天下制覇

More immediate beheadings of silly people, please.

Impressions:

I do kind of wish that they had actually won the beach fight, even if it was a pyrrhic victory where Shinpei and Mio2 showed up to everybody mangled and dead. I feel like that would've made looping to try to save everybody and accidentally sacrficing Hizuru more tragic. Or even done it, knowing that it would likely kill her. In this way, they're trading everybody dying for just one of them dying, so, yeah, it's still bad, but it's still undeniably better than the alternative, not to mention could've suggested that there's a way to kill Shide/Haine in the process. I'm also not a huge fan of the lack of subtlety over Ushio2 still being alive. Your pocket is glowing like a supernova whenever you're threatened by a shadow, Shinpei. It's not going to be a surprise when she pops back out.

Ironically though, despite a 'permanent' death (at least until the end when it will no doubt re-loops everything) not a hugely eventful episode. Again, too much was spent having the characters stand 10 feet apart and chit chat at each other. Shinpei now has Hizuru's powers, and Shide's weakness is that shadow people can zwoop into his armor and take control of it themselves. The fight was again pretty mediocre and abbreviated though. I'm really praying that they're saving up for a big blowout on par with the gym episode for the ending.