If the previous week’s episode focused on Sana beginning to understand the concept of family and relationships in general a bit more (ending with her being made a member of the Kashimura family on a legal and official level as well), this week’s episode reached out that reality to including people she had history with before she became part of the Kashimura household. In this case the subject of those Sana reached out to happened to be the twins from the facility who were Sana’s first friends and a fundamental reference point for her becoming more and more like a human. What’s more, we were able to learn a bit more about the twins as well which gave some insight into how they acted in earlier episodes and were so insistent in bringing Sana back to the facility. All in all, many characters wound up becoming richer and deeper, which is always good! ^^

All of this is a very good and important step for Sana, and in retrospect probably for the twins as well. It seems the twins, who are fully human – Sana is the initial catalyst for all the Dreams of Alice, you will remember and is the only wielder of these powers who was not human if you remember, were really nastily physically abused by their father when they were young, and it was in the midst of one of their being beaten bloody(!) that their powers manifested and they … killed him. (Whoa … again heading to the dark territory with this series.) After that they were taken to the facility. This is precisely why they were so insistent on bringing Sana back – they had a fear of “the outside world” and in the facility at least had some modicum of normality and happiness. Fortunately we later discover after the facility was closed they were enrolled in a school with a dorm and are being cared for by a very kind dorm mother at the moment while continuing their education.

It looks like Sana periodically spends some days with Ichijou (the battle maid extraordinaire), who also happens to be a licensed Elementary school teacher and has been steadily teaching Sana. Sana happens to be really, really good at things like mathematics, where solutions are predefined and formulas are spelled out – what gives her a tough time are when things are not predefined, things like reading comprehension. When she gets into territory like that, whether in her studies or in real life interactions she experiences a feeling like being “frazzled inside”, and does not know what to do with it – she only knows that she gets frustrated with it and cannot identify it. Interestingly, it seems here being frazzled somehow “interferes” with her ability to manifest her Dreams of Alice powers, and they even sometimes act without her control (scary). My suspicion is that in some ways this is a manifestation of the emotions and deeper feelings she is beginning to experience.

It is when she is out on a walk with Ichijou that she encounters the twins, who panic and try to flee. Sana (unsurprisingly) gives chase, and the three of them cause a huge ruckus (not quite as bad as what happened in episode one). This time, though, Ichijou in battle maid mode (yeah … never upset Ichijou) puts a vigorous and immediate stop to them. After a hearty meal the twins and Sana are finally able to reconcile, much to the delight of everyone involved. Sana hears from the twins that they are going to school, and asks them if it is interesting and fun – this is probably another step towards Sana going to school herself, and a step towards her encountering the new characters that were previewed in the episode 5.5 special.

The episode concludes with Sanae once again being a walking bundle of love and a superb older sister to Sana – she really is another example of what Sana really needed. She helps Sana to sort out some of her frazzled feelings (after meeting the twins she even wakes up in the middle of the night to find that she is crying for some reason) and helps her express herself more thoroughly to the twins the next morning, who are beyond delighted to hear from Sana via email. It really was clear to me that the twins sincerely care for and love Sana, and always have, and how wonderful that Sana is starting out along the path where she can begin to give those sorts of feelings back not only to the twins, but both her newfound family and other people she may meet. 🙂

See you all next week!