When the story resumes, Scarlet is all by herself on a balcony as she tells us how Terenezza has disappeared. Huh, what happened to punching Julius? Don’t tell me we’re skipping out on that. You can’t give me a cliffhanger and then not resolve it! But instead of punching out an annoying prince, Scarlet reads a letter from the latest incarnation of Saint Diana. Scarlet has a new mission: go on a holy pilgrimage with the saint. She’ll be there as both friend and bodyguard. Moreover, the prince somehow has both women pissed off at him. We all know he can troll Scarlet, but what exactly has he done to Diana? Well, this is anime, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the saint herself is somehow a part of Scarlet’s harem. As such, it’s probably a safe bet that she’s jealous of anyone who gets close to her crush.
Speaking of the devil, Julius insists that Scarlet keep her new mission a secret from her brother if only to troll the guy. This prince hasn’t grown up, has he? As it turns out, the holy pilgrimage is a rather important ceremonial affair for the kingdom, so it makes sense for the prince to tag along and oversee the entire operation. Nevertheless, he also seems to use this opportunity to cling to Scarlet. If he was actually courting her, he would need to give her space. And if the show was brave enough, she could reject him entirely for being so annoying and clingy. I suspect, however, that this will never happen. He’s clearly the main love interest, and as anime is wont to do, the author will dangle that carrot in front of us until the story comes to an end. It’s sad, but this is the reality.
This is why when I see Dandadan fans gush over the Momo x Okarun relationship, I just think to myself that those two will never become official until we’re just about in our deathbeds. I’m talking about the anime timeline, of course. It takes a year to animate even just a handful of chapters into episodes we can watch. But even on the manga’s timeline, it’ll still take hundreds of chapters before we reach our destination. So I have no expectations that anything significant will happen between Scarlet and Julius by the end of the series. They might kiss, but Julius would probably find a reason to render the romantic act meaningless right afterwards.
Scarlet usually knows what she wants, which is punching annoying or evil people. But with Julius, she never sends a clear message. For example, what happened to our promised punch from the end of last week’s episode? Again, I thought we were going to get one. But more importantly, despite her many protestations and the annoyance plainly shown on her face, she always lets him close the distance between them like what you see in the screenshot above. Why? Over and over again, he’s flirt with her just to immediately reveal that he’s simply teasing her. And every time, it pisses her off. So why does Scarlet keep letting him toy with her? Does she actually hope that he’ll stop trolling her one day? I mean, if you’re not going to punish Julius for being a dick, then why would he stop? He’s having his fun and getting away with it.
Anyway, we’re off to the Religious Quarter, so a run-in with the the corrupt religious faction is not only inevitable, but immediate as well. I hate how you can easily tell someone is evil just by the way they look. Look at the current Palmian pope. Gosh, he’s not a good person?! No way! He even has the audacity to close the gates on Julius and Scarlet. By the way, we’ve punched nobles, an isekai heroine, a prince, and a prime minister. We’re now moving on up to the pope. Considering how the bad guys tend to all back Palmia, I wouldn’t be surprised if Scarlet slowly works her way up to punching that particular goddess as well. Then what’s left? What will she do once she has run out of people to punch? Imagine if she got reverse isekai’d. There are a few world leaders in our world that she could punch. But I digress.
Here’s another dude who is clearly evil just from his looks alone. I don’t think good religious folks would be proud to call themselves “the Ogre” either. Unsurprisingly, Scarlet is already sizing up her next prey. I also love how there’s an emphasis on highlighting the fact that he’s hairy. Oh, look at the stubble on his chin! And the hair on his hands and arms! Even his knuckles have hair on them! Ugh, hairy people are so ugly and thus evil! Please, cut back to our smoothskinned prince on the double! My eyes can’t take it anymore! Meanwhile, representatives from the “good” faction — the Diana faction — aren’t quite as hairy. Curious.
Well, you can’t keep Scarlet from what she relishes most: punching pigs. As a result, a mere Holy Gate has no chance of holding her back. Her blessing makes quick work of the massive wooden doors before her. Somehow, the bad guys only now realize that they’re dealing with the Scarlet. I find their cluelessness here somewhat odd, because what other woman or man could possibly pose a similar threat? We’ve seen no one with her level of physical prowess. There’s no one even close to her. Aflame can take a lot of punishment, but that’s about it. Anyways, “the Ogre” gets his just desert not once but twice. All in a day’s work.
When Dios, some brash knight, shows up and starts flirting with Scarlet, Julius immediately wears a serious look on his face and becomes possessive. Maybe that’s what he needs in order to get his act together: an actual rival. Since Scarlet won’t draw any boundary with the prince, he needs another threat to their relationship. At the moment, he clearly doesn’t think that he could possibly lose her to anyone else, so he’s content to be complacent. Hell, Saint Diana dislikes him, right? Why don’t we let her steal Scarlet away. Speaking of which, it’s never quite clear to me whether or not religious figures like saints are allowed to partake in romance and relationships in fiction. It feels like they shouldn’t, but I’ve seen enough anime to tell me otherwise.
We proceed to get some exposition to explain the need for a holy pilgrimage as well as shedding some light on the origins of Dianism as a whole. None of this is particularly interesting, especially if you’ve heard stories about other saints, real or otherwise. It’s all the same nonsense told over and over again. The only interesting thing to note here is that our current saint has lost her powers. She’s merely a figurehead. So… how are we going to purify those JRPG ass crystals if she can’t do it? But that’s a worry for another day, because we gotta have girl talk! When Diana mentions how she would prefer a prince with silver hair and blue eyes, it’s pretty clear that she’s talking about Scarlet, right? I mean, I guess Scarlet’s hair is kinda silvery pink, but it still fits. Diana clearly has a thing for her “neechan.” Unfortunately, Diana’s too much of an imouto-type. Not that this has never stopped anime from being degenerate. Anyway, I doubt Diana’s inability to tap into her saintly powers will remain permanent.
The next day, it looks as thought the departure ceremony would proceed smoothly, but all of a sudden, sounds of cannon fire sends everyone into a panic. Just sounds, though. We don’t actually see anything. No actual cannon balls, no actual fire, and no actual damage. Weird. Nevertheless, Scarlet immediately jumps into action. She pinpoints the Palmian Cathedral as the source for the cacophony, so she commandeers a spear from a statue of Palmia herself. Welp, I guess we’ll be punching the evil pope sooner rather than later. Scarlet is rather blasphemous.
Stray thoughts & observations:
- Her brother Leo is all pissy, because he found out that Scarlet won’t be marrying Julius (yet). Okay, bro, calm down. Your sister’s love life or lack thereof is really none of your business.
- By the way, her hair is still stained black.
- I love how this spiked mace keeps changing its size depending on how we’re looking at it. From this angle, it’s clearly smaller than his head. But from another angle, it’s clearly larger.
