Please keep in mind that I watched these episodes raw, and my knowledge of Japanese is sketchy, so my impressions of the dialogue may be flat-out WRONG. ^^ But I think I have the gist of it. Italicized sections are from Kai Ling's summary of the same episodes, which she emailed me to supplement mine. ^^ But this is the story so far, as I can tell - Episode 1 - Waga Na wa OFEN - My Name is Orphen You have Orphen living in a small town as a magic tutor to this boy, whose name is...Magik. o.O Orphen is a "majutsushi", naturally - a sorcerer - and studied under some teacher for some years. That dragon-pendant-thing you can see both in the logo and around Orphen's neck seems to be the equivalent of a diploma for his magic school. ;;^^ Apparently, you can acually get necklaces like that in Japan now ^_^ When you see some of Orphen's "classmates", they have necklaces like that too. The pendant seems to consist of a dragon wound about a sword. Which I betcha is significant. Right, well, Orphen seems to *me*, without understanding all of the dialogue, to be a pretty laid-back teacher. The first lesson we see him giving Magik is "how to blow stuff up", in not so many words. ^^ But it was fun to watch. Magic's father seems to be an innkeeper..or..something? Orphen hasn't paid his rent for three months, and so is supposedly tutoring Magik to pay the bills. Magik's dad seems skeptical that Orphen can really be the great sorcerer he claims to be - he hasn't paid his bills, he slacks off all the time - and Orphen says, " Don't you know? Sorcerers are a lazy bunch." Orphen tends to use his magic for pretty trivial stuff; when Magic knocks his ice cream float over, Orphen yells at him a bit, and then uses his magic to turn back time, or something, reform the shattered glass and the drink, and finish drinking it. " That was on the floor~~ " Magic reminds him, and he spits it out. ^^ Orphen's real goal, looks like, is to get ahold of this *sword* that belongs to the mansion on a hill. He's sent in two people Dorthin and Volcan, to be spies, under the pretext of being servants. How does he get them to do this? Well...they owe him money, apparently! Volcan doesn't take this very well, and seems to constantly rage against that stupid sorcerer for making them do stuff like this. Dorchin goes and looks at the sword, drawing it partway out of the sheath. He replaces it on the holder and waves to Orphen, but he leaves the sword accidentally partway out of its sheath, revealing two of the runes. ( My guess is that this is what attracts B.A's attention later. A happy fun note - the runes on the sword are real. The two left exposed are "teiwaz" - " the caster is about to take part in something that they feel very strongly about, such as a protest or cause " and "mannaz" - " solutions to the problems at hand will come from an unknown source. " ) The mansion is owned by three women...the lady of the house and her two daughters. The father is dead. The eldest daughter, whose name according to the novels is Mariabelle, *looks* maybe 20 or so...and the younger daughter, Creao/Cleo, is 17. Well, both develop crushes on him, looks like, when they see him scoping out the house...they don't realize that he's not looking at THEM, he's checking out the security. ^^ " Magik asked Orphen what he was up to spying on the house and Orphen initially replied that he was "bird-watching". Hence Magik gave Orphen the binoculars. *grin* Orphen decided, "what the heck..." and used it, accidentally seeing Cleo." So, anyways, Cleo catches Orphen checking out the house with binoculars while she's changing. Of course, assuming the worst, she snatches The Sword(tm) off of the mantle, races out of the house ( encouraged by Volcan, who tells her to go get "that peeping tom"...man, he's bitter ^_^ ) and starts swinging the sword wildly at Orphen, yelling at him. He dodges out of the way, perplexed, and then finally disarms her and drools at the sword. ^_^ The sword has some gem that looks like an eye set in the hilt, and it's got runes written on the blade itself. Magik recognizes Cleo; they went to grade school at the same time but she went to a boarding school for a year and just recently returned. I think, at this point, all hell breaks loose; the day turns into night, and the sky itself seems to rip and you see all these ghosts? fog? streaming through the tear in the sky. Orphen uses some spell and shatters the shield of spirits, and you see the real problem - an enormous, disgruntled looking dragon. It's the fabled " Bloody August", a monster that appeared a few years ago in the month of August and killed a LOT of people. Surprisingly enough, Orphen doesn't attack; he just stands there trying to talk to the dragon, saying his name, and calling it "Azalie" ( Azalea? A girl's name. ) Episode 2 - Chi no hachigatsu no kyoufu - The Terror of Bloody August Orphen calls out to Azalea, asking her to remember him, IIRC. He holds up Cleo's sword and says that he knows she's after this, but he can't give it to her, and besides, " it won't save you!" But, the dragon doesn't seem to be in a talkative mood, so Orphen starts casting a sort of paralytic ice-spell, trying to slow it down without hurting it. He promises to "save it." However, before he can do so, someone else blasts him, disrupts the spell, and Bloody August gets away, sealing the tear in the sky after it. Her. It's a her. ^.- Orphen recognizes the people who broke his spell - it's the famous sorceror Childman of the Fang Tower - his old teacher - Orphen goes back to Cleo's mansion with Magic and gets himself bandaged up ( and then he heals himself by magic, so I don't know what the point was except to take his shirt off H_- ) He talks some to the ladies of the house, and explains about the sword. It's...a special sword, that's all I can say. He calls it the sword of Bart Andelous/Barret Andrews, pick your romanization. ^^ It seems that it was an heirloom given to Cleo by her deceased father on her 15th birthday. " About the sword, I think Orphen explained that the only reason Bloody August came here was because she was looking for the sword. Then, he convinced Cleo's mother that taking the sword away will remove the danger from their house since Bloody August will not attack the house if the sword isn't there. As for the sword itself, Cleo's mother said that her husband had bought the sword on Cleo's birthday (5th birthday maybe? I forget...) and that it had a lot of sentimental value since he passed away. Cleo barely remembers this but considers the sword to be precious as an excuse to tag along with Orphen. ^_^;; " ;;^^ So Orphen gets to keep the sword, and is leaving when Cleo chases after him and deluges him with questions. ( After he says, " But I'm not going to see you again!" Cleo grins evilly. " Oh, I don't know about THAT..." " W...what's with that face?" " So, Mr. Peeping Tom.." " My name is ORPHEN!" " Okay, Mr. Orphen the peeping tom.." Orphen finally concedes one point. He tells Cleo and Magik that Bloody August wants this sword because she wants to plunge it into her own heart. At some point later, he goes out, and is confronted by Hardia, one of the people who stopped him from containing Bloody August. They want to kill her, and he wants to "save her." So, they fight for a while - they seem to have been ex-classmates in the Fang Tower. ^_- Hardia calls Orphen "Kiriranshero" and Orphen angrily replies that his name is Orphen now. Hardia tries to talk with Orphen but Orphen doesn't believe him, so Hardia casts the magic of darkness and they prepare to fight each other - Bloody August reappears under stormy skies, slowly healing itself of the wounds it received. Cleo and Mariabelle are having tea, talking about how Orphen is leaving. Mariabelle sighs, and Cleo tells her oneechan to forget about him, since he's going anyways. Mariabelle says she's right, and then Dorchin and Volcan enter the room. " Miss Cleo, we've packed your bags, where do you want us to put them?" Cleo freaks out and tries to shut them up ( she was intending on hitching a ride with Orphen ^.- ) but they're interrupted by an enormous crash. The wall *peels* open, an the dragon's huge clawed hand reached through from nowhere towards the terrified girls - Orphen is caught in the darkness of Hardia's shadow magic. He's attacked from all sides by red blasts, which he tries to defend himself from but can't entirely. Then he casts the magic of light, which cancels out Hardia's magic and blinds him, so Orphen gets one good hit in. They're about to go at it again when they see the darkness and lightning which marks B.A's coming. Hardia leaves, and Magik, Dorchin, and Volcan run up and tell him that the girls are gone - Bloody August flies off, holding a girl in each of its huge hands. Lightning flashes, and sometimes the dragon's shadow is that of a dragon, but once in a while - it's that of a woman - Episode 3 - Wa ga tabidachi ni tsutoe nakamatachi - We're going on a trip to meet some friends - Episode 4 - Wa ga hanzono ni nemure mamono - The Monster Sleeping in our Garden - Episode 5 - DORAGON ni idakawashi miko - The Priestess in the Dragon's Embrace - Episode 6 - Wa ga mori ni hoero ookami - The Wolf Howling in our Forest - Episode 7 - BARUTO ANDERUSU no iseki - The Relics of Bart Andrews(?!) - Episode 8 - Tenma no Majou no Himitsu - The Secret of the Demon Witch - ( roughly. A Tenma is a heavenly demon, and a majou is a demon-woman, so what the hey. ) More later. ^^