The girls keep running in circles. They come to the realization that they’re trapped in a very small, enclosed space. Maybe even a pocket dimension! Luckily, what Coco spotted in last week’s episode — y’know, before Agott had her (admittedly valid) crash-out — might just be the Casting Seal keeping them trapped here.
Coco apologizes to Tetia for getting them into this mess. She also gives the girl a pep talk of sorts, since Tetia is the most freaked out of the four. All of a sudden, both of them are engulfed in a… puff ball? Cotton? Wool? Neither, apparently. It’s literally a fluffy cloud. Not to be a killjoy, but clouds are just water droplets… lots and lots of tiny water droplets. But fine, it’s magic so whatever. Sure, you can totally sleep on it. I thought you needed to draw stuff to cast a spell, but the cloud kinda felt like it appeared instantly. Who knows, maybe Tetia’s just super fast? And just like how they like thanking each other in loops, now they’re apologizing to each other in loops. Oh well, as long as the girlies get along. One down, two more girls to go.
Taking inspiration from Tetia’s spell, Coco suggests using a cloud to get them out of this mess. To reach the Casting Seal? No, to make the dragon fall asleep. She saw the dragon slam itself into a wall, so she started worrying over whether or not the dragon is hurt. To put it simply, she just wants to show her enemy some basic kindness. Haha, okay. No, I’m all for it. It’s silly but kinda adorable. I’m fine with ingenious solutions over violence any day of the week. I’m fine with spreading love and happiness. We certainly need more of them in current day and age. The older I get, the less appeal pure destruction and traditional anime power scaling have for me.
Even the fluffiest of clouds probably can’t hold up a dragon’s weight, so the girls are scrambling to come up with ways to reinforce it. Seeing Coco repetitive draw a spell over and over, however, gives Agott a spark of inspiration: a spell that constantly reinforces itself. Kinda makes me think of recursion, actually. In programming, you can have a function that calls itself over and over. It can’t do this forever, though. Eventually, you’ll run out of memory and the program will crash. But the girls just need to distract the dragon long enough to climb the tower. Or this world is magic, so we can just pretend it works forever.
The girls finally reach the Seal and break it. Agott thinks this is a bad idea, but I mean, what else are you going to do with it? Breaking the Seal opens a way back to the real world. Unfortunately, this also causes strong winds to kick up for some reason, which in turn awakens the dragon. Agott falls from the tower and almost into the dragon’s mouth, so (of course) the useless Qifrey finally gets his time in the spotlight. He suddenly swoops in and catches Agott at the last second before flying sky high. He then knocks the dragon out with a torrential downpour… shaped like a dragon made out of fire. Like taunting the poor thing with its own kind, I guess. So much for solving this predicament through peace and happiness. At least the dragon had a decent nap for however long it took the girls to climb the tower.
With everyone else focused on Agott for the time being, the Brimmed Cap witch takes a moment to say some cryptic nonsense to an unconscious Coco before fucking off. That’s just about all you can expect, huh? I mean, I gotta admit I’m a bit disappointed with how this episode ended. Sure, the animation was downright gorgeous. Absolutely amazing seeing the girls run around, drawing their spells. But the ending was just so… overdone. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before after such a promising start. Cool guy saves the day, and the antagonist claims victory and walks away. I really thought the fluffy bed would do the trick. I loved the idea of the girls teaming up and using ingenuity to solve the problem. But in the end, the story still resorted to destructive violence just so Qifrey could have some aura. The dragon didn’t die or anything, but still, I’m not convinced. Qifrey’s not redeemed. They wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place if the responsible adult in the room could keep an eye on his children. And then the thing with the Brimmed Cap, it’s cliche anime villain slop. It simply doesn’t get me excited for the next episode. How many times are these antagonists going to show up, say more cryptic shit, then disappear into the wind? Meh.
In the aftermath, Coco delivers a tearful apology. Meanwhile, Qifrey threateningly commands the ink shop guy not to report this incident to the “Knights Moralis.” I’m assuming this organization might interfere with his investigation, but seeing as how he almost lost his students, I’m not sure if I entirely trust Qifrey’s judgment. But look, I’m just a hater. Like I said last week, I absolutely think this guy sucks.
Stray thoughts & observations:
— The studio went the extra mile and even animated dust particles (or whatever they are) floating around the characters. Like geez, I wouldn’t have even noticed if they weren’t there.
— Y’know, she’s right. I had a really hard time getting out of bed this morn–… oh yeah, it was technically the afternoon when I got up. Welp.
— Tetia’s grin on the side tops this scene off.
— Agott might be too logical. Well, “too” makes it sound like a bad thing. You can say she and Coco could be polar opposites that make up for each other’s weaknesses. Too bad Agott despises Coco for whatever reason. I’m sure we’ll find out before the season is over.
— Apparently, Agott draws the best overall Casting Seals, but Richeh is the fastest. I wonder what specialty the other two have or will have. Unfortunately, Agott still doesn’t trust Coco to really do anything but come up with ideas.
— Aww, just look at the dragon napping. It’s like a household pet.
