Recap: Growing impatient with ED’s… performance, a mysterious organization dispatches an assassin to finish his job. Our party has bigger problems though, as Sainglain and Mariandel grow more and more concerned the princess is entering a “hyperactivity period”.

Jel’s Thoughts: Another great episode this week, as I don’t think anyone would have guessed the Princess (or entire royal family for that matter) turns into a horrible ravenous monster every so often. The overall plot of the episode was pretty predictable. We all knew Kon was going to have to learn the Princess’ secret the hard way and the assassin didn’t stand a chance from the get go. But there were plenty of memorable, hilarious moments from the cast to make up for it.

Ixion isn’t nearly ambitious enough to use the word “deconstruction”, a term I’ve come to hate after its overuse the past couple of years, but so much of the humor is based on flipping the usual Medieval Fantasy character types on their heads. This week’s highlights included musclehead Sainglain running around saying “nyaaan~” and the beautiful Marian spouting some of the most intimidating, insulting words you could possibly get away with on broadcast television, in full on Lelouch voice no less! Probably the best though was our stunned assassin’s transformation from demonic, cannibalistic murderer to terrified, crazy old man living on to tell the legend. None of it is terribly smart or making any grand statement, it’s just good clean fun at the expense of a genre that often takes itself too seriously.

Next week looks like ED will be returning for another showdown with Kon. Seeing as he is out of balls to lose, I guess we’ll have to find out how he’ll be defeated this time. Maybe this will be the episode he joins the party? Probably not, but I’m looking forward to finding out.