天下制覇

A lesser man would have tried to make a fagott pun.

…Why do I even know the German for bassoon?

Impressions:

Man, I did not miss the music at all. I did, however, chuckle when all the shadows appeared with Stripey McPants and the bassoon kicked in to remind us how evil he is. Bassoons: The most terrifying of all double reeded instruments, and yet still sound like a sick goose. Anyway, to JC Staff’s credit, they seem to have finally figured out that "eats souls" is enough of a raison d’etre for an antagonist. I was worried that they might try to give Misty and McPants some kind of backstory, but apparently we’re sticking with them just being weird and creepy since the episode begins with Stripey stripping her while she’s soaking wet. That said, I still don’t like the inclusion of Ijima in Misty’s dreamscape as an antagonist. It absolutely reeks of cramming in somebody just for the useless Yumeji to fight while still remaining useless.

Unfortunately, the big confrontation in Isana’s dream over Vivi her black mage dream demon was very underwhelming. I do like Misty as a villain since she’s delightfully mad and has spent half the season actually mercilessly eating people, but they really half-assed the crazy this time around. Skimping on the production didn’t help either. Plus, Kawanami was watching the entire thing doing nothing while Engi was also nowhere to be found. You can only have your villain menace a hostage for so long while most of the cast sits on the sidelines twiddling their thumbs before it goes from suspenseful to annoying from waiting for somebody to step it. BUT LUCKILY! As soon as Kawanami manned up, Misty just up and left. I’m sure there was a perfectly good reason for leaving behind your delicious meal and all those helpless people at your mercy just because one little human stood up to you. Oh right, this is scheduled for 13 episodes, not 12. How silly of me to forget. Perfectly reasonable.

Preview:

Oh, here’s the whole cast. Now we can fight.