Recap: We get a bit more backstory exposition, which I am none too particularly fond of. Then we see a kickass whale skeleton… I mean run into another one of Samon’s lackeys. Hope you like random plot twist, cause that’s all that waits for you at the end!

I’ll admit I didn’t got into this episode very enthusiastically. My interest in this show has been waning for some time, and the start of this episode did not help any. This material just doesn’t trust its audience of deductive reasoning apparently. Something like the Tree of Exodus and Tree of Genesis being in opposition is something a child could have figured from the plot, and yet they spend another beginning of an episode going further into backstory.

Once the exposition-fest was over, our heroes visit an old aquarium, which stirs some old memories in our lovelorn hero. The only good part to come out of this episode from my point of view was that the Aika-Yoshino dynamic was fleshed out a little more, showing them as an actually functioning couple instead of just longing looks at a picture on his phone. I suppose it doesn’t hurt that Aika’s voiced by my other favorite VA Kana Hanazawa, either. Of course, the couple of dudes just walking about everywhere get caught by more mages. After destroying an awesome whale replica(the things you see in the open at museums are hardly ever the genuine article) they get into another fight, which culminates in Mahiro up and threatening to electrocute the motherfuckers if they don’t leave. Dude is hardcore.

A bit more backstory is also given for the princess, showing her wantonly blowing up half a mountain just to prove a point. There are a couple things that bother me with this. First off, I suppose these guys have probably never seen the inside of a mountain, but do they really think all land is just giant piles of dirt? They could have at least feigned the look like there’s some rocks making up this mountain. Second, so killing people is not cool, but killing every other animal is perfectly fine? Hakaze up and straight murders every living creature in that mountain excavating magic attack! Not cool! However despite my silly grievances, obviously the biggest news coming from this episode is the revelation of some weird trickery. I have no idea what this means as far as Hakaze’s existance, but congratulations, Tempest, you just barely hooked me on at the end to keep going.