We are already halfway through the series and still there's little progression in story department. It seems to have been 6 eps of character development. While that works well for character driven animes like Aoi Yori Aoshi and Azumanga Daioh, Konomini has more to deliver as it promised us much with its debut episode. I would have much preferred if more of the story was unveiled in tandem with character development. Here's my take on the overview of the 6 eps.

a) Ep 1-2: focus on Hikari
b) Ep 3-4: focus on Akari
c) Ep 5: Hikari's appreciation of 'mundane' school-life
d) Ep 6: Hikari's appreciation of natural-life (running brooks, mountain breezes etc).

I guess ep 5 and 6 could be loosely associated with one of the themes of the series, the part about a beautiful world. However, I didn't quite like ep 5. It felt a little forced since I couldn't sense the 'loveliness' of school-life as Hikari did. I probably was unable to conjure corresponding emotions since it was a totally different cultural experience, having been targetted at the Japanese audience. Ep 6, in contrast, had a lot more feel to it. Maybe it's because the scenes of giggling girls and act-cool guys playing in the mountain waters brings back fond memories.... *Far away look in eyes* Erm of course my memories don't include anyone was cute as Hikari... Anyway, Hikari's child-like appreciation of the simplest things in life, reminded me a lot of Mahoro. I was completely smitten by her playing with water in the stream...She was simply angelic, the epitome of purity and immaculate innocence. Ah but therein lies the tension since we know she's not what she is. The title for ep 1 always comes to mind. Separation of light and darkness. I guess there's 2 schools of thought when it comes to deciphering this. One is that the light/darkness is ascribed to Hikari/Akari. From what we have seen so far. I would assign Hikari to the dark side over Akari. If so, her name Hikari (means light in Japanese) would be a misnomer indeed. The other postulate is that both the light and darkness dwell in Hikari herself. Where she takes the persona of Hikari most of the time, we have seen Miss Yami (darkness) surface on 2 occasions. Ep 1 and 5. Either way, light and darkness will probly have to have a showdown sometime in the series.

I wish they would spend more time tackling the story elements instead of intensifying character development. Now that the dynamics of the characters relations have been quite firmly established, they had better invest more energy in the storytelling aspect. After all, they only have half a series left.