How dare you take away me and Kazuma’s antics!

Being one of the episodes I’ve been eagerly awaiting… I’ll say I was quite disappointed with the change they made with the Ayano x Kazuma antics that supposedly happened in this episode. It would’ve been LOADS fun hath they sticked to its original novel counterpart. And on with the deep frying…

On Yukari’s present for Ayano’s ‘step to womanhood’

condom for innocent Ayano-chan~

(I’ve already mentioned about this in the animesuki forum, and the scene should have appeared in this episode… but apparently, GONZO thinks of Kaze no Stigma as a kid’s show and not only takes away much of the violence but the smutty comic relief like this one)

Yukari and Nanase gets to mention about the dinner date and how it’ll finally be a step for Ayano to reach ‘womanhood’, but it wasn’t explicitly given much attention. In the novel, Yukari actually gives Ayano a condom in preparation for the ‘developments’ that’s going to happen throughout their date :p Ayano can’t believe her friend will give her something like that and immediately sets it ablaze Yukari then acts all sad as she tells Ayano, “Aww… to think that it took much courage for me to actually buy that~”, and Ayano simply sneers at this ‘courage’ of hers (because such a thing is effortless for Yukari XD)

On Azazel and Metatron as “Tools of the Weak”

the Salamander!

I’ll first mention about an additional entertaining exchange of remarks between Kazuma and Ayano on Azazel’s appearance: When Azazel first appears, Ayano once again shows her game-loving side (?) as she thinks of it as a ‘salamander’ Seeing Ayano’s bewildered reaction to seeing such a creature, Kazuma remarks, “Oh, looks like it’ your first time you’ve seen this kind of creature? Well it’s probably because it hasn’t step foot in Japan (until now).”

(and on to the main point of this subheading)
It was clearly stated in the novel that Catherine’s “flame-wielding” skills are inferior to Ayano because she uses ‘tools’ such as the elemental beast Azazel and Metatron. The best flame wielders need not have these kind of tools for them to make the most out of their flame, since they can use it and control it the way they want.

Kazuma then advises Ayano to not think about using this kind of tool, not because he thinks that Ayano is good enough without them, but rather because he believes that Ayano would be better off focusing on improving her swordsmanship :p

Catherine’s twisted personality

This episode in the anime showed us how Catherine actually burnt all the muggers to toast (leaving no remains at that) with no mercy, but the anime simply brushed this off and went on with the episode without giving much explanation about this incident. Talk about being inconsistent… can’t they even decide if they’re going to show all the violence or not? Showing us this dark and violent scene when it’s not going to be given much attention anyways T__T (to think that they’ve been hiding all the violence and darkness of the manga up until now T__T ).

Ok, enough ranting and on with what Catherine said about her actions. Catherine explains that she simply gave the ‘bad guys’ the punishment they deserve (a.k.a. “justice”). Ayano can’t believe that she considers this as ‘justice’, considering how she even tortured all these guys to death with how she killed them (burning them alive, instead of simply killing them with one blow). Catherine acts all sarcastic and pretends to have only realized the torturing she has done, with no trace of guilt in her (She gets on my nerves… especially the novel version x___x) “What matters most is that the judgment is laid out, despite how many people are sacrificed in the process”, says Catherine, which Ayano thinks is quite an American-like way of thinking (racial prejudice? hehe :p)

Ayano’s sarcasm FTW

Ayano’s entertaining “battle declaration” was changed in the anime, and we end up with a simply cheesy line instead (“I might not be the strongest Kannagi, but I certainly won’t hand over our clan’s pride of being the strongest flame wielders to an inferior clan”).

The moment I heard about Catherine’s ‘McDonald’, the first thing that came to my mind was the famous fastfood chain. And guess what? The author actually made a fun pun out of it on this one as Ayano’s original remark was supposedly, “I might not be the strongest Kannagi, but I certainly won’t hand over our clan’s pride of being the strongest flame wielders to someone bearing a hamburger-fastfood-chain-store-like name XDDD Catherine of course feels really insulted that Ayano will be looking at her family at the same level of such a cheap restaurant :p

On Ayano’s fight with Metatron

Ayano vs Metatron

As expected, more of Ayano’s thoughts are revealed in the novel with regards to her fight with Metatron. It was evident in the episode that she was having a hard time defeating this creature, and the novel describes this encounter as similar to her first confrontation with Kazuma (not having met someone as strong as her or far exceeds her capabilities). Given this lack of experience of Ayano in these kinds of fights, it’s not surprising that she still can’t analyze things clearly and think up strategies to defeat her opponents like Kazuma (Although… she should’ve been learning stuff like that with the games she play right? Well, that’s be a different story :p)

Kazuma didn’t disappear like he did in the anime because there weren’t any ghouls, hence Ayano didn’t ask for the advice during the beginning of their fight. Seeing Ayano fight desperately against Metatron to no avail makes Kazuma remark that she should just forget about this fight because he knows well that she’s not capable of doing the ‘other means’ to defeat this creature (since Ayano was supposed to not have the ability to wield flames of purification, like in the past episodes :p) - and well, this is the very same thing that Ayano is thinking at that time… so instead of giving up, she asks Kazuma for his advice. Kazuma finally tells her that there’s something wrong with what she should be attacking and what she should be seeing, and then stops at that hint. “That’s as much hint as I can give. Interfering with someone else’s fight is also considered rudeness”, says Kazuma :p

The author seems to have the habit of inserting trademarked (?) stuff that whilst Ayano was thinking about Kazuma’s words and what she should be doing to defeat Metatron, she thinks about how what she’s seeing at the moment (Metatron’s ‘physical’ self) is simply ‘virtual’. Given that, Metatron will still be able to stand and fight even if it ends up like Dullahan (the “headless horseman”) :p And… finally realizes that there’s no other way but to purify this creature and bring it back to its original form :3

The Aftermath of the Battle

the ruined date’s aftermath

First part of this aftermath is in connection to taking care of the mess Ayano’s battle with Catherine left. Kazuma mentions that the building is at the brink of collapsing, which will end up killing all the other people inside. Ayano’s sensitivity with regards to the innocent casualties who will be involved in this incident is shown as she gets all teary-eyed and clings to Kazuma, asking him what they should do to prevent such tragedy from happening (she’ll be blaming herself because she’s partly responsible for the the explosion that happened >< ) And well, Kazuma understands Ayano’s feelings and never uttered a word of sarcasm, then comforts and assures her that he’ll be there to support her instead (aww)

The latter part of this aftermath is THE scene I would’ve loved to see (in its unbutchered and naughty form :P). First of all, Kazuma and Ayano didn’t eat at a ramen shop, they had a private time together as they ate sweet potatoes by the bench in some park (see the picture above). When Ayano’s stomach grumbled, Kazuma was kind enough to think of buying some of these sweet potatoes for Ayano. She was about to utter some complaint (since the high class dinner turned out to be… a sweet potato dinner :p) but then Kazuma tells her, “…Unless you want to eat some ramen in that store over there.” So, GONZO chose… the “rejected” setting in the original novel!!! D: (and well, the choice of the “rejected” setting results in a “dejected” scene as well (pun intended) T___T)

As Ayano was eating the sweet potatoes, she offers some to Kazuma, who rejects the offer since he still has the wine from the restaurant. Kazuma takes out the wine and directly drinks from the bottle, and Ayano can’t believe he had the time to concern himself with the wine in the middle of her fight. And well, one little thing the anime forgot to mention about the wine… it actually turned out to be FREE. We know that fine-dining restaurants serve the food first before customers pay for the food, right? :p So when Kazuma explains that he doesn’t want to waste such an expensive wine, Ayano makes her realize that it’s actually free. Kazuma’s eyes widen as he only gets to realize that just then, exclaiming “Well, it’s all great then. Who would’ve thought that ‘free’ is such a splendid word”.

Ayano becomes more aggressive and takes the bottle from Kazuma, as she tells of her disappointment about his idea of drinking the wine all by himself, “…give some of that to me as well!”, Ayano says. Kazuma warns her that sweet potatoes and wine don’t go well, but Ayano doesn’t care about that. Instead, she thinks about how kissing from the wine will be an ‘indirect kiss’ with Kazuma and hesitates to drink for a second. Kazuma notices her simply staring at the bottle and says that he’ll drink if if she’s not going to, so Ayano gulps down on the bottle and makes quite a mess out of it (it gets poured into her face, her neck, and onto her clothing) :p “What the heck are you doing? You’re wasting all the wine”, says Kazuma, but Ayano just tells him to leave her alone. And well, seeing how some of the wine is still left on Ayano’s face and neck, Kazuma becomes all naughty as he decides to teach Ayano a lesson for wasting the wine.

He even lets out a mischievous smirk, according to the novel, before finally proceeding to his ‘plan’ First off, Kazuma licks Ayano’s face (like in the anime), which throws her off in surprise. But, Kazuma SHOULDN’T HAVE STOPPED at that… and guess what, he goes as far as ’sucking’ Ayano’s neck for the remains of the wine (naughty~) :p and well, that finally made Ayano mention about Kazuma’s “sexual harrassment”

The following day, a clear proof of the date is visible in Ayano… a “kiss mark” on her neck Yukari and Nanase sees this and gets all happy that Ayano finally did reach that stage of adulthood… LOL XDDD

(sigh… I’m just imagining this scene with my vivid imagination thanks to GONZO T__T )