The story is starting to get just a wee bit convoluted now. It's like the writers have managed to throw so much at the wall such that nothing truly sticks anymore. But, if I were to let poor writing get to me, I would have stopped watching Mai-HiME a long, long time ago. Que sera sera.

This episode offers a hint of a happy ending, at least. The idea that the HiME curse could be lifted provided the reigning Super-HiME defeats Rico Suave smells an awful lot like an escape clause to me.

I must say I was somewhat surprised.

When Nagi announced in eps 16 they'd be pulling a Highlander on the HiMEs, I decided to call his bluff and said, yeah right you are. There'd been just one fatality in the show so far, which I had filed under 'requisite death of one secondary character - check!'.

They had been emphasizing Mai and Takumi's relationship in episodes leading to 20, and connected him with Akira, so it was no big surprise his life would be placed in danger. However, I fully expected the scriptwriters (or whatever the job title is, scenario designer? lol) to be enough of wussies to not kill him off, considering the progress of the show so far.

But they did. And seems they fully intend to pull off the tops, that with Mikoto under control of the Obsidian dude, Nao seeking vengenace, and Mai getting extremely pissed... well, this show is exceeding my expectations to say the least.

One odd thing though, there seems to be too many HiMEs around. I suppose we can discount the Aryan Nation girl ;), being artificial creation of SEARRS (and she didn't get a pillar in the cavern), but what about Mashiro's maid? Is she the last one standing from the carnival 300 years past?

I just wish that the number of episodes leading to this arc had been less. At one point, the show really looked like degenerating into an orphan of the week show - which it didn't in the end - at was moving seriously slowly.

Oh, the orphans. What was the deal with them anyway? They come around, threaten some people a bit, and then disappear when the red star gets near enough. The grand purpose they served was... what? Except to provide for some battles during the first half of the series of course.

The only thing I'm afraid of is that the number of casualties will be directly proportional to the chances of this show pulling a reset cop-out at the end (hinted at by the Obsidian fellow). And I'll be very pissed if they do that.

the orphans were here for a "warm up" before the real battle : the Himelander.
it was for the himes to get used to their powers

Himelander? Heheh, that's a good one. :D However. Whether the HiMEs can or cannot fight has no bearing on the goal of the carnival. In fact it might be more convenient for its orchestrators to have them incompetent, so they'd wipe each other out more easily. I still claim the orphans were but a plot device to 1) create battle scenes and 2) gather the HiMEs together so their friendhips could be torn apart by the 2nd plot arc.

I also realized we don't know a thing about the true meaning of this battle royale. I am betting it has something to do with perpetuating the life of mister Obsidian and miss Crystal. The latter seems to be having second thoughts about the gig though.

I don't want to spoil further eps (since I'm watching the raws, I don't remember it was subbed or not :p) so I won't say much but
M
Y
B
E

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

the fact is that the winner of the himelander (btw this one isn't mine :D) will be given tremendous power as well as her most important person. and a strong hime have more chances to win :)

Oh, Lawson. If you are interested, Yesy's versions of 22 and 23 are quite good, if you were waiting for SS's version, these are nearly as good.