Monthly Archive for May, 2004

It’s nice to be watching a fresh episode of my favorite anime series of the season once again. We finally get to see Johan’s twin sister, Nina Fortner, alive and well. With all that’s happened to her in the past, she’s surprisingly upbeat and happy with her life. She delivers pizza for a living, and she also has a new set of parents who seem like normal and caring people. When her dad shows her a photo of her in a mouse costume as a child, an ominous memory pops up in her mind, but she keeps quiet about her thoughts. We find out from her visit to her Counselor that she used to have a reoccurring nightmare of a monster coming toward her in the dark, but she hasn’t had that nightmare for a while now. He advises her to spend her life trying to find her true self, and she admits to him that she wants to work on becoming a public prosecutor. After she leaves his office, he evaluates that her happy demeanor allows her to momentary escape from the darkness that continues to haunt her to this day.

She confronts Peter about an anonymous romantic message that was sent to her via e-mail, but he vehemently denies to have written anything to her. I personally think that it came from her gorgeous brother, whom I imagine she hasn’t seen in years. After escaping from her past for so long, it has finally caught up with her as she listens to a case that sounds an awfully lot like her own — after both parents were shot to death, the children were then strangled with a rope. Trying desperately to come up with an explanation of the verdict, Nina quivers in fear, as if it suddenly dawns on her that the murderer may probably be her brother. She confesses to Peter that she has no memories whatsoever of her childhood before the age of ten, and later on that night she receives another anonymous e-mail message.

We finally get to see Kenzo again, but he looks disheveled and tired as he travels around Germany trying to find out about Johan’s past. He discovers that Johan was known as Michael Reichmann, but this new information doesn’t add up to anything substantial that would reveal who he really is. Then he remembers that he has a twin sister, and sets out to find out where she’s now living. Meanwhile, Nina reads another message saying that she will be picked up very soon by this mysterious person. Kenzo runs into an old man who knows about him through Johan, recalling that he thought of Kenzo as more than a father after saving his life. This man knew Johan as Franz, but he also told him that that wasn’t his real name. After living with a family for fourteen months, he simply disappeared without a trace. He remembers that “Franz” loved hearing his war stories, especially fascinated with how people reacted when they were confronted with the fear of their own death. Then Kenzo finds out that he’s been talking to a blind man, so he has no recollection of how Franz actually looked. However, he recalls him saying that he would come for his sister when she turned twenty.

Her friends arrange for her to meet her “Prince,” and he turns out to be an average-looking boy named Otto Huberman. She looks very disappointed, but she remains polite and greets him with a smile. By chance, she looks over his shoulder and notices her gorgeous brother standing a distance away, but doesn’t yet remember that it’s him. The episode concludes with her fainting and her friends rushing toward her and asking if she’s okay. I can’t wait to see what happens between those two…