Recap: The Kou Empire gains a new ruler and the royal family reaffirms its weird Freudian dynamic.

Iro’s Thoughts:
Hakuryu’s episode! Or at least, inasmuch as it’s a Kou episode and he’s our Kou-related central character. We get introduced to Ren Kouen, aka Goatee Douchebag, who is probably the second most badass person in the world behind Sinbad himself. Despite looking like a massive prick, he seems to be decent enough, researching what exactly is up with the world they live in. The back end of Season 1 threw around some references to “Alma Toran” and how it related to the djinni, and some of that is finally starting to become relevant. It also has the plus of conveniently hand-waving away the reason all of these different nations have the same language. Seeing as how stuff like that is usually part of the suspension of disbelief, it’s a little refreshing to see it addressed for once.

I find Hakuryu’s mother to be seriously off-putting. It’s clearly intentional, but her weird, touchy-feely relationship with her kids is just plain creepy and it makes me uncomfortable to watch it. In particular, the bit after Hakuryu tries to murder her and she gets within a hair’s breadth of making out with him is just kinda… eugh. Oh, and I guess it’s revealed that she’s part of Al Thamen, which conveniently explains whats up with Judar and much of the Kou Empire. It seems her influence is causing Hakuryu to fall into depravity, and with Kou on the brink of war with Magnostadt, who knows what’ll happpen? (I do, but shhhhhh!)

At the very least, the end credits and the next episode preview promise a return to our real hero, Aladdin. He did a whole lot of offscreen level grinding with his magic, and the bulk of the next few episodes should cover some more of his escapades in magic school. Plus, we’ll get to meet Titus, who somehow manages to be the girliest dude in the entire show, which is not an easy feat with some of those other characters hanging around.

Manga Differences That I Only Vaguely Remember

• I’m like 90% sure that Ka Kobun’s interlude was added to pad for time.
• Kougyoku was revealed to be brainwashed/whatever by Sinbad’s Zepar form significantly earlier in the manga.