Too bad our internet is just full bots and paid shills nowadays.
Even Though I’m a Super Timid Noble Girl, I Accepted the Bet From My Cunning Fiancé Ep. 4
In the first half of the episode, Uncle Johnny makes a deal with Pia, paying her big bucks to do an archaeological survey in a territory to the south. They’re keeping Uncle Johnny’s true identity a secret, but he must be super important because even her bodyguard backs off. Maybe he’s royalty. My problem with this scene, however, is that Pia accepted the contract partly because she’s still laboring under the assumption that she’ll be banished in two years. If I was Rufus, I’d be pretty offended. I’d be like, “Honey, you really think a prophecy will dictate my actions?” In fact, I want to revoke Pia’s scientist card. She’s obsessing over a video game, acting like its hard, irrefutable data.
Continuing on that line of thought, Caroline is transferring in sooner than expected. As a result, Pia is having yet another panic attack as she sits in Rufus’s lap. Erin then adds fuel to the fire by confessing that her fiance Henry has taken a liking to Caroline. Great, just great. I hope Erin is just imagining things, because I’ll be super annoyed if Caroline ends up being an antagonist. Pia’s already unlikable, and Rufus is just a boring version of his archetype. If they make Caroline a scheming mean girl on top of this festering heap, I think I’m calling it quits on this show.
Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden Ep. 4
As soon as Nia starts her new life at a fancy academy, Princess Hilde drags her and Reliared, another student, away for a meeting. Apparently, they’re all in show business. They also all need magivision to take off. Reliared’s motivations are the same as Nia: their families heavily invested in the tech, so they face financial ruin if it doesn’t take off. But for Hilde, it’s about… world conquest? About restoring authority to the aristocracy? Essentially, commoners fled the kingdom in droves. Can’t lord over your subjects if you ain’t got subjects. Plus, the commoners wouldn’t have left for no reason. Things must have gotten pretty fucking dire for people to leave their homeland. You know how strong that sense of belonging feels? I don’t personally care; I could live anywhere. But others will cry just because their national anthem is sung at an international sporting event. People would normally live and die for their country. So my question is… what did you guys do to piss them off? But no matter what the answer is, fuck the aristocracy. I’ll never understand why people give a fuck when the queen of England died. What the hell does it have to do with us across the pond?
To help boost magivision, Nia, her brother, and Reliared create these little shorts where they hold hands, frolic among the flowers, and enjoy tea and crumpets. It’s so fucking vapid. I wonder if this actually wins the people over. If it does, the creator of this story has a very poor view of commoners.
Reliared sees herself as Nia’s rival, but you know our girl only has one thing on her mind: finding someone formidable to fight. Meanwhile, the maids form their own rivalry. I hope Reliared’s maid beats up Nia’s maid, because the latter is a creep.
The World’s Strongest Witch Ep. 4
Looking for an easy way to make money, Lorna finds out she can post comments on the internet. Naturally, she gets a few troll responses, but one helpful soul does point her in the right direction. It makes me wonder if she’ll make an internet friend one day. I think that would be an interesting subplot.
Anyways, Lorna heads into a forest to farm a rather lucrative plant. In doing so, she notices a subquest nearby that involves an elven princess running away from a pack of wolves. So… how does this work? If Lorna hadn’t shown up today to farm a plant, the princess would’ve died? That’s simply how the real world works, but this setting is clearly game-like. Everything Lorna had read on the internet so far has worked for her, so it would suck if a subquest auto-failed without you even knowing about it. Ah well, this is probably one of the many questions this show won’t answer.
One of the elves is working with Lorna’s father to poison the rest of them with the toxic plants she’s cultivating in her greenhouse. In fact, she intends to turn on Lorna’s father one day and rule the world. Good thing Lorna’s overpowered, so she solves almost every single problem in the time that it takes the evil elf to do her villain speech. Usually, this sort of thing bugs me in other shows, but the show is clearly meant to be humorous. Plus, Lorna knows she’s cheating, and it’s not like she’s using her powers to build a harem full of simps.
A Tale of the Secret Saint Ep. 5
Fia was a little hard on the saintesses in the last couple of episodes, but we learn this week that they’re torn away from their families at a young age and forced to train. We meet Charlotte, who probably hasn’t seen her mother ever since she was three. Feeling sorry for the girl, Fia decides to become a mentor of sorts. I thought she wanted to keep her identity a secret. Why would some random knight-in-training know anything about healing magic and healing potions? Not only that, she helps Charlotte turn an entire pond into a healing potion. Charlotte would later remark that even ten saintesses working together wouldn’t be able to do what they just did. As a result, the jig is up. The girl knows that Fia is a saintess herself!
She won’t be the only one either. We also meet the Fourth Brigade Captain, and he quickly sees Zavilia for who he is, i.e., a black dragon and not just some dumb bird. While he hasn’t quite concluded that Fia is a saintess, he can also see the ridiculous mana surrounding her. So… is he gonna talk to the other captains about it or what?
I dunno, I still think the show is too aimless. It doesn’t feel like we’re building up to anything even after five episodes. If I had to describe this show to someone who was completely clueless, I wouldn’t really know what to say beyond, “A saintess reincarnates, and now she wants to be a knight.” That’s it, I guess. That’s the entire story so far. We don’t really have antagonists, we don’t have love interests, we don’t have anything.
Romelia War Chronicles Ep. 4
Much to Serbeck’s chagrin, Romelia and her men keep scoring victory after victory, including slaying a gigantic man-eatin’ wild boar. Anime tends not to have good villains. A guy like Serbeck is more likely to be a weasel. As soon as Romelia proved herself, a slimeball like him would’ve sidled up to her to try and reap the rewards of her conquests. Instead, this guy is frustrated that she’s keeping his territory safe, which in turn keeps him safe. Moreover, she’s slowly winning over both the people and the rest of the soldiers. Any normal person would be able to read the room and hitch their success to a new wagon. Ultimately, you see idiots like Serbeck all the time in anime, and it just gets old.
In other news, Romelia does a quick test to see if any of her men have magical aptitude. Coincidentally enough, it’s just Al and Ray. The latter starts trying too hard to prove himself useful, which leads to him ignoring direct orders in an attempt to be useful (as if being her bodyguard wasn’t useful enough). Ugh, this is getting pathetic. I don’t know what his motives are — maybe he’s in love with Romelia already or maybe he has some tragic backstory that gave him this complex — but I hope Al finds a solution to his buddy’s problem soon, because this is getting painful to watch.
Unfortunately, Ray is an idiot who keeps disobeying orders. As a result, Al gets seriously hurt trying to protect him when the unit encounters an actual soldier from the demon lord’s army. Dude, if it were me, it’s over. Get this fucking kid out. I know he’s going to get his redemption arc, because that’s just how anime operates. But you can’t be this selfish when you’re in the army, especially when any encounter could be your last.
We don’t get to find out how the rest of the fight goes. The anime leaves us on a cliffhanger. In fact, Serbeck is told that her unit has completely disappeared, and he gladly refuses to send out a search party. But if I were a betting man — and I’m not, because gambling is stupid — Al and Ray will probably “limit break” and tap into their magical potential. She didn’t gauge their magical aptitude at the start of the episode for no reason. It’s either that or we finally get a proper demonstration of what “Grace” can do, but I doubt the story plays that card this early.