So I finished watching two series recently.

A. Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto
I hardly understood any of this. My knowledge of Japanese history is low, so most of all the war stuff passed me by. The animation and character design were nice though, so it was pretty interesting to watch all the same. Kanna was my favourite, but I think that's because he looks like Fay with his lovely blonde hair and angst and guns. Funnily enough, I think the best part of the series was episode 8, where Kanna and Aikidzuki have that huge fight; it just kept going and going and being awesome.

B. Le Chevalier d'Eon
So I didn't really understand any of this one either. I was only starting to grasp what was going on in the last few episodes. Two episodes of this series were animated beautifully: the first episode and one near the end (I forget the number). Sadly, the rest of the series was quite poor in animation terms. My favourite character was Maximillien Robespierre (surprise surprise, he looks like Kanna too); Robin also grew greatly in my estimation towards the end of the series. And the award for the character who should have been awesome, but actually wasn't goes to d'Eon. I'm sorry d'Eon, but you're just really boring, and not even wearing a dress will change that.

And at the end of that round the score is:
Blonde guys with angst 1 vs Blonde guys with the spirit of their dead sister 0
Actors 1 vs Sword-fights 5
France 0 vs Japan 0 (Fance wins 1:0 on aggregate and will go through to the quarter-finals)

Somebody get me a history book!