Recap: The confrontation at the Tree of Exodus has begun. With the entire might of the Japanese Self Defense Force in their support, Mahiro and Yoshino go to confront the mages directly, running into Samon. Instead of actually fighting, we proceed to spend more than half the episode talking. Then talking. Then showing a guy talking to nobody. Then a plot twist, so I guess at least there’s that.

The army literally rained down hellfire upon the tree. Everyone was geared up for war. Dozens of talismans have already been used up in this episode alone. And yet, even with all of that action, we get about fifteen minutes of straight dialogue. It’s like, remember Death Note? Where action was often deferred to just massive amounts of diatribe between Light and L? I get that some people love this kind of stuff but man did it kinda drag this episode.

Mostly this is because, for the bajillionth time, we get another dose of backstory and worldbuilding. Samon comes up to our heroes and basically says “NO, THE TREE OF GENESIS IS THE VILLAIN, COMPLETE REVERSAL OF THOUGHT!” Unfortunately Mahiro obviously is in full Hamlet mode and just does not give a fuck, believing that as long as the princess is around he doesn’t need to worry about anything else. The most infuriating thing about the whole info dump is that Jun just starts talking like out of fucking nowhere, like they needed to added a second voice to spice up the still frames of Samon talking. This just really begs the question as to why the chucklefuck is just randomly talking to himself on the side of the road like a crazy person.

I don’t even get their problem. The Tree of Genesis is going to fix their problems and make a better world. Isn’t the goal of every crazy cult to have their deity improve upon their world and make it perfect? They don’t even know what will happen so all it is is speculation as to the Tree’s true powers. Honestly I don’t care how great you think your plan is either, if any part of it contains the idea: “Awaken eldritch world tree to damage the sustainer of the world”, I think you might not be on the right track.

However beyond even that reveal was an even bigger one at the end. I’ll admit I was accidentally spoiled to this a few weeks ago when looking up the Wikipedia page because I forgot one of the characters names. I really should just start using ANN for that kind of thing. I actually really liked this one because it really makes sense in the concept of magic being real and this girl being under the special protection of this world’s god. The allegory of the coming revelation with the tempest was a nice touch as well, and was really beautifully scored and animated. I don’t know if I’ve ever really touched on it but for as much as I complain about this show I do truly enjoy its soundtrack. I could really feel the dread of realization raining down on Hakaze. While it seemed like somewhat a forced thought, her idea that Aika’s death was in no way intentionally done to lead Mahiro to her is crushed, and all conception of reality has forever been warped. What the duo will do now with this knowledge we’ll have to see, but I can’t imagine that will be taken too well.