Hey a new post and a new background to share with everyone. Full size is 1920 x 1080.

This came about with the right mixture of being bored, having recently installed Windows 7, and needing a new background. Several hours and several different brush styles later and there you have it: a Senjougahara wallpaper to pay homage to the 2009 summer hit Bakemonogatari.

Haruhi Season 2: Episode 4 - Endless Eight (again, once again)

Maybe I should just keep this episode summary to a minimum, and a rant to an all time high, as this episode four is nothing more than a repeat of episode 3. Now I don’t know if this is a very smart way of putting in Haruhi filler episodes or a very, very bad way of storytelling >_>. Let’s get on with the summary:

Summary of Episode 4:
It’s the same as episode 3! Just imagine varying degrees of dialogue, different scene angles, and people wearing different clothing. That’s it. Oh, and the iteration has increased. /end summary

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Not much different from episode at all. I had some hopes that this particular story arc will end so it can get on with what this season is supposed to be, which is the Disappearance of Haruhi. This story arc is the prelude to it. As important as it is, I am not liking the idea of the arc spanning so far a minimum of 4 episodes. I’m hoping episode 5 delivers something more than just another repeat of episodes 2, 3, and 4 all over again.

Haruhi Episode 3 - Endless Eight (again)

Episode 2 was a preview to what was ahead for this particular episode. For this ep, Kyon starts out the day to the same episode as episode 2. You aren’t immediately clued in to what’s going on until he receives a phone call from Haruhi asking him to meet up and to bring his bike, where he seemingly finds out (for the first time) to go to the public pool.

To the audience, it’s clear at this point that either Kyon and company are repeating the same sequence of events or the viewer has lost their mind thinking they’re watching the wrong episode. To alleviate that confusion, the show replays the sequence of events with different angles, minor character positionings, and slight variations in dialogue.

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The episode pretty much repeats itself for the most part. The minor variations are the camera angles and Kyon’s nagging thoughts of how everything looked familiar, as if he’s done these activities before recently. The largest variation is the night after the Bon Festival where Mikuru discovers that she has lost connection to the future. Kyon meets up with her, Itsuki and Yuki, where Itsuki explains how they are stuck in an infinite loop between August 17th to the 31st, and that all memories are reset when the loop rewinds itself. Well, all memories except for Yuki, who actually transcends space-time altogether, remembered every iteration. Kyon asks her how many times have gone on already, whereby she reveals that their current iteration of this repeating timeline is the 15,498th iteration already, an equivalent to roughly 600 years’ worth of days.

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After this news, Kyon has no choice but to go through all the activities Haruhi had planned out for them for the rest of the summer. By the second to last day after their list of activities are all completed, Haruhi is ready to wrap up their summer. Kyon feels a heavy presence around him as if he needs to say something before Haruhi heads home, otherwise things will repeat itself. Unfortunately, he draws blanks as he watches Haruhi exiting the diner and his hopes of restoring the future. That next day, his willingness to continue his dialy routines is completely gone, giving in to the inevitability that he will find himself erased of all memory and starting off again on August 17th.

I was rather disappointed in this episode’s finale. It basically means that Kyon realizes that he is an infinite loop. However, his realization will be erased by the next episode and he has to “rediscover” it all again, which means the next episode is going to be another goddamn repeat of this one! Things better get resolved next episode.

Finally, a new episode after some 3 weeks since Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody. From what I hear, this episode is the start of the actual season, so there are consistent episodes per week starting from here on out.

Next to Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody, this episode also bears a significant amount of importance should this series cover the Disappearance arc. Anyway, after watching this episode, it would appear that this little story arc is a two-part series, although it was not mentioned at all either at the beginning or the end of the episode.

Episode Summary and Review:

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Surprisingly, this episode actually starts out at Kyon’s house. That’s refreshing, considering 75% of the episodes started at the school, and the majority in the clubroom. But there’s a reason for this, since everyone’s on summer vacation. It also appears that the animation studio is going to shoot for a basic chronological series this time around, instead of mixing them up. It is good to note that the actual Melancholy story arc episodes were in chronologically aired. Just the random eps were randomized.

Okay, back to the episode. The title of the episode, Endless Eight (or Endless Eights) may not bear much meaning from this episode alone. If the next episode covers what happens next, then the title would make more sense. The premise of the episode here is that Haruhi is maximizing the remainder of her summer vacation with the SOS Brigade and doing a shopping list’s worth of activities.

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The activities went from going to a Bon Festival, lighting fireworks, catching cicadas, karaoke, etc. I won’t go into details with the activities, so to sum things up, Haruhi, Kyon and company did a ton of things for the last two weeks of their vacation. One thing worth noting about these activities is that it explains where the frog suit came from. If you’ve watched the first season, the frog suit appears in the Day in the Rain episode.

The subplot of the episode, which is actually pretty important, is Kyon and his pending summer homework. He brings it up throughout the episode, and at the end, simply couldn’t finish it in time. Insignificant for this episode, but plays an important role for the second half of this Endless Eight(s) episode.

Not really an exciting episode by any stretch. I think the one thing to take away from this is they premiered the opening credits for the show. Unfortunately, it was rather forgettable. Still a lot of content to go, so it’s all good.

So an episode of Haruhi aired in late May 2009 and it would appear to be a teaser of sorts to bring the new season of Haruhi. It is definitely not a filler episode nor was it the strange pilot episode of the first season featuring the movie the SOS Brigade made.

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From the opening scene, it was apparent that this episode was going to cover the Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody short story from the light novels as Haruhi is excited about celebrating Tanabata. It’s a good “return” episode for Haruhi as this story ties in with both the Melancholy series as well as the future story arcs. Not to mention, “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody” is also the title of the episode.

In terms of the timeline of the light novels, this particular event is part of the collection of stories in the “Boredom of Suzumiya Haruhi”, and this event happens after they’ve made their movie, but before Mysterique Sign and Lone Island Syndrome. As the episode opens out, it follows the novel very strictly. It’s always a good idea to follow the author’s original direction.

As far as the episode itself goes, Haruhi is excited about Tanabata and wants the brigade crew to write down wishes for the gods to fulfill. The activity reveals a little more about the personality of each character based on what they write down on the cards. After this activity, Mikuru slips Kyon a note to stay in the room after the meeting, which he’s obviously ecstatic about. Yuki also slips him a note on her way out, without any explanation.

Mikuru requests for Kyon to go with her to 3 years back to the past. She knocks him out to prevent him from seeing how time travel worked. How convenient… Kyon wakes up in the past and meets up with the older Mikuru that he met before. She instructs him to go meet up with someone down the road at a school and help that person. That person being young Haruhi, of course.

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Going back to the first season of Haruhi, it was mentioned that Haruhi was responsible for the infamous school grounds symbol drawing incident. Now we find out that Kyon is actually the one who drew the symbol while Haruhi directed him. This isn’t the only thing. His meeting with Haruhi sparks Haruhi’s interest in attending North High, I guess to meet up with more people like Kyon. Haruhi’s reaction to his obvious alias was great, by the way.

The episode concludes with the misfortune of Mikuru missing her time traveling technology, stranding them there for at least the next three years. Kyon then remembers the note Yuki gave him earlier. The two travel to Yuki’s apartment, where she syncs with her future self. Yuki offers Kyon and Mikuru a solution, asking them to sleep in the adjacent room. The light goes off, then back on as if Yuki forgot something. She didn’t though. They are already, ahem, back to the future. Pun intended.

Again, not a bad episode. This event is a very integral part of the series as the novels touch back to this single event on a number of occasions, so it had to air eventually. Also worked out really well for it to not have been in the first season. This is a perfect episode to act as a springboard to the rest of the Haruhi universe.

In terms of rumors of the upcoming season, many are saying that it’s just going to be a remake of sorts for the series, which confuses me. The first season was pretty solid in my opinion. My enthusiasm will go down the drain as quickly as it did when I found out FMA2 was a “redo”. Lost all interest. But I’m an invested fan of the Haruhi series, so I’ll see what they will do this time around. I’m still praying for the “Disappearance” story arc. If not, I’ll still settle for the movie making arc. Though both are too short to fill up an entire season on their own accord. I didn’t get anything from the ending credits as to what the upcoming season might hold, but the chalkboard image sure looks like a schedule. A movie-filming schedule perhaps? Who knows.

So I finally got my hands on the official Melancholy of Haruhi DVDs so now I can remake my original AMV without subtitles in the way. Maybe it will open things up for maybe a whole new AMV somewhere down the line. For now though, I just wanted to experiment with the idea of overlaying the DVD quality video over the old fansubbed version.

Good ol’ Premiere took some time to figure all over again. This time around I was using Premiere CS3, which is rather different than 6.0 that I originally used for this AMV. For some reason, this new Premiere put in these two black bars on both sides of the video, which took another day just to get rid of. It didn’t help that I was working on this in hot weather, while under the weather or under attack by allergens, and with a headache for hours already.

So with a few extra added scenes, slightly better cuts, and multiple file conversions between raw uncompressed video to an acceptable MP4/FLV version, it’s finally complete. Unfortunately, there were some converting issues and it’s not exactly the best thing possible, but I just don’t have enough time to sit around to fix them, if I could even do such a thing.

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Yes, I saw this about a month ago, but I’ve been lazy in blogging it. I really need to stop being so lazy. Anyway, let’s get on with the last episode.

It’s the obvious grand finale to this three-episode arc. At Bal Masque, Bel Peol talks about how their plan is going to change the laws of the universe, but also alluding that things may not go as they see it. Back at the incident at hand, Alastor calls out the mad scientist, Dantalion, for having lost his mind. Dantalion fires back saying he’s a pioneer and others would not understand. Shana and Wilhelmina regather and prepare to fight, while Hecate and Sydonay do the same, with Hecate opening the attacks.

Shana and Hecate go toe to toe, but Hecate has a few extra attacks and a lot more life energy and is able to keep Shana on the defense instead of on the attack. Wilhelmina isn’t enough for Sydonay either. Both are at a perpetual standstill, which gives “Team Bal Masque” the upper hand. Margery Daw is bloodied up and is still too incapacitated to help out. Outside, Yoshida ponders amongst herself to decide what to do with the Hougu she has as she goes over the facts about Yuji not being able to retain his power of existence at the moment and not really knowing what’s happening inside.

The opening few minutes are similar to the previous episode. It’s winding up the audience by stacking up the odds against the main characters and leaving the bad guys with the upper hand. I’m surprised, though, that Margery Daw would be knocked out of combat after taking only one hit. She recovered quite quickly during her flashback series, but this time she’s already done for.

Back inside, Shana and Wilhelmina are starting to show signs of injury as Hecate and Sydonay draw first blood. But just when Shana and Wilhelmina find themselves cornered inside the steel structure by Bal Masque, they end up holding back on their attack. Shana and Wilhelmina fly around baiting for them to attack them, and at that moment fly back towards the structure, and confirming that the Bal Masque enemies are avoiding dealing damage to the structure. Inside, Yuji regains consciousness and continues on his journey to locate the Reiji Maigo. Shana and Wilhelmina continue their defensive tactics using the steel structure as their defense. Outside again, Yoshida thinks really hard about using the Hougu, and at that moment, the Hougu activates and Yoshida starts to fade away, but it was just her own imagination. She decided not to do it and instead decided to rely on Shana to save the day.

For a moment there, it really did look like she used the Hougu. I was almost looking forward to it only because I hate her character. It would have been one monster of a finale. Oh well. Maybe in the third season, if they plan to have one.

Yuji continues to go deeper into the structure and continuously thinks about his decreasing energy supply. The mad scientist begins the next phase of the experiment by breaking down some of the external frame. Shana powers up and blows a hole into the Statue of Pride and dives in while Wilhelmina stays on the defense. Inside, Shana searches for Yuji following his energy trace. She finds him and tackles him down with a hug. Alastor explains that Yuji’s energy is probably being drained as its being used to power the Statue of Pride. Yuji says the heart is near and the two go together. Outside, Hecate summons the Statue to stand. The blue dome shatters as the entire city sees everything happening, but Margery Daw summons forth a Fuzetsu before any more damage could be done, but reinjuring herself in the process.

This is probably the only other time in this series where Shana reveals her feelings towards Yuji as she tells him quite intimately to not disappear (literally). However, it wasn’t as heart-wrenching as the first time around in episode 15 where she recovers Yuji after Bal Masque had their way with him. On a side note, the scene of the blue dome shattering away looked sick.

Dantalion explains that he has a solution to this problem. He smashes a button, revealing a pair of wings coming from the statue, as if ready to fly out of the Fuzetsu range. Yuji and Shana reach the heart of the Statue, which is the Silver. Yuji senses the Reiji Maigo inside the Silver. Shana attacks the Silver, as Yuji helps cover for Shana. Yuji realizes that the machinery is what is connecting the Reiji Maigo to the Statue. Shana gets knocked away by the Silver, who then focuses its attention on attacking Yuji. Yuji is short on energy and can’t get out of the way. The Silver, now being controlled by Hecate directly, takes aim and fires, but completely misses, to the shock of Hecate. The Silver reels back and Shana goes on the attack with her fiery wings spread out. The wings confuse the Silver/Hecate who sees it as a bird, pointing back to Konoe’s affection towards birds and showing how her memories are starting to affect Hecate’s thoughts. Seeing this apparent bird, Hecate loses her focus and Shana breaks the machinery, and simultaneously Yuji attacks the Silver with whatever he had left grabbing the Reiji Maigo and reabsorbing it back into himself, cueing the appropriate piano rendition of “Hishoku no Sora” similar to how the first season’s last episode did it.

I always thought the Silver was a lot tougher than what was shown here. Margery Daw really hyped him up, and seeing it now, he doesn’t exactly seem all too powerful. As for Hecate, I don’t understand why she’s controlling the Silver the way she was doing it. I guess it was the only way to allow for a flaw in the system to give Shana a winning chance. In this case, it would seem using Konoe to collect memories and emotions backfired on Bal Masque. I guess Konoe is pissing everyone one.

With all that damage, the Statue crumbles away while Shana and Yuji get the hell outta there. Bel Peol sees everything unfold and admits that maybe they can’t change how the universe works, but she does follow it up with a thought that she has more deeds in her plans. Hecate sees everything fall apart and does not know why those memories affected her. The Bal Masque characters all disappear as they see that it’s now a lost cause. Once gone, Shana and Yuji look over the mess that just ensued, with a new song playing in the background; “Sense” by Mami Kawada to be exact. Yoshida appears and is in tears, happy that Yuji’s alive.

They resume their competition to find out once and for all who Yuji chooses. The two girs go back to their waiting positions while Yuji clutches onto the two letters headed somewhere. They also show some quick shots of the other characters. Then they show Yoshida with tears forming in her eyes showing that she has lost. Then it’s a shot at Shana who looks a little pissed off at being bored, but her mood changes immediately when she turns towards the screen with a big smile. Although not revealing who it was she was looking at, it’s pretty safe to assume that Yuji, in the end, picked Shana over Yoshida.

And damn that was a long review. This episode had no slow moments. And I think those who’ve been watching this series would agree that they’re relative happy that Yuji picked Shana. It was bound to happen considering the two are immortal. For those who disagree with the assumed ending, Yuji did pick Shana in the light novels, so you can’t argue against the canon.

As for this episode, it felt a little rushed. I think if they had enough budget for two more episodes, it would have been one hell of a finish. It was alright, though. It would’ve been crazier if Yoshida did pull the trigger and summon forth Pheles, but maybe some other time, I guess. I was a little disappointed that Bal Masque’s plans that they’ve pretty much planned throughout the whole season faltered so quickly. You would think they would have planned out a better defense against the Flame Hazes. Oh well. I think the most important aspect of this episode was to find out who Yuji picks. Without really knowing if there will even be a third season, though possible, it was a good way to finish off this series to tie up some of the loose ends.

In the long run, I think the series started out super fucking slow. Nothing reminiscent of the first season. The whole Konoe thing was such a painful month and a half. They could have easily reserved her for a more minor role and within 2-3 episodes instead of 12 episodes! Things didn’t really pick up until Pheles showed up. Then things started to unravel and things finally started to get interesteing and back on track. So, I give the first half the season a horrible rating and the second half a pretty good rating. And Yuji picking Shana at the end was a good way to close it all off. And I picked up a new song due to that ending too.

A huge blue dome of energy surrounds the clock tower with Yuji staring at the Reiji Maigo in the possession of Hecate. Back at where they keep the Silver, the mad scientist explains how they’ve had Sabrac place a location tracker on the Reiji Maigo, how they inserted a defensive mechanism and a separation mechanism on Pheles’ Keeper as well and how everything has gone off as planned. Hecate sends off the Reiji Maigo to the Silver and tells it to awaken.

Wow, Yuji is so screwed. Now that his, life-support, per se, is no longer with him, he’s pretty much on limited time. And, finally, things are starting to unravel in regards to Bal Masque’s plans. It hasn’t been fully revealed, but now some of the questions are being answered.

Outside the blue dome, Shana finally reaches the front of it as the ground around the area starts to shift and crumble. The other Flame Hazes appear as well. Yoshida is running towards the area too while in the Fuzetsu cast by Margery. Her Hougu starts to light up while she’s heading to the dome. Meanwhile, the Flame Hazes are unable to break open the dome. At the same time, Hecate summons forth pillars of existence power and they all feed into the dome. Alastor believes it’s Bel Peol behind the energy. The energy is then used to power up the Silver. All this time, the clock tower has transformed into a twisted pile of steel. Inside, Yuji knows that if he doesn’t get the Reiji Maigo back, he’s done for. He can still sense the Reiji Maigo, and that it’s being drained.

Outside again, Yoshida finally reaches the dome and explains to them that the Reiji Maigo was removed from Yuji. She further explains that Johan told her what had happened via Hougu she carried. Margery makes use of the situation to ask Sato to use the special device from season one to examine the dome and look for an opening. Inside, Yuji decides that he must do something, so he goes inside the steel-twisted maze to find his Reiji Maigo. However, while inside, he has to fight off a robot fleet defending it.

This episode is starting to get quite thick, as things are starting to get very bad for the main characters. Yuji’s existence is at hand, the help can’t get in, and pretty much all the odds are against them. However, this is the type of anime that always ends on good terms, so it’s not really about how bad it’s turned out. It’s really more about how they’re going to resolve this mess. It’s pretty similar to the Sabrac incident.

Sato locates a possible opening and the Flame Hazes go off. They expect a trap, so Margery volunteers to go in first to take in the attack. As expected, the moment they go in, Metamorphosis is waiting for them and quickly incapacitates Margery. Now it’s a 2v2 fight. The mad scientist guy is there too, who goes on to explain what they’ve been up to this whole time. He explains how Hecate’s clone was used to collect emotions to gain data of the environment to control the experiment. He goes on to point out that a being that uses power of existence as its fuel, emotions for its brain, and the Reiji Maigo as a heart, will be born from the twisted metal. A Tomogara born only of Guze in the human world. Something he calls the Statue of Pride. Shana and Wilhelmina go on the attack to destroy this thing before it’s created while Metamorphosis and Hecate go on the defense.

After the explanation from the mad scientist guy (can’t seem to remember his name, and too lazy to look it up) everything now is starting to make sense. They’ve been after the Reiji Maigo all this time as a fuel source to power their machine and all that crap with Konoe is somehow important for their creation so it could have… common sense?! Whatever. The next episode’s the finale, so it’s going to be an all out battle it seems.

At Bal Masque, it turns out that Sabrac may have been defeated, but not killed as he is talking to Bel Peol. Still, apparently he accomplished what was needed of him and therefore he sets off to do his own things instead of idling around at Bal Masque. Meanwhile, Bel Peol indicates to the rest it’s time to begin. At Sato’s place, Sato tries to make a phone call, but can’t go through with it. He explains to Margery he’s willing to work at Outlaw and will do whatever it takes, even as far as asking for help from those he never wants to rely on (in reference to his father). Margery can’t believe his resolve despite all her threats and attempts to scare him away from Outlaw.

I had a feeling Sabrac would not be that easily killed after all that hype he was given. Him being alive just leaves it open for another season or at least more content for future novels, although I don’t think he will be making another appearance on this series or in the novels any time soon. As for Bal Masque’s plans, get on with it already. They keep alluding to some master plan with the Silver, but not one extra hint as to what they are going to do with it.

As Shana and Yuji head home after the end of the semester, Yuji’s father unexpectedly appear waiting for Yuji. His father has something to tell him so Shana heads off on her own. Meanwhile, at one of the bridges, Yuji’s father asks Yuji for his permission to place the number “three” to the name of his new brother or sister. Yuji realizes then that his mother is pregnant. He goes on to explain that Yuji is actually their second child, as the first one died due to birthing problems, hence Yuji’s name having the “two” in his name, and the third who will carry the “three”.

I guess Yuji’s mom, Chigusa, actually had a reason to be sick, which is pregnancy. I did leave out a lot of detail of his conversation with his father, but you get the gist of it. Now Yuji has even more reason to defend his city, which means he’s stuck there. The thought that comes to mind is, Yuji is already dead and therefore shouldn’t age. Somehow, on terms of some realism, it’s going to be an awkward situation when his family realizes he’s not aging. Anyway, I wonder what the “first born” thing is all about. It can’t just be the author simply wanting to explain Yuji’s name. It must be for some future plot.

At a bench, Shana awaits for Yoshida to show up. When she shows up, she tells Yoshida to teach her how to make babies, which of course, shocks Yoshida. Shana explains that Yuji and his family wouldn’t tell her. Yoshida explains to Shana that she shouldn’t ask those things in public. Afterward, Shana and Yoshida talks about how they will settle once and for all who Yuji will choose. Shana thinks the best way to do this is to make him decide based on separate letters that they write to him. Basically, the letters will both tell him to meet one of the girls. Who he decides to meet will mean that is who he chooses emotionally as well. Shana writes that she will be in the North exit while Yoshida indicates she will be in the South exit during the Illumination Fiesta, which is the next day. The letters are dropped off to Yuji.

It’s just entertaining how Shana blurts out her interest in wanting to learn how to make babies. I’m surprised all the studying that she did growing up did not yield an explanation to her already. If she could recite Shakespeare ala first episode, I would assume she also studied science, and hence some knowledge of biology. At least she came up with a good idea as to how to settle the love triangle. Put all the pressure on Yuji, of course.

Afterward, Ike is headed home when Yoshida bumps into him. He takes the moment to ask her if he can take a moment of her time tomorrow. She tells him it’s fine as long as she can still make it to her scheduled time to wait for Yuji to see who he picks. Upon hearing that, Ike tells her that’s fine as he wants her to hear what his feelings are for her. The next day, at Shana’s place, Shana and Wilhelmina get into an argument when Shana reveals her plans to Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina comes to terms with the facts and decides to help Shana prepare for that night instead.

That night, Ike tells Yoshida his feelings. He tells her she doesn’t have to answer him, but instead when she makes up her mind, to either walk to him or go wait for Yuji. She decides to wait for Yuji. Yuji shows up in front of the clock tower and looks at the directions leading to the girls. Before he could make a decision, Hecate shows up and takes the Reiji Maigo out from him alerting all the Flame Hazes immediately.

What a way to end a rather slow episode. Hecate right off the bat. No tricks to separate Yuji from the others and no need for the Bal Masque goons to assist her. Just show up right in front of him and rip out the Reiji Maigo from Yuji. That was unexpected. I should’ve known it wouldn’t be as easy as Yuji just showing up and choosing one of the girls.

Continuing off from the previous episode, Yoshida is bandaging Shana’s arm when Yuji appears out from the sewers. Yuji asks that Yoshida bandage Shana’s injuries with Wilhelmina’s bandages. Back at the fight with Sabrac, Wilhelmina is fighting a losing battle and Sabrac powers up to prepare for a killing blow. He charges in but is interrupted by Shana. Sabrac can’t believe that Shana is still mobile after being hit with Stigma. Wilhelmina explains that Johan was able to find away to defeat Stigma, and at that point, both she and Shana rid themselves of their injuries to the surprise of Sabrac. Shana also gives Wilhelmina a communicator card where Yuji explains to her a plan that he, Shana, and Margery devised to top Sabrac.

It’s an interesting trump card that Wilhelmina pulled off against Sabrac, but if you think about the time that was spent running away from Sabrac and giving the special bandages to Shana and Margery Daw, would it not be more efficient for Wilhelmina to have healed her own wounds from the start? That and maybe keep some blood stained bandages to not let Sabrac catch on. Another thing I don’t understand is why their clothing restored itself. I guess I shouldn’t question the power of magic.

Yuji further explains that before Sabrac appeared, he sensed a faint energy source around the city. At first he believed it was Zarovee or the Wanderer, but it didn’t disappear after the two were defeated, and he felt the presence was stronger while he was in the sewers running towards Shana. Yuji believes that Sabrac is a large Tomogara that encompasses the entire city, and only manifests only a piece of his total self into a human form for convenience’s sake. Wilhelmina makes the connection as to how Sabrac seemingly does not take any damage despite receiving direct hits. Yuji explains his plan to Wilhelmina, but it’s not revealed what it is, but Yoshida and Sato are directing Wilhelmina and Margery where to go. Wilhelmina agrees while Margery goes around the city casting spell insignias.

Well, all of this explaining actually does seem to make some sense. But Sabrac is actually under the entire city? That was something I never expected. But why doesn’t Sabrac just make himself bigger to become a more imposing figure? Or smaller to be more annoying? Doesn’t seem to be a really well thought out character all of a sudden. Anyway, back to the episode.

The plot thickens as the plan takes shape. Margery is placing spells in a very organized manner while Wilhelmina is luring Sabrac to a certain location. During the fight, Shana exits the fight leaving Wilhelmina to deal with Sabrac. In a quick flashback, it details more of what Yuji explained to the group on how to possibly defeat Sabrac. He explains that Sabrac has a huge body, but really only has enough energy as any normal Tomogara, which is the reason why he only deals with whoever’s in the vicinity of his visible form. Back to the present, Shana sits down to regain all her energy. Elsewhere, while Margery is planting spells, Sato tells her that he can’t think of what happens after Margery dies, and instead prefers to focus his energies on keeping her alive.

After seeing the flashback, I now understand why in the previous episode Wilhelmina spent a good amount of time describing the pros and cons of Sabrac. I thought it was just to introduce Sabrac, not actually something to be recycled to strategize against Sabrac.

Back at the fight, Sabrac goes in for the kill, again, but at that point Margery casts off her spell, which reveals that her insignias create a circular surrounding area with Sabrac in the center. For some reason, the anime’s first opening song (”Joint”) starts playing. Then the area within the spell is lifted off the ground, revealing the existence energy strands that connected to Sabrac breaking off. Shana gets up and before heading off, is ready to tell Yuji something, but changes her mind and heads off to Sabrac. Alastor tells Shana that he’s impressed by Yuji’s contributions during this situation. Shana powers up and charges straight at Sabrac. Sabrac blocks the attack, but without the connection to his power, he’s overwhelemd and defeated. The next day, Yuji’s mom is fine again, and Yuji apologizes to Yoshida for what he said to her. He then asks Shana what she was going to tell him before she defeated Sabrac. Shana is embarrassed and tells him it was nothing, leading to her patented triple Urusais.

After some serious episodes, it’s somewhat nice to see that this arc ended on a light atmosphere. I’m a little surprised that Sabrac, having been hyped up since the appearance of Pheles, was defeated so quickly. I truly believed that Sabrac was going to combine forces with Bal Masque to create an ultimate final battle for this season. But no. Two episodes and the Sabrac threat is neutralized. Oh well. At this point, with only three episodes left, there’s only one more big event left for everyone to deal with. It’s going to be Bal Masque and the underlying plot that has been going on since the appearance of Konoe.