Scarlet looks pretty gleeful as she readies a haymaker for her dear prince. I suppose she’s been waiting for a good opportunity to punish him. At the same time, however, aren’t her words here tantamount to a confession? What then follows sounds like a series of irrational accusations, but in reality, Scarlet is relishing the opportunity to… well, “flirt” with her prince. For instance, she can’t help but wonder if Julius allowed himself to be charmed. Like a stereotypical jealous lover, Scarlet then asks if Julius prefers women like Terenezza. But it’s “flirting” nonetheless, because some people like that sort of thing. They love it when their partner gets jealous over them. The logic here is that it shows they care. Not my jam, personally. If you deliberately try to make me jealous, I’ll just walk away. Nevertheless, it seems like Scarlet can only be honest about her feelings on the battlefield.
Oh lord, here comes the Terenezza backstory. After all, we can’t have the audience assuming that she’s just a poor girl who was randomly snatched up by Palmia! Nope, the self-proclaimed main character was a nasty person even before she got isekai’d. She’s always been petty and jealous of other people’s happiness. She wants nothing more than to see people succumb to despair even though they’ve done nothing to her. So naturally, Terenezza is frustrated that Scarlet is having fun fighting Julius. As a result, she’s changing tactics. She’s going to directly threaten his life instead. Be that as it may, I still don’t really understand the penchant for last minute lore drops. I still don’t really understand why modern media refuses to gradually build up to the climax. All season long, Terenezza only shows up to be evil. The anime never bothered to develop her as a character, then bam, awkward backstory just as the action is revving its engine. I want to keep seeing Scarlet and Julius fight. It’s too late for Terenezza! You could’ve developed her into a decent villain from the start, but you didn’t!
Terenezza orders the prince to restrain Scarlet, but he embraces the his pugilist queen instead. The spiteful Terenezza then spills the beans on Julius’s blessing: he can only unleash his full power when his lover is in danger. First, that’s corny as hell. Second, this feels like awkward storytelling. Why is Terenezza yapping so much? Why is she even bothering to explain any of this to her foes? Why would she give Scarlet any clue whatsoever on how to thwart her plans? The answer is because the audience needs this critical information. Again, no foreshadowing or the gradual build up of information over the course of the series. We’re just going to dump all of this exposition in your lap in the final episode. We’ve eschewed careful and deliberate plotting for cheap twists and surprises.
Scarlet hems and haws. He pretends that he doesn’t love her partly because he’s always teasing her, but also partly as a defense mechanism. If she doesn’t love him back, it sure would be embarrassing to admit that he loves her! But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we need to put ourselves on the limb instead of constantly protecting our own feelings first and foremost. Scarlet tries to agree with his obvious lie even though all of the evidence suggests otherwise. She thus has no choice but to conclude that by denying her feelings for him, she’s putting them both in danger. As a result, she’s just going to have to put her own pride on the line and kiss him. Honestly, it’s a pretty weak kiss. It barely looks as though the lips are touching. Also, even though I kinda predicted that this would happen — you gotta kiss the prince in a fairy tale! — I’m disappointed at why the kiss has to happen. I thought she would have to kiss him just to wake him up from Terenezza’s spell. This still happens, but it’s more than that. The main justification here is that Julius has been harboring this super duper blessing all along, which is so silly. Not only that, our strong heroine suddenly needs her man’s protection. It just feels… wrong.
Palmia shows up to corrupt her saint even further. As a result, like a JRPG boss, Terenezza gets a second form with black wings and shit. I suppose this is the final battle to end all battles (unless this show gets a sequel). According to Julius, they could just wait it out and let Terenezza self-destruct. But a part of Scarlet seemingly doesn’t want the evil saint to die. And another part of her just wants to deliver a satisfying uppercut to conclude this whole mess. As a result, she sends Terenezza flying to… well, only the gods know where. Maybe Scarlet’s punch can help Terenezza return back to Japan where the girl belongs. Welp, it’s time for the denouement.
Diana goes back to repairing the protective crystals, which is a given. She and Dios have some parting words, but I can’t say that I care too much about that guy. Meanwhile, the entire Palmian religion has been dissolved. I mean, sure, the good guys have proven that Diana is a real saint. At the same time, however, it’s not like Palmia is some made up figment of their imagination. She’s a real bonafide goddess in her own right. Realistically, she should still have some adherents and followers. Either way, we never really confront Palmia, which is a touch disappointing. Maybe this is reserved for a distant sequel we may or may never see.
Last but not least, Scarlet is still bitter at the fact that she had to confess her feelings to Julius. She’s convinced herself that he allowed himself to be charmed in order to put her life in danger. As a result, she had to kiss him. Uh-huh. I mean, wasn’t Julius asleep when her stupid dog maidboy weakened his resistance? Are we arguing that he planned that as well? Then didn’t we have some silly asspull where some schmuck literally tore a hole in the fabric of reality just so Terenezza could surprise Julius with her spell? Are we trying to say that Julius knew this would happen? He knew that his opponent could create wormholes? I dunno, man. But hey, it lets Scarlet punch him one more time. He deserves it for teasing her about the kiss.
And that’s our show. Would I still recommend May I Ask for One Final Thing? Yes, but with a caveat: it peaks way too soon and slowly regresses into an ordinary, mediocre show by the very end. The reason the anime caught my attention in the first place was because Scarlet was somewhat transgressive. She was more than happy to be unladylike. After all, what tends to happen when a villainess’s fiancé unceremoniously dumps her in front of everybody? The girl usually runs away, right? We’ve seen this kind of thing before. She either runs to another country in order to create a new life for herself and thereby meet a nicer prince, or she goes and finds a bigger, stronger prince to beat up the smaller, weaker prince. Think 7th Time Loop for the former, and I’m the Villainess So I’m Taming the Final Boss for the latter. But these aren’t the only examples; the villainess genre is full of this cookie-cutter nonsense. What made the early episodes of May I Ask for One Final Thing? transgressive was that Scarlet didn’t run away. She stood her ground and fought back. Is this a revolutionary concept? Of course not. But it was at least different from the standard fare we always get. For example, take all those nobles who stood idly by and allowed Kyle to abuse Scarlet. The average villainess would hardly be villainess. Instead, she would normally resolve to be the “bigger” person and let bygones be bygones. But Scarlet didn’t do that. She beat them up too.
Lately, however, Scarlet’s targets have been anything but transgressive. There’s nothing wrong with beating up monsters or scheming evildoers like Terenezza, but there’s also nothing interesting about it either. This show’s problem is that it kept trying to raise the stakes just so Scarlet would have bigger and more important punching bags, but in doing so, it resorted to the most boring plot progression possible. Oh, we’re not just punishing our jackass fiancé anymore, we gotta beat up the corrupt, slave-owning prime minister. Then we gotta beat up the evil pope and an entire religion! Then we gotta save the kingdom by beating up hordes of monsters! And finally, we gotta save the world by beating up a goddess’s chosen saint lest she enslave us all! Okay, great, but now you’re just a generic fantasy anime. And that’s not bad, per se. I’m just disappointed.
Stray thoughts & observations:
- I feel like this is a lot of blood to come spilling out from just a prick of her spear. But hey, I’m not going to test that or anything.
- Terenezza gets so mad, she’s crying blood? Huh? In fact, everyone’s just bleeding from their orifices. Diana is casting a protective spell so hard that blood starts seeping out of her mouth. Where is it coming from, though? Did a vein burst somewhere around her neck and the blood is just bubbling up?
- Hm, all my stray observations are about blood. That’s mildly interesting. Oh well, we’re done here. Time to see how Sanda‘s final epside will also let me down.
