Recap

Azazel has gained confidence after starring in The Binding of Isaac and launches an attack to capture Amira. Favaro somehow becomes a knight, and the King of Anatae gets a bit miffed at not receiving a present.

Euri’s thoughts

I’ll admit that I’ve been a little worried about the recent stay in Anatae. Not that it’s been badly written or uninteresting, but because of how great the general adventuring is. We’ve had Favaro carting Amira around in search of Helheim, encountering zombies, bandits and some demon airship something or other, and that’s exactly what I’m personally signing up for. After two episodes in the city, I was worried that the pacing would screech to a halt in favour of politics, back story and a dragon that’s not actually doing anything yet. Fortunately, I was worrying for nothing. It may have taken us a few more episodes to finally leave the city (or at least, for some of them to leave the city), but we’re definitely back into adventure territory.

Most importantly, we now have a pretty good idea about Amira’s upbringing and general backstory. We knew she was a little childish, but who would have thought that she’s actually a five year old girl that’s had her ageing accelerated? I suppose it is an anime and that’s a very anime thing to do, but you know, as crazy as that is I’m kinda way into it. Amira seems to have had a pretty shitty childhood from the little we know, so I can’t help but feel pretty sympathetic towards her, especially as we’re not entirely sure how Martinet and the god key fits into the big picture.

Favaro continues to be the big unknown in this show. He seems like a well-intentioned guy, especially given the revelations between him, Kaisar and Azazel, but he continues to be a huge jerk to Amira. This is most likely because he’d much rather be in some bar drinking with women and just enjoying himself without risking his life, but the adventure thus far continues to be about him trying to remove his tail. There will come a point when he finally acts selflessly and commits to helping Amira/standing against whoever the bad guys are, but it’s the build up to this that’ll be the most interesting. I really can’t see how it’s going to come about.

You might think it was a bit weird that I just said “whoever the bad guys are”, but I’m honestly starting to question a lot about what’s going on in this show. Azazel, one of perhaps two ‘boss’ characters if you’re looking at it that way, has just been backstabbed by the next big bad guy. We’ve also been introduced to Lucifer and Beezelbub, plus there was a mention of Satan. Yes, they’re demons, and they’re meant to be. Are they interested in releasing Bahamut? Something tells me that might not be the intended aim, given that the demons had to work with the angels to seal him in the first place. On the flip side, there’s something going on with the angels as well. Gabriel and the other angels seem to be working to protect the two god keys from falling into the wrong hands, and while handing a crazy god-slaying sword to Jean D’arc might be a good way to protect her, it may also be a very deliberate attempt to make the king jealous. The poisoning may well turn out to be because of demons, but I wouldn’t be so quick to rule out some foul play from the angels, either.