(ETAmend- eps 17 and 18, not 16 and 17)
Over at the Gankutsu-ou lj someone wonders what the short form of the title should be, since evidently every other series has one but ours. (No I haven't looked at any Japanese wps, since you ask.) I'm partial to Gankou myself, so if I say that you know what I mean, yes?

So because I get my eps on tape I'm usually a few weeks behind everyone else. While others are babbling about ep21 is it, I've just viewed ep 17. (And have ep 18, a brief scan of which explains that poster's virulence about the visual quality of same. I've seen little in the way of RPG animation but *that*-- is RPG animation. 'Oui,' said the 11-year-old, 'and bad.' Give me back my flickering plaid patterns and dancing paisley shirts, please, cause I loathe mecha.)

I am a suck for betrayal, and ep 16 gives it to me in spades and aces and perfect timing. Oh the pain oh the heartbreak and the anger and the angst. And oh Albert here is fifteen years old and has no ear for tone because he buys everything the Count says, when to me it's obvious that the correct response to Monte Cristo's cool 'You've been very useful' is 'Hakushaku, heta da naa.' ('Boy you're bad at this, Count.') But thus it is to be young and have the world come crashing down on you.

Mesdames, messieurs,I believe we have the makings of a perfect tragedy here.