天下制覇

At least it seems like we're done with that particularly dumb trope for the moment.

Impressions:

Well, it was an episode. I wish I knew why Japanese stuff was so obsessed with school tournaments for everything. Why not throw them into hunting some low level monsters and let the fight come naturally instead of faffing around with all kinds of trappings, joining some team (who would essentially not be a part of anything), or the whole audience deal? Probably the padding. Definitely the padding. I guess at least the animation hasn't dipped yet, but it wasn't starting from a high place. I'm also taking to Kufa a bit more, even though he spent the whole episode on the sidelines. There's something endearing about a character who doesn't have the patience to put up with the crap from the peanut gallery, especially when they're just plain straightforward about it instead of being wrapped in a revolting burrito of "pretending to be a nice guy but is actually a jerk constantly overreacting to the audience, but is actually actually secretly a super duper extra nice guy." I could just be that put off by a certain other show though.

Merida's fight would have definitely worked much better had they waited longer to pull the mana stuff out, and it's especially kind of weird because she relies on just regular quick wits and/or fighting dirty after doing it as the way of showing that she's the better fighter. Then they drop that after the ol' dirt in the face and it becomes almost entirely screaming, charging up power levels, and pulling new moves out of one's ass, complete with inexplicable flashback interruption to explain both that this was a super special move and she must have been secretly training to use it in the time period that we totally skipped over. Could've done without… a lot of that crap, and it all taking place in the confines of a school sanctioned playground fight, along with it still being suspiciously void of blood or even the slightest scuff of their ridiculous dresses isn't doing all the pontificating about how much they're going to kill each other any favors either.