^ I'm not sure where I fall on the matter, but I heard one critic joke that Ayako Kawasumi was a good choice for Aoi - because Aoi was even more of a robot maid than her previous role as Mahoro in Mahoromatic. That's a difficult pitfall to avoid when writing a Yamato Nadeshiko, though.
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My favorite transformation sequence: Like jaybug, character development. Writers who can believably change characters' personalities or my perceptions of them knock my socks off. Code Geass was flawed, but I loved the fact that the writers managed to do that to me repeatedly. (My apologies for not really answering the intended subject.)