>We haven't seen Mia Ausa in -quite- some time...in fact, I'm not
>sure she appeared any time between the latest Symphony piece and the
>one where they're all at Utena and Anthy and Kaitlyn's house,
>discussing Anne Cross.

Er, she's quite prominently featured in S5M1...

>Seeing her in Oriphos was a bit jarring, since
>before now there was no indication the Anla'shok know anything about
>the Nine (Ten) Worlds.

It's supposed to be a bit jarring, precisely because it's not explained up front. As for the Anla'shok, as an organization I doubt they do have a full rundown on the structure of the universe, but Mia does; she's a sorceress, heavily versed in the ancient lore, and as an first-year Duelist, she's been to both Asgard (for Anthy and Utena's wedding) and Cephiro (on the subsequent Art of Noise summer tour stops) before.

>Will we see in the next piece how she got there
>and what she's actually doing there? I can't imagine she's actually
>helping Akio any more than Saionji is.

Not in the very next one, no; she's in the Third Movement, but that's not where anything about the Black Rose's recruiting practices will start to emerge, as it's almost exclusively concerned with the second Tau Ceti incident and what happens elsewhere while it's going on. The more revelatory material in that regard will almost certainly begin to come in the Fourth Movement.

>Hm, fair enough. You know, I almost hate to say this, but after she
>regained her sanity just as she was killed, Nanami seems to have
>remained amazingly sane after waking up and finding herself a
>-succubus-. Part of me wonders if the translation into demon inures
>the mind to the kinds of things that must have been required of her.
>Especially considering what drove her insane in the first place.

I'm not sure Nanami "regained her sanity" so much she's come out of her initial madness on the far side of the river, so to speak. Sort of like Ash in Army of Darkness. You can't say her mind works like a normal person's, but she's kind of beyond sane at this point. She's seen things you people wouldn't believe...

>(Also, is she still physically 14 or so? Cause, -ick-.)

No, no. She looks about the age you'd expect looking at her driver's license, if she had one.

>Not that this makes a damn bit of sense or anything, but she's picking
>up swords quickly enough that I wonder if she won't eventually be able
>to do Cloud's Omnislash from Advent Children eventually. =)

Well, no, it's... is there more than one fork in your silverware drawer? Do you use them all at once? Yeah. Like that. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.