For better or worse, the early part of this episode is very video game-like. The party descends into the deep, dark dungeon full of traps. Ooh, what scary encounters might they face! There’s even a falling boulder that Scarlet has to fist out of the way. As you might have expected, our heroine makes short work of everyone and everything in her path. Eventually, the party makes its way to a large room full of Palmian adherents, so it’s time for a multi-stage boss fight.
This episode so badly wants to tread the fine line between action and comedy. As a result, you have Scarlet and Julius engaged in a conversation right in front of the very bad guys they need to go through, you get quippy dialogue, etc. You’d never know that Terenezza is currently trying to gather up enough power to shatter the Holy Gem, thereby triggering an invasion of Pallistan from a hostile nation. Sense of urgency? What’s that.
How about another new face? Even the prince deserves a chance to shine and thus a foe to fight. I can’t recall if we’ve ever really gotten to see Julius in extended action. He’s always left everything to Scarlet, which isn’t to say he’s burdening her. Rather, she wants meat sacks to punch, and our prince is all too happy to oblige. But this time, she has bigger fish to fry, so Julius actually has to get his hands dirty for once.
The episode thus proceeds to jump between three different battles occurring simultaneously. I won’t get too deep into the action, because that has never been my forte nor my interest. Just know that for one of the battles, the good guys win when Diana gets her blessing back. On the other hand, it’s kinda funny to watch the prince fight off a ginormous great sword with a normal-sized rapier. At last, we can finally settle the STR vs DEX debate once and for all.
Julius looks so bored as he’s fighting, too. I mean, that’s certainly a choice by the animators. Unfortunately, his opponent wasn’t fighting in earnest. Rather, he was… uh, cutting a hole in reality in order to help Terenezza’s charm work its magic on the prince. Yeah, sure. I mean, our heroine can literally slow down time, so why wouldn’t the bad guy be able to create wormholes or whatever?
Scarlet didn’t punch Terenezza hard enough. As a result, the pink thing is able to use her final trump card: the prince himself. Well, I finally get what I’ve been asking for: Julius taking a punch to the face. It happens so fast that you can barely see contact being made. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like a single punch is enough to snap the prince back to his senses. I still think my kiss theory will bear fruit; the fairy tale motif is just too strong. But that’ll have to wait until next week in the season finale to see how it all plays out.
Stray thoughts & observations:
- You’re literally bleeding out of your eye socket, dude.
- Who needs Hogwarts when you can just study physics at any of our fine institutions?
- Is that what she really said in Japanese? I sometimes wonder about these subs…
- I think that white thing on Terenezza’s back is supposed to look like wings or whatever, but it just makes me think she glued part of a toilet seat to herself.
