We kick things off with a glimpse into Diana’s past when she was only known as Sanya, a plain ol’ village girl from the country. We even get to see the exact moment she got her saintly powers. But why did the goddess pick her of all people? Was Diana an exceptional child? All we get to see is that she had a fight with her childhood friend Mary. Beyond that, there’s too little to say whether or not Diana was even a good or bad child. If the goddess operates on meritocracy, we sure as hell ain’t seeing it. And maybe this is a sign of things to come. Maybe we’ll get to see just how human Diana really is, i.e. flawed. I mean, she has a crush on Leo, so that’s already a major flaw. I kid, I kid… maybe. But more importantly, we’ll get to see that the motivations of gods and goddesses are often quite inscrutable.

Naturally, Diana was removed from her home, family, and friends to go be with a bunch of religious folks and carry out her responsibilities as the newly anointed saint. Even though we know now that Dianism is currently the better of the two competing religions in Pallistan, common sense tells you that this hardly seems like the right move. I don’t think you need a degree in child psychology and development to say that a child like Diana needs her family as well as a stable environment. Perhaps you could argue that things were already changing drastically for her at home. Diana tried to patch things up with Mary, but her friend and everyone nearby were already starting to treat the girl differently. The village folks revered her, because in their eyes, she was the extension of their goddess. In other words, Diana was already being isolated. But surely, her family would still cherish and love her like normal? Saint or not, the Dianists should’ve at least allowed Diana’s mother to accompany her. Has she even been allowed to go back and visit her old family since the day she left?

This is ultimately a story about Scarlet and how awesome she is, so of course, as soon as Diana meets her, they instantly formed a bond. Scarlet immediately took Diana under her wings and became the perfect sister figure anyone could ask for. Sheesh, does Scarlet have any flaw? Well, I suppose the extrajudicial punishment she doles out can be a touch excessive. And I suppose she’s a little too patient with Prince Julius. I want to say she punched him offscreen after he was a little too cheeky that one time, but either way, we were robbed of this precious moment of catharsis. But even so, neither of the things I just mentioned can hardly be considered major character flaws. I guess what I’m saying is that this anime has been a fun watch, but it has also hit its ceiling. It can’t take the next step and become something truly special, because Scarlet is one-note. Her note is awesome, but she’s not a very interesting or complex heroine.

But back to Diana. You can take the girl out of the village, but you can’t take the village out of the girl. And that isn’t an attempt to slight Diana. Rather, even as a saint with saintly powers, she continued to see herself as the “worthless village girl.” She didn’t see Diana’s powers as something that was intrinsic to her identity, and honestly, why would she? She didn’t earn and she knew it. She just woke up one day with the goddess’s blessing. My first instinct when I saw her get her powers was to ask why her and not some other child instead. Well, Diana must have asked herself this same question over and over. Not only did she lose everyone and everything she ever knew and loved, she had no clue why she was even chosen. A young child is ill-prepared for such lingering doubts. Naturally, Scarlet tried to comfort and soothe Diana’s worries, but you know who could’ve done a better job? Her mother.

Fast forward to the present day, and Scarlet still hasn’t awaken from her last bout of fisticuffs against Terenezza and her goons. Of course, we know Scarlet’s fine. After all, she’s the heroine. But we also saw her get a power-up from Chronoa himself at the end of last week’s episode. As soon as she wakes up, she’ll be more than ready to kick ass. On the other hand, Diana is racked with guilt. To make matters worse, Julius is none too happy with the powerless saint. Apparently, Dios isn’t the only traitor in our midst. Seduced by promises that Palmia could somehow restore her powers, Diana had also agreed to become a spy. This is a bit of an odd decision, isn’t it? I would never imagine going to the enemy goddess in hopes of getting my own goddess’s blessing back. In my head, this doesn’t even compute. But hey, I suppose an inferiority complex can make people do silly things. At the time, Diana had tried to reason to herself that she needed her powers in order to protect the people, but this was just cope. We’ve seen Scarlet reverse the effects on the crystals all on her own. Diana thus could’ve kept her head down. She could’ve kept searching for other ways to restore her powers without betraying her “big sister,” but instead, she allowed her jealousy to take over.

Elsewhere, Terenezza shatters one of the protective crystals, which means the surrounding areas will soon be flooded with monsters. Why is it so easy to destroy these all-important crystals? Well, maybe it just seems easy to us. After all, Terenezza is an extension of her goddess, so she has godlike powers. I guess Pallistan never considered doing more to protect the crystals, because they simply never expected anyone to be able to destroy them in the first place. More importantly, however, is how blatantly evil Terenezza and her Palmianism goons are acting. Again, this is only meant to be a fun show. Watch Scarlet kick some ass, have some laughs at the bad guys’ expense, then move on. Don’t think, just enjoy. As such, Terenezza is as one-note as our protagonist. There’s no nuance here. She’ll sic monsters on innocent people, because she’s a baddie. No more, no less. I wish her motivations weren’t so shallow, but it is what it is.

It’s time for Julius to prove that he’s worthy of the throne. Not only does he need to get the people of Snowind to safety, he also has to deal with the fact that invading armies are at his kingdom’s doorsteps. In the moment, Julius seems unflappable as he barks out orders to best protect his kingdom, but nothing is off the table — not even surrender. I think this is the right move. You have to consider every possibility. As far as he knows, Scarlet is still out of commission, and without his greatest fighter, the prince has to accept that the best way to protect his people might require him to wave the white flag. Ultimately, he needs to leave Scarlet’s side for now, and this will only make them both vulnerable. For Julius, he not only receives a message from Aflame that the story won’t reveal to us (a deal he can’t refuse?), he can also fall prey to Terenezza. It’s pretty simple: she can’t really do anything against Scarlet in terms of hand-to-hand combat, but she can get other people to fight for her. And who would be a better foe for Scarlet than her one and only love interest? Even in last week’s episode, Julius had to cover his nose around Terenezza so we know he isn’t magically immune to her charm. Sooner or later, Terenezza’s going to work her magic on Julius.

For Scarlet, she still hasn’t awaken, so right on cue, Dios gets past all of the guards and arrives at our heroine’s bedroom. He’s here to put the incapacitated Scarlet out for good. Could Julius have fought him off? I imagine so, but all that’s standing now between Dios and Scarlet is a tearful Diana full of regrets. As you might have guessed, the girl isn’t much of a fighter either. An ensuing flashback soon teaches us that, well, Dianism sucks too. Once the Dianists realized that Diana had lost her powers, they quickly deemed her useless and abandoned her. Even worse, they started praying that the next saint would appear. Can you pass your powers and responsibilities along to another poor girl without dying, though? That’s what I want to know. By praying for the next Diana, aren’t the Dianists basically hoping that the current one would die? Maybe I’m reaching here, but that’s what it feels like. If Diana had actually been fighting for her life all this time, then maybe her betrayal is a little more forgivable. Well, we can be assured that she’ll be forgiven. After all, I doubt Scarlet would hold a grudge against her dear “little sister.”

In fact, Diana isn’t entirely useless. She buys Scarlet enough time to finally awaken. Our heroine quickly leaps into action and smacks her would-be assassin right out of her room. She then turns around and addresses Diana by her real name. Huh? Was Scarlet doing the whole “I’m sleeping but I can actually hear everything” schtick this entire time? Did Diana’s tearful apologies somehow touch Scarlet’s heart? Like I said, our protagonist is too flawless. I just wish she had a little more depth to her character — a weakness that she could work on throughout the series and ultimately overcome. Unfortunately, Scarlet has no character arc. She was born awesome, and she remains awesome.

Scarlet then proceeds to interrogate Dios, but not for anything practical like how to stop the horde of invading monsters or Palmianism’s next moves. Rather, she wants to know why Dios, someone from the enemy faction, had tried to protect Diana that one time she fell off her palanquin during the parade. As you’ll recall, Leo stepped in and broke the saint’s fall. But if he had failed to act, Dios would’ve saved Diana instead. Welp, it turns out she and Dios are related. To be precise, they’re half-siblings. I guess his hair is sorta greenish, so this might have been a clue regarding his true identity? They’re also both traitors, so being a turncoat apparently runs in the family. Well, the moment is quickly ruined when it turns out Dios is kind of a siscon. Why is he even commenting on her body of all things? Ugh. Anime, why do you always gotta be so weird?

Again, I feel like Diana (or Sanya as she’s referred to now) will eventually and easily be forgiven. After all, she’s both cute and kinda dumb, and outside of a few exceptions, you know how much anime likes to protect its cute characters. You can even reason that she was too naive to realize that Terenezza and her goons would put innocent people in danger. Even before she decided to become a spy for them, she tried to make Dios promise that the bad guys wouldn’t use her information to hurt others. Her soul is tainted with jealousy, but she has a good heart overall. Scarlet tells Diana to apologize and accept her punishment, but I bet her sentencing will be quite lenient. Besides, even if they truly wanted to treat her harshly, can they? What are you gonna do? Piss Scarlet off?

As for Dios, it’s a little harder to excuse his actions. Yes, he wanted to restore his dear imouto’s smile. But there’s no way he could’ve been blind to Palmianism’s evil. Even after Terenezza shattered the protective crystal, it doesn’t seem like there’s an ounce of regret in Dios’s voice or actions. He would’ve happily traded people’s lives just for Diana to get her powers back. Not to protect her life or anything like that, but just her powers! Sadly, I doubt they’ll kill him off even though treason is one of the rare times that a crime is punishable by death. There’s a reason why treachery is the deepest circle of hell. Nevertheless, I hope he gets thrown in jail for quite a few decades after this is all said and done. It probably still won’t happen, though. He’s gonna help Scarlet stop the bad guys, and that might just earn him enough grace to reduce his sentence.

Ultimately, religion just sucks. Palmianism is proud to be evil, but Dianism is also far from perfect. Dianists snatched a young child away from her family, barely cared for her or taught her to do anything (that was Scarlet’s job), and quickly treated her like trash once the child lost her powers. Fuck the Palmians, but fuck the Dianists too. Unfortunately, gods literally exist in this universe, so we can’t just abandon our faith willy-nilly and become enlightened atheists (that’s sarcasm, by the way). Scarlet can only save the day thanks to a god being a bro. Without Chronoa’s blessing, our heroine is merely physically strong. But all this anime has proven is that it’s probably best to worship the gods and goddesses directly and cut the middlemen out. Who needs popes, monks, and nuns anyway?