Where did these people come from? What did I miss?!

TAAN: Well, I’m really late, but I somehow caught up. I was originally planning to combine 2 eps into one, but I kinda got lazy and things snowballed from there. Anyways, it’s kinda good they did because now I can get away with tiny paragraphs, which is probably the best way I can review this stuff. Also, it’s finally getting interesting as of episode 12. Anyways, I’m going to say screw ratings until I can find a good scale I can agree with. Using numbers sucks.

Episode 3:

Ever play Time Hollow?

Well, leaving off from Episode 2, it’s pretty obvious this episode will be all about the three finding their will to help with the Element Hunting. It’s interesting to see everyone’s families and their dynamics, since you rarely ever see anyone’s family in any anime. Unfortunately, it’s not very interesting to summarize. Anyways, long story short, they remember their bonds of friendship and at the same time gain new reason to be element hunters due to more disappearances.

Some Notes:

• Ren actually has both a mother and father who live together and appear on screen. this is amazing.
• Homi lives with his Grandmother only
• Chiara’s family is pretty much screwed. She lives with her overly laid back dad who just got fired. Screwed. Her mom is tv star or something though (revealed in a later ep).

Episode 4

Misunderstandings are fun

For the team’s first Element Hunt after getting back, they are sent to retrieve Oxygen. Once again though, they meet up with the colony team. The QEX this time is actually shown to be a modified animal. They end up managing to capture the element while the official team watches to see how “good” they are (they’re more resourceful than good). The colony team then leaves, understanding that Ren’s team can actually do stuff.

Notes:

• this ep’s QEX deals with oxygen. It’s not that interesting. basically stuff you already know like high doses are poisonous, and it explodes easily.

Episode 5

Conveniently, there's a person-sized opening to secape from

QEXs are basically minor plot devices now. The main story is on how the main team works, or doesn’t. Remember when I said Ren and Chihara were both the impulsive, bossy type? Well it turns out you can’t have a team like that so this episode is all about them having to work things out. The QEX turns out to be in some polar region this time, and the official team comes better prepared. Chihara decides that they should work with the colony team, but Ren doesn’t want to. In the end, Chihara gets her way, and as a result, later that night, she gets a package with some “booster wear” like the ones the colony team was wearing.

Notes:

• Well, we’re finally getting to see how Ren and Chihara are different. They’re not too different even then. Just a few subtleties.
• Chihara’s mom is a tv action hero. But I already said that.
• QEX is a plant, well whatever algae is, which somehow gives it insane control over it’s ability, which is ice. It eats Hydrogen to live, which is kind of what people are made of. More like what a bunch of things, but still, it tries to eat people
• Chihara’s plan to defeat it is to use a super powerful electromagnet to distort the dipole forces keeping the super bose-einstein ice shield together. That shouldn’t make sense. I mean, technically with a superstrong electromagnet you could rip anything apart, but that requires ridiculous amounts of energy, and the coil they used should produce a magnetic field they’re not shielded from. I’m pretty sure it would have killed them anyways to do what they did, as well as destroy everything by ripping apart their atomic bonds. Or something like that.

Episode 6:

It is delicious cake. You must eat it.

Ally, the leader of the Colony team is confused about herself after sending Chihara the booster wear. There’s some insight into her background, but it’s not that interesting. A new Beryllium QEX appears, and no one on the colony team can figure out how to beat it. Ren manages to enrage it through his usual stupidity, which makes it lower its defenses and attack. Everyone’s stumped for a bit until Ally decides to imitate Ren and get her team to strike when it’s defenses are low (actually, Ally imitating Ren gets everyone surprised). They retrieve the beryllium and leave, with Ally more confident in herself or something.

Notes:

• beryllium is a key component in a lot of gemstones like emeralds, aquamarines, and chrysoberyl gemstones.
• they got their chemistry right about berylium dissolving in hcl, but I don’t think there’s much else.
• phonon masers are cool

Episode 7:

...

If you notice, Ren, Chihara, and even Ally have all gotten their own eps. Homi’s been left out so this one is his ep. Although he’s smart, he has a sort of inferiority complex/defeatist attitude. It’s all because his grandfather was a ridiculously larger than life figure. The QEX this time turns into its opponent’s most feared thing, so it turns into Homi’s grandfather. After initially failing horribly, he overcomes it with the support of the other two and Juno.

Other Stuff:

• in order for the QEX to change into its opponent’s most feared thing, it would have to 1) detect brainwaves through air, 2) decode the waves to read the opponent’s minds and not just conscious thoughts, 3) understand and reassemble the data it received into a 3-dimensional image, and 4) modify it’s structure to turn into that 3 dimensional whatever. Oh right, it’d also have to somehow find out what the object it turned into’s articulation, speed, and possible attacks are.
• it looks like procell or mudman (Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow) when it’s Homi’s grandfather’s giant face.

Episode 8:

Rodney finally gets character development... or not

Ugh, head… Gold disappeared.  Rodney’s ep this time, and Ren, a little. Ren shows that though he doesn’t have actual smarts, he’s good with colloquial knowledge, or something. He knows how to draw in the gold QEX bugs. His idea gets the mission completed successfully. As for Rodney, he wants to be the best. He works for only himself, to get better. Don’t know what his relationship with Ally is, but he does want to surpass her. He ends up helping Ren as kind of an acknowledgement that he’s good.

Other Stuff:

• In the worst case scenario, this could cause a global economic meltdown as investments in gold and gold backed currencies fail. Besides money though, it would also affect many electrical and other objects, since gold is used quite frequently in a lot of things, especially electronics. Things that use gold alloys would also fail catastrophically.
• 2 qex this time.

Episode 9:

Whenever Ren's mom is involved, it's never good

Ren gets in trouble with his parents. I guess at this point, QEXs are kind of like a side plot… Still, this time’s is an eel like thing that creates slime. It’s 5th element is sodium, which means it can make stuff explode. Sodium is an alkali metal which reacts violently to water. Normally, sodium can react with the water in air to fizz, but they made it a lot more deadly. I kind of want to see the higher Alkali metals now. Cesium is my favorite.

Other stuff:

• I think Ren’s parents are supposed to embody the ideal of the cool, understanding parents. Whether they succeed or not…

Episode 10:

how would this be practical if you don't land in the same place ever?

What do you know, it’s Tom’s episode this time, well Tom and Homi. Tom’s actually all sorts of otaku, which is a surprise. He’s a literary otaku, a Hannah (popular idol) otaku, rock otaku, etc… But enough of that. This time’s QEX is actually kind of interesting in that it deals with superfluids. of course, this means there’s lots of pseudoscience going on… It turns out to be a terramite colony who’s queen can control superfluid helium through QEX powers. Since Tom and Homi forge some kind of bond through common interests, he helps them out by giving them a good plan. The Earth team gets the element using this plan, but Tom “doesn’t do friendship.” He’s a pretty cool guy.

Other Stuff:

• so, superfluids. Interesting, no? Here’s how it works. When certain gaseous elements are cooled to near 0 K, they gain superfluidity, which is the loss of surface tension (0 viscosity or something). It’s not well understood how this works, but it does have interesting implications. Studied superfluids have been able to pass through molecular sized holes in containers, flowing one molecule at a time through it. The depth of a superfluid can be one molecule. Because there’s no tension to keep it together, capillary action allows it to climb rough surfaces as if it was alive. This means it’ll diffuse throughout a space completely ignoring walls as long as they’re climbable. They also have strange electrical properties. I think this was also part of how to form a bose-einstein condensate, but I don’t actually remember. Even so, since it should be near zero K, everything should have died.
• Next, hive mind communication. It’s not well understood how this works either, but it seems to be some kind of combination of scents, social orders, ground vibrations, and possibly other stuff. I don’t know how hydrogen would allow for such instantaneous communication

Episode 11:

hai

You know QEX’s are becoming unimportant when they’re reusing the same one from earlier in the episode. This time’s episode deals more with the problems of being an element hunter in secret. Chihara’s friend Natasha is moving away soon and being an element hunter means Chihara doesn’t see her much. That means their friendship is pretty strained. Chihara realizes this and makes up with her by fulfilling an important promise, right before she leaves for good.

Other Stuff:

• The QEX this time was more of a time sink than anything. It was jsut annoying to catch. Really, they’re getting to be unimportant.
• Natasha is able to infiltrate the secret Element Hunter Lab/Base, with absolutely no consequences

Episode 12:

Being a computer science major, I can't help but point out the flaws in this...

Ally ’s ep again. She’s getting too old to be an element hunter. dunno if there are anyone who cares to ship anyone in this show, but there are some Ren x Ally moments here. she does learn about Dr. Carr though. She starts to investigate her but is found out by the chief guy, who I’ll call Yata till I remember his real name. The show’s starting to switch from just showing element hunting and both teams’ daily lives to more about everything else going on behind the scenes. Or at least I hope. Aside from that, this time’s QEX is interesting, in that it gets a computer brain, which I don’t think should make sense.

Other Stuff:

• Silicon != computers. It’s just useful for one. and plus, just cause it absorbs silicon, doesn’t mean it can do crazy computer stuff like predict the movements of people. You need a super supercomputer to do anything close to that. Also, I doubt it would randomly form just the correct wiring. It doesn’t make sense at all. The element’s Boron anyways, so silicon shouldn’t havehad such a large role.

Episode 13:

If this was a more mature anime, those spores would be tainted red.

Well it seems I’m right, as a council is revealed this episode, controlling the element hunting project. Because of Ally’s imminent graduation and her research into Dr. Carr, she’s starting to be seen as an unnecessary element to the council. Also, this time’s QEX is an extremely dangerous one that killed an element hunter before, so the council decides to use it to get rid of the Earth team by letting them go to their deaths w/o interfering. They were able to hide their intentions well enuogh that no one suspects it was intentional, but Ally goes to try to stop the Earth team anyways. Ren, impulsive as usual goes and attacks it but gets captured. Ally saves him but is captured herself. And dies. I thought there was some unoficcial rule not to show deaths in anime unless it’s supposed to be a more mature show. Then again, that rule also means somehow she could have survived, but I kinda doubt that seeing as she died in a gigantic explosion.

Other Stuff

• The QEX is actually a plant-parasite combo, meaning 2 linked things can QEX at once from the same element or something.
• Ren did the scan by himself and called it an x-ray scan. I thought it was some kind of neutrino beam. new feature or just lazy inconsistency?
• Apparently QEXs stop giving off whatever the QEX signal is when they sleep
• Apparently the can reconstruct images from memory, which is how they showed the old element hunter dying
• I didn’t notice this before but aren’t they essentially storing elements as data? That sounds a lot like what happens in the Megami Tensei series…
• Also, since when did Ren become smart?
• Yata’s real name is Cmdr. Coff

Comment-Ratings:
I notice I forgot to put this when I initially posted this… Well anyways, this anime is kinda weird, going through phases almost randomly. In the beginning, it was kinda just about capturing elements. Then it went into the lives of Ren and the others and QEXs and the actual E-Hunting became unimportant. Then it went into the relationship between the two teams, and then finally into the whole E-H project and all the dark secrets and stuff (at least I hope). I think it’s gotten progressively better, and I’m actually looking forward to the next several episodes now.