a total of 5 different virus cores thus far.  We’ll get to find out if the virus cores really lead to the “Key of the Twilight” after they find the last virus core.  I have considered dropping this series a couple of times already.  This episode has somewhat given me hope that this series may not be a lost cause afterall.  Looking at the preview it seems like things may become quite hectic.  It’s definately a good thing considering how slow-paced this series has been.

Ikki and the others were coming up with names for their team at the beginning.  I thought they would actually end up coming up with a name by the end of the episode.  Instead, this episode was pretty much a filler.  I didn’t mind it though because it’s mainly about their teacher.  Some of the things she does is just plain hilarious.  One of my favourite part of the episode was towards the end when we see Ikki receive the “payment” for getting the clock to move once again.  That scene just cracked me up since it’s so out of character for Tonn-chan.  As much as I have enjoyed these filler episodes so far, I’m glad we’re moving forward in the next episode.

We get a glimpse of what the new dolls’ capabilities are in this episode.  I didn’t find the episode all that fun to watch.  The only real redeeming factor for me is we find out that Rangiku along with 3 others are going to be assiting Ichigo.  Although I feel that this filler arc has dragged on far too long, we do potentially get some benefits.  It gives us an opportunity to get to know some of these  characters better.  Plus, we can never have too much Rangiku.  They are really going to have to change some things around once they return to the Aizen story arc though.  By including things things that were not supposed to happen until they actually get back to the main storyline, we may end up getting quite a different story when they do get around to it.

The series is slowly recovering from the slump two episodes ago.  In this episode we get to see what the girls were like back in junior high.  There were some scenes that I thought were funny.  For really no logical reason at all, Yuma states that she dislikes Eriko which leads to an entertaining feud between the two.  In particular, I really liked the scene that took place at the ramen shop.  Afterwards they showed us why Eriko didn’t eat much of the ramen, which I thought worked really well.  All of the girls haven’t changed much besides their hair styles.  At least for all the girls except Kyoko.  I would never have guessed that Kyoko used to be fat.  I didn’t see this one coming at all.  With 4 episodes left I hope the remaining episodes will be of similar quality as the first few episodes.

I think this is the first episode where we don’t actually have any blood or violence.  It was nice to see things so laid back for an entire episode.  We get to meet new characters in this episode as well.  Camyu seems to be a fairly interesting character.  She seems to be the only character who appears to be playful all the time.  The part I enjoyed most was probably when Camyu tried to befriend Aruru.  I thought it was pretty hilarious to see Aruru run away from Camyu everytime she got too close.  The country is at peace for now, but of course it is not going to last.  If the preview is of any indication, some sort of new conflict will arise in the next episode.

Mikoto and Tenma along with a few others join a newly formed basketball club.  As far as humour is concerned, the episode doesn’t live up to the level of humour I have come to expect from the “School Rumble” series.  There were a few lines that were pretty funny, but overall it just wasn’t what I was hoping for.  This episode does a pretty good job of building up to next week’s episode though.  Tenma’s enthusiasm to play basketball had comedy written all over it.  We’ll get to see Tenma’s team play Mikoto’s team in the next episode, which should be good.  There’s lots of potential there for good comedy.  If all goes well it should make up for this episode’s lack of humour.