As you probably remember, Saint Diana has to go on a pilgrimage in order to cleanse the crystals of their corruption. On their way to one of them, Scarlet manages to cheer up a bunch of soldiers struggling through a hike. See? She’s not just a “mad dog” who punches people out. She’s got quite a bit of charisma herself. She can charm the men if she needs to. Eat your heart out, Terenezza. Still, I’m not sure why the group literally needs to hike on their own two feet, though. Probably some nonsense about how physical hardship makes your faith stronger or whatever. Or there’s just no road large enough for horses to this particular crystal (a glaring oversight that maybe the next king should fix).
When they finally reach one of the corrupted crystals, the show suddenly reveals to us that Scarlet is a saint as well. Even her own brother is shocked to learn this. He has been kept in the dark all this time. Yeah, I remember the anime telling us how Diana had lost her powers. It figures that someone else has to step up and get the job done. Somehow, it slipped my mind that Scarlet would be more than a bodyguard for Diana. The story then tells us now that Dianism has always had two saints since the third generation. The royal family hides this fact to protect the second saint from their enemies (too bad Dios is a filthy spy). Leo realizes now that this is why she was betrothed to Prince Kyle in the first place. So… did her parents know from the start? Or has this also been a secret to them as well? Well, on the sidelines, Diana predictably feels guilty that she can’t do anything to help her big sis.
The next leg of their journey takes the pilgrimage to a much chillier clime. This has Scarlet looking rather… dowdy. Apparently, Scarlet hates the cold, because it doesn’t allow her to feel her punches. Yep, that’s the reason. Not because low temperature prevents her from fighting at her physical peak or whatever. Nope, she hates the cold because it numbs her. Well, I’m the opposite ’cause I love cold weather. If it’s storming, even better. If I didn’t like California so much (as well as San Francisco), I’d probably have moved to a place that rains or snows on a frequent basis. I’ve honestly considered moving to Alaska at some point. Too bad it’s really hard to get cheap groceries there (not that San Francisco is any better). Still, there’s nothing cozier than huddling up beneath blankets next to, say, a fireplace and drinking hot tea.
Unfortunately, the pilgrimage runs into opposition at the next town they visit. Someone (probably Dios) has leaked information that Diana no longer has her powers, so she’s accused of being a fraud. Dianism is also accused of extorting the people for their money. I can’t help but notice that the person leveling this claim, a count, looks like this. All evil or shady people are ugly. Beauty is normative, after all. I remember watching Japanese people reacting to a cooking competition, and they commented (paraphrasing), “That dish might taste good, but it would never sell here in Japan. It looks too ugly.” It’s not surprising that this mindset extends to morality in fiction. Good equals pretty, bad equals ugly. Now, I don’t mean to imply that this is a Japanese-only thing. In the west, we have our fair share of media where less than pretty folks are often evil or judged harshly. In fact, villains being fat and corpulent is common enough to be a trope. Nevertheless, I just couldn’t help but be reminded of that little exchange in the reaction video. Mind you, none of this precludes pretty people from being evil. After all, we have Terenezza and Dios. But if you’re ugly, there’s a very good chance you’re also evil, a trope so dumb that it makes me laugh at times.
Speaking of Terenezza, she’s a saint of Palmianism now. She quickly uses her charm blessing to bring all of the Palmian adherents under her thrall. Is this really necessary though? She’s already their saint so I imagine they would’ve followed her orders anyway. Maybe they would fight harder now? Still, I never like it when the bad guys are “under the influence” for a very obvious reason: it robs them of their agency. And if you’re robbed of your agency, then you’re not as culpable for your bad deeds. Case in point, Scarlet concludes that Kyle must have been charmed into breaking his engagement to her in front of everyone. Again, is this necessary? He was an arrogant prick even as a child. It wouldn’t have been out of character for him to pull such a stunt on his own accord. So why blunt his characterization, y’know? Why hand-wave it away as him simply being under Terenezza’s bad influence?
Predictably, Terenezza’s charm blessing doesn’t work on women, so our heroine is still free to dole out a ton of physical punishment. Sigh, evil can be so hetero (not that hetero is evil, so don’t get your panties in a twist). But this happens a lot in video games, too. Oh no, we’re fighting a succubus or what have you! Time to bring a women-only party! Or something to that effect. Nope, there are no lesbians in video games! Women surely can’t charm other women! It’s just funny, because Scarlet usually fights alone anyway. So what difference does the charm really make? Well, the bad guys have come extra prepared this time. Not only do they cast silence on Scarlet like this is a video game, they also bind her with magical chains. Unfortunately for them, her earrings make her immune to crowd control… like a video game! Meh, she should’ve just worn a ribbon. Then she’d be immune to every negative status effect. Girl hasn’t done the endgame and found the best loot. Tsk tsk. But seriously, this show kinda reminds me of the Like a Dragon video game series, because every conflict is resolved with physical violence. I have yet to see an episode where Scarlet doesn’t punch and kick her way to a resolution. Luckily for our amusement, unlike Kiryu, Scarlet isn’t afraid to hit women.
Unfortunately, during the fray, Dios manages to take Diana hostage. Seriously? Did the soldiers take their eyes off of the one actual person they were on this pilgrimage to protect? Well, maybe their captain was unlucky enough to assign Dios to protecting her. As a result, Scarlet has to let Terenezza go in order to protect Diana, so I guess this is technically a loss for the good guys. She doesn’t get to punch the isekai’d girl’s pretty face a second time. Gosh darn. Guess Scarlet’ll just have to settle with falling into Julius’s arms instead (like always, she overuses her blessing).
While unconscious, Scarlet gets to meet the Cronoa himself… themself? Do they have a gender? They do look rather androgynous. Well, Cronoa force-feeds us a bunch of exposition, which I’m never a fan of. But we might as well sort this out while we’re here. Basically, Palmia is directly responsible for Diana losing her powers. What’s Palmia’s problem anyway? Why is she being such a capital B? Apparently, it’s because she’s in love with Cronoa. Well… that’s kind of a boring motivation. I mean, it’s a bit overdone in media. “Oh, she’s a woman? Well, she’s gotta be jealous.” Yawn. Anyway, we also learn that Palmia had used her hair to craft Terenezza in her own image. Hair to hair, sphere to square, red to pink, blah blah blah. We even get to see how Terenezza’s soul was plucked from a schoolgirl in Japan. It’s probably because she’s a fan of trashy isekai light novels. Don’t do it, kids. Don’t read that slop or some cruel goddess will turn your into her pawn. Still, I can’t help but wonder if this Japanese schoolgirl was a decent person before she fell under Palmia’s influence. But the charm blessing only works on men, so maybe the schoolgirl has always had a nasty personality.
I really have to go back and check what the Japanese audio track says here, because the dub cracks me up:
Scarlet: “If you ask me, this goddess sounds like a real bitch.”
Cronoa: “Bitch indeed.”
In an earlier episode, when Scarlet was being attacked while riding her dragon, the English dub had her utter, “Oh shit.” The Japanese audio track definitely did not have that. So I wonder if this “bitch” exchange is also an added flourish for the English dub. Maybe they ad-libbed it during a recording session.
In any case, Cronoa not only gives Scarlet a pocket watch that can somehow restore Diana’s powers, they even enhance her blessing even further. This has the effect of restoring her hair to its original state. Yeah, the black didn’t really go too well with her light pinkish hair. But to sum things up, Scarlet is now more prepared than ever to give Terenezza the second, sorely deserved punch. There are two problems, though. First, we’ve already seen the bad guys recruit Aflame and his ilk, so they have to come into play at some point. Can Scarlet take them all on by herself? Julius, stop giggling in the corner and make yourself useful for once. Seriously, he put his body in harm’s way once and hasn’t really done anything since. Second, we already know that Palmia is the Big Bad. Punishing Terenezza might be fun, but it doesn’t get to the root of the problem. Will the enhanced blessing be enough to take down a jealous goddess?
Stray thoughts & observations:
- If your religious leader looks like this in fiction, your religion is probably a sham. Just sayin’. As for the real world, I’m not sure. Unsurprisingly, I’m no expert on popes, so I can’t say if we’ve ever had an attractive one.
- As an aside, my actual father is Catholic, so I’ve actually been baptized and all that. My mom (not a Catholic) still has my baptismal outfit in storage somewhere. I ended up being non-religious. Womp womp.
- An annoying bug (a gnat?) coincidentally shows up when Dios starts being too annoying. That is a little on the nose, don’t you think?
- So does the second saint get to keep their own name unlike all the Dianas? Or have they always been Saint Scarlet?
- It takes me out of it when my fantasy anime has long distance communication devices that looks like an electronic. I’m sure it’s powered by magic, but still.
- Scarlet wore some sleek black pants earlier during the hike. Not sure why she still has to fight in a dress and thus “flash” us her bloomers. I don’t think they’re better for the cold, are they?
- Bet you Terenezza wishes her charm blessing was bisexual now.
