The story picks up one year after the fall of the “Red Shield”.  Kai and the others are in London now continuing their fight even without Saya.  There’s no doubt that Kai has changed over the course of a year.  I don’t mean physically since that is blatantly obvious, but his personality has changed.  On the other side of the ocean we get to see what Collins and Julia have been up to.  These new troops of the living dead actually seem pretty powerful.  It looks like this project is supported by Diva’s chevaliers, which strikes me as odd at the moment since I don’t have a clue what their plan involves.  To be honest I didn’t think Saya and Hagi would appear in this episode, but I’m glad they did since that made me look forward to the next episode even more.  Just by looking at the preview I can see that Saya seems darker and looks even more awesome.

I knew this was going to be a good episode, but I wasn’t expecting anything of this calibur.  I was wondering what Diva wanted with Riku at first, then all hell broke loose when she found him.  I would never have thought that she would rape him then kill him.  One may have theorized this could happen, but honestly it never even remotely crossed my mind.  I never expected them to kill Riku off, at least at this point in the series.  At least Yajima Akiko can now focus solely on doing the voice of Diva.  If Saya had remembered to put her blood on the katana then the series would have been over.  This episode marks the end of the current part of the story.  We’re moving forward one year starting in the next episode.  From here on out it seems the series will just get darker.

It looks like Collins betrayed the Red Shield. I guess I can’t say I don’t understand his thinking since he is a scientific researcher afterall. Of course, one can’t accept his course of action if looked at in terms of morals. For now it appears to the Red Shield that both Collins and Julia betrayed them. In retrospect, Collins did look too sinister to be an ally until the end. There’s always a slight chance he isn’t really betraying them, but we’ll just have to wait and see how that turns out. Diva attacks the Red Shield headquarters 3 days before they had originally planned. I’m thinking this will end up being the critcal mistake she makes that will end in her downfall by the end. In other words, if she had waited 3 days they probably would have wiped out the entire organization.

A lot of the things Joel and Saya talked about we knew already, but there was quite a bit of new information as well. This episode fills in many of the gaps since the beginning of the series. We get to see how Joel found Saya and Diva. You could probably piece the scene together without ever watching this episode, but it’s nice to actually get to see how it all happened. You start to understand why Diva turned out the way she did after watching this episode. Joel also explains to Saya the reason Hagi was taken in by the original Joel in the first place. The whole Vietnam situation now makes complete sense. Previously we’ve only seen brief flashbacks that only showed a few scenes, leaving us without answers to every question they brought up. I thought it was cool to see all the missing scenes that took place during that period. Although this episode doesn’t progress the current story, it adds a lot more depth to the backstory of the series.

Elaine didn’t make it afterall. It’s unfortunate that Saya’s blood couldn’t save her. She would have been a welcome addition to the ongoing story. Now that the Sifu know Saya’s blood can’t save them, there’s no reason for them to go after Saya anymore. Even though they aren’t going to work together for the time being, they will probably end up helping Saya and the others at some point. Julia may begin to suspect something is up after hearing Collins mention “Van”. It will be interesting to see how that situation will turn out. In one month Amshel will execute his plans against the “Red Shield”. I can’t tell if that’s soon or quite far down the line. They could rush the time line or they could prolong it. Either way I look forward to it.

After searching for a long time Mao finally finds Kai. Considering how desperate she was to meet Kai their reunion was kind of anti-climactic. Whether or no Mao will end up staying with Saya and the others remains to be seen. They want Mao to return, but removing her from the story already would make her entire trip pretty pointless. The Sifu target Saya once again. It looks like Kai may actually make a difference between the conflict between these two groups. As much as I want to see Elaine survive, I have my doubts about it based partly on the preview. I hope the outcome will be good, but I wouldn’t count on it. There’s also some new information that were revealed thanks to Julia’s research. It may not seem all that important yet, but that information will most likely be crucial sooner or later.

It was pretty funny to see Saya and Mao walk by each other and not notice. Now that they’re all in Paris Mao will probably get to see Kai soon. That’ll be an interesting reunion. Thanks to Elaine we finally learn the identity of the Sifu. I wouldn’t have thought Amshel would be responsible for creating them. We’re also told why the Sifu are after Saya. After hearing her story I can’t really blame them for their rash action. Hopefully Saya will volunteer to help cure them, especially Elaine. It was unfortunate that both the Sifu and Saya interfered resulting in Elaine returning with the Sifu. They make it seem like she just lost her only chance to recover.

The new opening and ending song began in this episode. Honestly, I’m not too fond of the two new songs. The animation that goes with the new opening was kind of bizarre. It looked a bit too ‘artsy’ for this series. Riku is now officially Saya’s second chevalier. Whether or not he’ll be of any use has yet to be seen. He now accepts that he’s different from before so I wonder if he’ll hold a grudge against Saya. The Sifu once again go after Saya, but we don’t get any new information about them. I thought it was a fun episode to watch, but now that I think about it there wasn’t a whole lot of development. We do see that Solomon may suspect his brother has something unexpected planned.

With new information, the story may now move from France to the genetic research lab in Iceland. Saya is determined not to run away anymore and is set on defeating Diva. Let’s hope this is the last time we’ll see a “weak” Saya. It’s been a long time since we saw her kick some ass. She has to put her new katana to good use. Mao is still one step behind Kai. I wonder when she will actually see Kai and the others. Van calls up Collins to ask if he was interested in meeting up so he could show him his research. It will be interesting to see how that turns out. It appears that Riku has not suffered any of the side-effects of receiving Saya’s blood. DNA analysis revealed that he has a an extra base besides the normal adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine. Speculation suggests that is what is protecting Riku from the side-effects. Of course, the preview for the next episode hints at the idea that Saya’s blood did have an effect on Riku.

As it turns out, Diva’s seiyuu is the same as Riku’s (Yajima Akiko, also known for roles such as Himekawa Ayumi from Glass Mask and Shinnosuke from Crayon Shin-chan). Being a fan of her work may make it a bit biased, but I do think she does a really good job as Diva. I found Diva to be a really interesting character. Her behaviour at times were child-like; yet she also seemed psychotic, for the lack of a better term, at the same time. We get to see the big difference in strength between Saya and Diva, but we’re reminded that it is probably due to the fact Saya has not drank any blood. In order to save Riku, Saya feeds him some of her blood. He may end up like Hagi, but there’s a possibility his body will react differently because of the hints we’ve been getting regarding Riku’s “uniqueness”. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to the next episode.