It figures that after last week’s action-packed episode, we’d spend the vast majority of this week’s episode twiddling our thumbs. I hope you like crybaby Aya telling you how much she’s going to mamoru everybody, ’cause that’s all you’re getting.

— Alright, we pick up where we last left off, and Aya is sad. Aya is very sad.

— Nijimi looks rather peaceful in death, though. Plus, even if the girls manage to take Nana down, there are a bunch more behind her. Not only that, you have assholes like Kaname and maybe even the person who kidnapped Kaname to contend with. This is a sick, sadistic universe that delights on torturing these poor schoolgirls. Nijimi is probably better off dead.

— Apparently, Yakuza Girl had her gang cover up Nijimi’s death. As a result, people think the dog idol merely died of… wait, how do they think she died? Sadly, the news report doesn’t mention the cause of death. The girl took a huge katana slash to the chest, which would be pretty hard to cover up. Don’t you think the police would at least want a coroner to take a look at her body and make sure there wasn’t any funny business? Ah well, maybe the police have been paid off too.

— Look at Tsuyuno. Look how mad she is. She’s determined to get her revenge on Kaname. The girl isn’t satisfied with just torturing one person slowly to death.

— Nevertheless, this scene with her and Rina just goes on and on and on. A lot of scenes in this week’s episode is like this. Characters standing around, talking about their current situation. It’s a far cry from last week’s concerted effort.

— Basically, the girls want to recover their magical sticks, but we already know Sarina has Rina’s backpack. Speaking of which, I love how she’s trying to look all bad ass in that cloak.

— The detective with the funny hair drops by the Asagiri household to look into Kaname’s sudden disappearance. He wants to speak to Aya, but the dad gets all huffy because he deems his daughter irrelevant to the situation. Um, why don’t we let the detective decide that? Unfortunately, the guy doesn’t actually press Aya’s dad on the matter, which I find extremely odd. What responsible investigator would just take Aya’s dad at his word?

— Finally, we get to Aya, and she’s just holed up in her room. Wait, that’s not all! I hope you like flashbacks, ’cause here’s a flashback of Nijimi!

— And now, we have a flashback of Tsuyuno telling Aya to toughen up! What I really love is how the show doesn’t even bother to slap some shitty filter on these scenes to differentiate them as flashbacks. Let’s just reuse the scenes as is and call it a day!

— After bombarding us with recycled material, Aya rushes all the way back to the site of that collapsed apartment building. She’s determined to find those missing magical sticks… except we already know who has the magical sticks, so this is pointless.

— We cut to the administrators being evil… and yeah, that’s about it. They just wanna know what Nana’s going to do about the current situation. There’s really no new information to glean from this scene at all other than that Nana’s about to do something. But c’mon, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that.

— Also, this is another super cheap scene to animate, because most of the administrators barely move! Their mouths definitely don’t! You may as well be watching a series of still images.

— After the boring scene with the administrators, we cut to Aya sitting on a riverbank. Again, she tells us that she’s going to mamoru the fuck out of her friends. Great.

— That’s when Sarina shows up with Aya’s stick! Oh no, what’s gonna happen next!

— The next day, it’s storming real bad as… holy shit, look at all these people standing in line just to mourn Nijimi’s death. The detective even refers to her as a national icon. A national icon? The goddamn dog idol was one of Japan’s national fucking icon?!

— Yeah yeah, you guys are sad over a dog idol.

— Everyone has shown up to pay their respects. Everyone but Aya.

— Heh, we “covered up” her wounds with flowers!

— Finally, Aya arrives fashionably late to say her goodbyes to Nijimi. I still can’t believe we’re making such a big deal out of a one-dimensional character. Nijimi didn’t have a modicum of character development. Not a single one. To me, she was pretty much a gimmick character. For Christ’s sake, her stick was a pair of panties. She wanted to get her revenge on Rina and that was it. She had nothing else to offer to the story. Nevertheless, the story is treating Nijimi’s death like it’s a national tragedy.

— The girls demand to know where Aya’s been. All of a sudden, our girl whips out her stick and aims it at her friends. Is this a heel turn? C’mon, of course not. Aya’s too pure to be corrupted.

— Out of nowhere, a giant explosion rocks the funeral. So much for paying the dead our respects.

— It turns out Nana is behind the explosion. Not only that, the detective with the funny hair is working with the evil administrator, which is a shame. I really wanted one mature adult to come in and just sort out this huge mess, but he’s an evil prick too. In fact, is there even a single well-adjusted male character on this show?

— Oh yeah, the detective is also responsible for Kaname’s disappearance. To make matters worse, he has Aya’s brother chained up naked in an abandoned warehouse. Yo, I disliked the guy, but I don’t want to see him get raped. Do we really have to do this? Mahou Shoujo Site says yes.

— We eventually “learn” that Aya had teleported her friends to safety. I put the word “learn” in quotes, because again, there is no chance in hell that Aya could ever go bad on us. Sarina is more likely to join the good guys than it is for Aya to break bad.

— Speaking of which, that is exactly what happens.

— Unfortunately, even though Aya’s heart is in the right place, her next move is controversial: she wants everyone to hand over their sticks. And by everyone, we really mean the new girls who we barely know. Aya intends to fight the administrators with just Sarina by her side. Since she wants to mamoru the fuck out of everyone, she doesn’t want them to help her. She says this is her way of atoning for Nijimi’s death. But isn’t that selfish? You don’t take the less optimal path just because you want to atone. There’s too much at stake. We can’t just concern ourselves with Aya’s feelings.

— Furthermore, she’s naive if she thinks the rest of the girls could just go back their happy-go-lucky lives. First, they only became magical girls in the first place because their lives sucked. Without their sticks, they’re sitting sucks. They’re sitting ducks to the administrators, and they’re sitting ducks to any evil magical girl that they might come across. Not only that, they’re sitting ducks to your bog standard schoolyard bully. If Aya hadn’t gotten her magical stick, she would’ve gotten raped and possibly killed by now. If Tsuyuno didn’t have her stick, she also would’ve gotten raped.

— Anyways, Tsuyuno slaps some sense into Aya. We get yet another flashback. This one reminds us that Aya had promised to never abandon Tsuyuno.

— So in the end, Aya is embraced by her BFF, and everyone is determined to fight.

— For once, I agree with Sarina.

— Plus, Sarina’s heel turn is hilarious. Why has she decided to betray Nana? Because the administrators don’t look at magical girls as people. Um, who bullied Aya to tears? Who nearly got Aya raped? Who helped play a part in the death of an innocent kitten? So get outta here with that “wah wah they don’t see us as people” bullshit. She thinks she can roll up in here with a dope cloak and that moe fang and everyone’ll just embrace her? Not me, man.

— After that, everyone poses with their sticks, but it’s kinda cringey. But that’s the end of our episode. Yay…