What’s that? Is the Obu finally back?!

— Sakura’s Mugen is completely demolished from the last battle. But since I’ve played game, I know she has another one. I just have no idea why it has been collecting dust since the anime series started.

— Klara wakes up to find herself in an exact replica of the home she once grew up in. The problem here, of course, is that Valery can’t replicate Natalia, their mother. As a result, the room can be nothing more than a fake. Klara needs a family, and Valery is too far up his ass to provide that.

— If this was true, no one would have a problem losing weight.

— It seems as though Klara might be getting through to Leyla, but Valery quickly shows up to put a stop to that. He talks to Leyla as if she’s nothing more than a machine, but she’s none the wiser. He then sticks a crystal inside Klara, so like Leyla, he can now control her? Yeah, the problem with this show is that we know basically nothing about the villain. How did he infiltrate WLOF? Shrug. Where did he get the resources to build the Sevastopol? Shrug. Why does he want to create a new world? Shrug. I guess the last remaining episodes will delve into his backstory, but I’m not getting my hopes up that it’s going to be any good.

— Klara gets strapped into this contraption, which allows Valery to take advantage of her demonic powers. So this is what Leyla wants? This is the happiness she’s been seeking for her sister? How come Leyla is so much more vulnerable to emotional manipulation than her sister?

— Valery tells the entire world to surrender. If they don’t, they’ll meet his wrath… which is sadly just a huge fuck-off laser. He wants to be God, but I think there’s more to it than just having a weapon of mass destruction. He doesn’t even explain what he wants to do with the world. Oh well, just another bad, underdeveloped villain.

— Elsewhere, Seijuro teams up with Elise and Lancelot to clean up WLOF, but again, the anime never explains why the organization has once again been infiltrated by the bad guys. Why is WLOF so incompetent?

— Without her Mugen, Sakura decides to go battle in an older model. That’s all fine and dandy, but she still has that new one… the one that kicked all sorts of ass in the latter half of the game. Why are we not using it?

— Somehow, Reiji had the time and resources to construct this contraption. He also did it behind everyone’s backs, ’cause even Kaoru is surprised. Doesn’t she handle the team’s budget…?

— Reiji tells Hakushu that the Great Bow wasn’t designed for humans to use, but she doesn’t care. She obviously has some demon in her.

— When the good guys arrive, Valery states the obvious. He can push a button and just win right now. But like all of his idiotic predecessors, he’s gonna give the good guys a chance because it’s more fun this way. What a dork.

— Remember Black Cape? Now there’s an entire room full of them! So what do the girls say? “So Kaminski was behind it all, huh?” Now you’re sure? You only know that… now?

— The team could barely handle Black Cape on their own, but somehow, they’re wiping these robots out left and right. What’s changed? Shrug.

— The only person who’s struggling is Sakura, but that’s understandable. After all, she’s running an old model. At some point, her Kobu stops responding. HQ tells her to pull back, but she utterly refuses to give up. Right there and then, Sumire sees the previous Sakura in our Sakura. Okay… but I mean, this sort of thing also happened in the game. It’s weird how the anime series wants to have its own story, but it also ends up repeating many of the game’s themes and story beats. The only thing that’s missing is the romance. We get to see Seijuro spend one quality day with Sakura, but that’s it. Isn’t the romance one of the big reasons why fans are into the games? So it’s weird that the anime series would reduce that to a minimum.

— Since Sakura won’t pull back, Sumire gives her the approval to finally use the Obu, the mecha that I’ve been harping on and on about. Reiji objects, however, because the Obu might draw out too much of Sakura’s spirit power. Huh? That wasn’t a huge concern in the game.

— So again, we have the anime series replicating one of the game’s major story beats. Oh yeah, Sakura got a new, more powerful mecha in the game? Okay, she’ll get it again in the anime… except it’s the same damn mecha. We just gotta pretend that she couldn’t use it up until now!