天下制覇

Take that, harmless pottery.

Impressions:

15 minutes of dullness, 5 minutes of action. I actually don’t mind Ozel all that much. I like that she’s still a lot of a cypher and that nobody’s really angsting over it or they’re making too big a deal. They added to her mystery by having her go berserk on a stand of pots out of nowhere, so even though she’s connected to the pot, she’s got some issues somewhere. I wouldn’t be overly shocked if she’s been put in that body from one and just been there so long that her humanity’s degraded away, albeit with some pot related post-traumatic issues.

Really though, that’s about all the compliments that I can level on the first 2/3rds of the episode. The fight scene at the end was decent, but not particularly spectacular. I’m now curious as to how many episodes in a row Amelia is going to be hair-tentacle-bondage-wrapped. As a side note, I think her chest is growing each time. Next week, she might pop. At least they went ahead and got the reveal about Zuuma/Radok out of the way at the end of the episode. It was kind of obvious anyway when Zel and Amelia got suckered away from guarding Radok just in time for Zuuma to attack Lina et all.

Brief Summary:

The gang wakes up together and recaps the situation, causing Gourry’s head to explode. They head over to Radok’s and decide to split up to keep an eye on Radok and Ozel. Looooooong sequence of watching Ozel relatively contentedly do maidy things while Amelia and Zel play chess. As she finishes shopping, Ozel stops at a pottery stand. She nuzzles a pot that looks sort of like the Hellmaster’s, but then goes berserk and starts destroying all of them. Gourry and Lina stop her and she calms down.

She talks to them up on the roof, but is woefully short of any kind of useful information about the pot or Rezo. Meanwhile, Amelia checkmates Zel, but the mazoku attack. Zel’s ready for lightbulb head this time and zaps him in the back after some misdirection. Amelia gets trapped in the hair net, but manages to magic-blast the mazoku through the gut. Badly wounded, the mazoku retreat and Zel tends to Amelia. While all this is happening, Zuuma attacks the others. Lina asks about Ozel’s duty, but she says that her contract with Zuuma is over and agrees to help fight him. Zuuma manages to hold them off and gets Gourry by the neck. He goes to kill him, but Ozel manages to stab the back of his leg and Gourry gets free. Poko and Lina sandwich Zuuma between fireballs and he’s forced to go on the defensive. Guards come running up and Zuuma quickly flees.

Back at the mansion, Zel heals Amelia and Abel comes in to yell at them a bit, not believing that Mazoku attacked. The rest of the party arrives, and is dismissed. As Radok leaves, Ozel notices a trail of blood on the carpet behind him.

Preview:

Uncover! Everybody is shocked that Radok is Zuuma!