First things first though, as this instalment opens with Avril and Kujo going on a "date" (as far as the former is concerned anyhow) which involves taking in a horror movie - a film which reminds Avril of a story she'd heard about a clock tower close by. This memory also serves as a handy excuse to drag Kujo around a little longer as she ensures he tags along to investigate the tower, relating the story of a supposed alchemist named Leviathan who lived there before the pair of them are chased out of the building by their teacher.
Elsewhere, Victorique too finds herself taking an interest in Leviathan as she literally bumps into a copy of his memoirs in the library (fashioned as a pop-up book rather wonderfully - definitely something on my "to do" list were I ever to write an autobiography). Said tome even contains a challenge within it to get Victorique really fired up, leading to her enthusiasm bubbling over in the wake of Kujo having an encounter with an oriental man who wanders into the clock tower in question before dropping dead - just the kind of mystery which suits her down to the ground.
Despite some rather convenient elements to get this story arc going, and ignoring the fact that I couldn't help imagining some kind of Fullmetal Alchemist crossover in the midst of all this talk of alchemy and a Philosopher's Stone (even the dead guy looked a bit like Greed...), this was a pretty good opening to the latest arc and a lesson to the wider series about exactly how you should go about building up a little intrigue, mystery and suspense. This episode asks plenty of questions without answering anything or giving away too much information, and traversing that path has already made me far more impatient for the next episode than I usually would be - I just hope the show isn't going to blurt everything out in the first two minutes of episode fourteen and instead concentrate on running with what it's managed to build thus far.
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