AnimeVision

10 - Bathrobe
Onsen! Scanitily-clad women! Not much else in the way of story! You know the drill - 1 hot-spring resort, 1 guy, many women, and many ways for embarassing things to happen - especially when some mischevious kids change the sign on Kaoru's private bath from 'occupied' to 'vacant'. Meanwhile, Tina has a heart-to heart chat with Aoi-chan...

11 - Moonlight
Mayu's overheard a 'phone conversation, where Tina has said she's going back to the US - but when she confronts Tina about it, she's adamant the 'phonecall was just about a homecoming trip. Is Tina hiding something? Meanwhile, she's just bought herself a new digital camera & is looking for an excuse to make use of it - by roping the rest of the house into cosplaying for her...

12 - Bonds
It's very quiet around the house now that Tina's away - and no-one's sure if or when she'll be back, they just know it's not the same without her. Meanwhile, Tina's trying to settle back into her home in America, but she's finding it's just not for her...

It's really not good for someone to be as obsessed about something as Aoi is about Kaoru.  That said, the Aoi / Kaoru relationship was the one area where the first season of AYA really shone - check the first and last volumes of the DVD release for proof.  There were many people who watched just those two discs, and were happy with what they got, as the rest of the series was essentially harem 'filler' - and fairly average at that.

For ~Enishi~, the producers seemed to take the biggest criticism of the first season to heart - it was too schizophrenic, too unsure of what it wanted to be, and they needed to decide between heartfelt romance or harem comedy.  AYA's real strength was heartfelt romance, so for the second series they decided to stick to... harem comedy.

D'oh!

For that one reason alone, ~Enishi~ has been something of a disappointment - you know all the way through what these characters can produce, but you're stuck with 10 episodes of slapstick.  In episode 11, there's finally an attempt to capture some of the old emotion and drama, but by using Tina as the vehicle (and ruining the impact of her departure by having her return the very next episode), the really lose the attempt to grab your heartstrings before they've even started.

So.  Fans of the fringe characters or of the harem aspect of the show will have plenty here to keep them going - but they always seemed to be in the minority compared to those that wanted more of Aoi & Kaoru.  Fans of that relationship sadly aren't going to find much here, and will instead have to make do with thinking over what could have been if ~Enishi~ had had a different focus.  There are rumours of a third season - if they come back to the real meat of the story then I'm all for it, but if it's going to be anything like this season, then I'd rather they didn't bother...