Oh and BTW don’t know anything about Rosa being married. Even the name of Marias father is unknown to the VN readers…. must have run away from her RAAAGING :P

I’m also curious how they will adapt all the epic stuff later on but I also always enjoyed the many facets of character interaction and small pieces of background infos which may give you more then some trivial talk. So this never bored me…. not even the really long-winded arc 4 background-story.
(The talk between the old lady an Jessica for example look quite uninteresting but perhaps there is more to the story about the shrine and the evil spirits.)

Well ok, I read all 4 games so its much easier to read more into stuff then first-time watchers would but I think so get the point.

There were only a few faces in the VN for Marias scary faces so its kind of difficult to tell if Maria was intended to look so crazy but IMO they reduced it to tolerable amounts compared to the first arc.
I also thought it was quite fitting to see her switch from cute to freaky after the abuse of her mother suggesting she also has some kind of personality issues.
But many also don’t seem to care for the finer nuances after DEEN presented her so annoyingly in the 1st arc.

The meta world interpretation was appropriate to differentiate the normal from the meta characters. Still lacking the elegance of the chessboard parlor idea but I guess they will return to this place. The ending shows something similar and after all there is someone waiting to serve delicious tea and cookies later on. Would be really awkward if he tried to while they argue in some random hallway in the mansion during time freeze, right? ;-)

Eh, to be honest, the meta-world scene was pretty much what I imagined it to be. Even if it isn’t the manga’s Meta-World, this is good enough for me. I mean, they could have made it worse. A lot worse.

@digdri: Very well done reply to thatguy’s comment. A mystery without motives and explanations is not a very well done mystery (to me, at least, I’m not an expert in any way).

@Anonymous: Guess for the 4th arc half of the story kind of revolve around back story if they don’t cut much about it.

@thatguy: I don’t get how everybody shouts boring if the series provides more character development before the incidents start . Thats a mystery story providing a mind game after all. Whats the point in brutal murders if you don’t even know whats the meaning of it. To find answers about the whos, whys, hows is part of every story like this. Well its to early for a how this arc but you get more glimpse why Maria mighty be so strange and now we have a person walking this island who shouldn’t be there (nobody seems to know who invited her and how did she get on the island) and using magic which shouldn’t exist in front of other people.
Well perhaps the slower paced but continuous VN-style of the games is more forgivable for lengthly parts because you don’t think in good 20 mins / bad 20 mins blocks and have more motivation to “play” that mind game in between.

@TJ: If you’re confused about this episode watch the preview for the next: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfCOmrUt6zg :P