天下制覇

Delicious.

Impressions:

My greatest struggle through this episode was staying awake. All the generic angst through the first half was bad enough, but almost the entire thing had the same soothing violin and piano tune that came rather close to completely knocking me out. It certainly didn’t help that the story was at pretty much a complete standstill for the first 15 minutes or so either. Yeah, there was the big reveal that the mysterious girl who carries around an ancient magical grimoire is a… and wait for it because this was totally a surprise… a mage. Shock. I’m pretty sure we could have also done without everybody trying to get a taste of Misuzu’s delicious vital fluids just for some generic magical mojo upgrade. The black knights haven’t exactly been giving you loads of trouble so far as yet, you know.

At least the ending was a little more interesting, even if the direction there was awful. After the last 20 minutes of violins and piano, having the heavy metal guitar for the ED kick in with Shiori’s big reveal about a devil awakening was tacky at best. It did make me laugh though, so it was still probably the most entertaining part of the episode. Saiko getting strung up by Superbia (I think that’s the one) was also a nice touch to end the episode and was easily the most menacing that the Knights have been to date, which is kind of sad now that almost all of them are dead. I’m not entirely certain how that’s supposed to help them in their goal, outside of pissing off the ‘good’ guys even more, but hell, at least it’s a proactive step forward.

Preview:

Man on fire! Man on fire! Put him out! Put him out!