After defeating the Wanderer from the previous episode, Yuji feels a strange presence. He waives it off to tell Shana something, but at that moment the area erupts with existence energy. Yuji wakes up after being knocked unconscious by the sudden explosion. As he gets up, a sword flies straight into his chest destroying his contact bookmark in the process. It’s Sabrac holding the sword, and Yuji is shocked by his level of power. Wilhelmina calls out Sabrac and pulls Yuji out of harm’s way. Sabrac praises Wilhelmina’s improvement in fighting ability. The two begin fighting immediately. Wilhelmina incapacitates one of his swords, but he cuts his arm off and detonates the sword, while at the same time complaining that he’s lost another sword and that he needs to get another one back. He then regenerates his hand along with a new sword.

Hmm, a dual-wielding, assassin-like character. Reminds me of so many instances of this kind of archetype, such as my World of Warcraft Rogue or a Ragnarok Online Assassin. More so the assassin than my rogue, but whichever. Anyway, we finally get to see what makes Sabrac such a feared opponent. He is referred to as a Guze King, like Alastor, so he should be quite buffed up.

So the fight continues with the two dodging each other’s attacks. Sabrac points out that Wilhelmina is already injured, and is not happy that she’s still able to fight. Yuji notices that during the explosion, everyone has gotten separated. Turns out the explosion was Sabrac’s attack called Stigma, which opens up wounds more and more as time passes. Both Wilhelmina and Margery were hit by it. Elsewhere, Yoshida walks the streets clutching the Hougu that could summon Pheles if it came down to it. As she walks on, she finds Shana knocked out.

Now that’s one messed up attack. Of course, they always give these powerful (and cheesy, unblockable, unavoidable, un-fixable) attacks to the not so responsible bad guys. It builds the suspense as to how this whole situation will come to an end.

Wilhelmina and Yuji take cover, and as she explains, Sabrac has an ability to hide his presence. She has never been able to detect his presence, despite all the years. She also explains that he always starts off with surprise Stigma attack leaving his opponents at a disadvantage from the start. Back to Shana, she explains to Yoshida that Yuji’s attitude has returned to the way things are. She too also has been hit by Stigma. As Wilhelmina continues to run away from Sabrac, she explains that though he’s tough, he has his limitations, such as having enough energy capacity to pull off his opening attack, and then is limited to fighting opponents in front of him, and not multiple opponents from all angles.

Shana barely makes an appearance in this episode. She barely even says anything. I guess they’re saving her confrontation with Sabrac for the next episode. As for Sabrac’s weaknesses, I get the feeling that he’s an anal type of mentality where he must do certain things a certain way, and can’t focus if he has to deal with distractions. That’s probably how they’ll defeat him. That, or Yoshida kills herself to summon Pheles. Doesn’t matter either way.

Sabrac tries to chase them down, but Wilhelmina is able to counter his attack, which annoys Sabrac, and gives him a sense of regret of not having killed Wilhelmina before. The chase continues, with Wilhelmina putting in traps on Sabrac and throwing powerful spells against him. Unfortunately, all of her attacks are meaningless. Wilhelmina asks Sabrac if he was responsible for Zarovee and company. He admits that Bal Masque set everything up for him, but he knew they were probably wouldn’t get the job done. Sabrac throws another attack at the two and manages to capture Yuji. However, it turns out this Yuji was a fake, made up of Wilhelmina’s ribbons. The real Yuji is running inside a sewer tunnel that he noticed earlier. Most likely running to where Shana is. Wilhelmina, in the meantime, is showing signs of fatigue from her injuries. Sabrac takes the opportunity to finally get his chance to kill her.

Now that was a crazy episode. They sure raised the stakes against the good guys having to deal with Sabrac who Pheles herself couldn’t defeat. I doubt he’ll kill her. She’ll probably pull out some trump card to save everyone from fought Sabrac so many times. Looks like the next episode is going to be full of action too. I’m sure this battle is not going to end until someone gets killed. It would be a very shortlived moment for Sabrac if that’s the case.

We continue off from the previous episode where the Tomogara Collation Flux, Zarovee confronts Yuji. Looks like the Tomogara splits himself off into multiple copies, but together is considered as one. Yuji is surprised that he wasn’t able to detect his presence and reasons that Zarovee’s existence energy must be very small. Zarovee tells Yuji they’re not here to hurt him. Instead, they point out that they are holding the entire city at hostage as one of the clones are in the city as collateral to prevent Yuji from attacking them. Yuji identifies them as Jaegers (too weak to fight, and used for covert operations, but accompanied by Wanderers, Tomogaras specialized in combat) from reading Outlaw documents. However, he can’t detect the Wanderer either. Zarovee tells Yuji to come with him, er.. them. Back at Yuji’s house, Shana gives the medicine Wilhelmina prepared to Yuji’s mom. Shana thinks back about what she said to Yuji earlier that day about his attitude.

They sure made Yuji into some kind of Tomogara super nerd. He immediately picked up on what Zarovee was all about along with realizing that there is a clone in the heart of the city. I find it ridiculous he deducted all of that in a matter of minutes.

Out in the streets, Zarovee leads Yuji around the streets of the city. Yuji tries to call his bluff, by screaming loudly and making a scene and then walking off not caring if Zarovee starts eating people’s existence. It turned out to be a ruse to send a signal to Tanaka who Yuji noticed in the crowd as a way to tell Tanaka that something wrong is happening. Ogata, who’s with Tanaka wants to go after Yuji to make sure he’s safe. Tanaka is stuck in a dilemma and doesn’t know what to do. He wants to get away from the situation, but Ogata makes him realize what he must do. He takes her hand and they go running to Sato’s house to talk to Margery. After explaining the situation, Margery instructs him to take Ogata far away.

I guess this would be Tanaka’s final meeting with Margery. It feels like a sitcom or a drama series trying to kill off a character once their purpose has been served, although Tanaka hasn’t really had a meaningful purpose throughout the series. Just an extra person for Sato to bounce his opinions off of. Hopefully, they’ll spend less time on characters like Tanaka and more on the real story at hand.

At Yuji’s house again, Wilhelmina is cooking up a dark concoction to help Yuji’s mom. Alastor thinks it might worsen the condition. At that point, Shana gets news of what’s happening. At the Haridan building (refer to season 1), Margery stands at the rooftop waiting for the enemy to act. Still on the streets, Zarovee tells Yuji they’re almost there. Zarovee tells him it’s time for him to set the area for battle. Yuji slowly starts to realize what’s going on. He realizes that the clones are going to form a small Fuzetsu to lure the Flame Hazes inside, while keeping one clone outside to pull the other clones out of the Fuzetsu, and at the same time, the Wanderer will be outside the Fuzetsu to destroy the area with the Flame Hazes inside. And as things unravel, the scene cuts over to the Wanderer from the previous episode preparing his attack while waiting for Zarovee’s Fuzetsu.

Maybe I’m not giving Yuji enough credit, but it really feels like he’s figuring things out way too fast and actually getting all of his assumptions correctly. As for the Wanderer, I was wondering why he looked so bizarre in the previous episode. Now we see that he’s a big ass cannon. It all makes sense now, I guess.

At this point, Yuji stops following Zarovee and decides that he’s not going to let the idea of the city being held hostage to prevent him from trying to protect them. He casts his own Fuzetsu instead encasing the Wanderer inside as well. He then tosses a fireball at one of the clones. He then straight up chokes one to death with his bare hands and then eliminates two more with another fireball. With one left, he summons forth Blutsauger and spears the clone. He calls out for Shana who arrives with Wilhelmina. He explains there’s a Wanderer at a distance. They spot him ready to fire his attack, which Shana prematurely detonates the attack killing the Wanderer and leaving a big crater in the area. Yuji tries to say something to Shana, but then the crater starts reacting strangely. To be continued..

Damn you cliffhangers!! Good thing there are previews! And it turns out to be Sabrac. About time I say.

So after thinking about this episode, I think this episode and maybe the last two were completely useless. All of this just to show Yuji’s resolve to care for people instead of thinking about just leaving them behind. Could they not just cut to Sabrac’s entry into the show right off the bat? Why such an elaborate thing with Zarovee and the cannon guy just to pave the way for Sabrac to show up? It doesn’t matter now. Episode 20 is going to be all out chaos at this point.

Episode starts out with a person on the phone who looks like one of the people that Yuji is fighting in the opening sequence. He’s on the phone with someone named Bifrons and not happy about a sudden change in plans. The person he’s on the phone with appears behind him, which reveals a number of things. It shows Bifrons as this giant pillar of a monster and he identifies the other person to be Zarovee. Zarovee also has a bunch of duplicates all around him too. Finally, Bifrons identifies Zarovee as a Jaeger, while Zarovee identifies Bifrons as a Wanderer. Whatever that means.

I guess with the appearance of these guys, it’s almost time to see Yuji fighting them with the Blutsauger. Not sure what that big totem pole guy is all about, but he’s probably something that Shana’s going to have to handle, while Yuji handles Zarovee and company.

Elsewhere, within a Fuzetsu, Yuji is being trained by Margery Daw as Shana and Wilhelmina agree that Yuji has enough power of existence to become a spellcaster. She teaches him how to collect energy, form it into a fireball, and throw it against targets. Yuji shows a large compassion to training himself to get stronger. The Flame Hazes notice his unusual obsession of it as well. His impatience pisses off Margery, who ends the training session for the night, but leaves behind Blutsauger for him. She instructs him to transform it into a bookmark so he can carry it around conveniently. Afterward, Shana tries to find out what’s happening to Yuji. Yuji explains he finally understands that he can’t pretend to be a human, and he eventually will have to leave his life here to travel with Shana, which means he must become stronger.

For some reason, I still think Bal Masque is pulling some mind tricks on Yuji to make him more aggressive in his training. It’s probably far from the case, but it’s always fun to make presumptions. Yuji does seem even more annoying now than ever though. Him wanting to get stronger is making him look like a cocky SOB, especially when, comparatively, he’s not even close to the level of fighting ability of the Flame Hazes.

Yuji returns home to find his mother unwell. He skips school the next day, and Shana and Yoshida find out about it while at school. After school, Shana rushes over to Yuji’s house. Yoshida is reluctant to visit as she thinks she’s using it as an excuse to get closer to Yuji, but Ike tells her that’s not the case. She makes the resolve to make food for Yuji and his mother. Shana makes it to Yuji’s place in record time to make sure Yuji’s mom is alright. Wilhelmina learns of the matter and starts preparing to make some remedies for her. Yoshida that night drops off food for Yuji. All this time, Yuji feels that all of this is pointless as he wants to separate himself from his family and from friends he knows that can’t come with him in the end.

I take it this whole thing with his mom being sick is just a way to move the character development along to show that Yuji’s state of mind is slowly changing. In this scene, he’s listening in on Shana and it gives off the sense that he’s made the tough decision that one day he’ll have to leave and all of these things happening to this “normal” life is starting to become pointless.

The next day, Yuji is unwilling to accept Yoshida’s contributions as he explains to her that he doesn’t belong in the normal world of things anymore. Yoshida fires back telling him she’s doing all of this out of love, and has nothing to do with him being a Mystes and whatnot. She drops off the food and runs off with Yuji chasing, but he stops quickly as he sees Shana standing by. She’s mad at Yuji too with his current mindset that he no longer fits in the normal world and not caring about the people he will leave behind. Yuji walks around the city wodering why everyone’s mad at him when he encounters Zarovee and his “clones” (?). I guess they’re clones. Anyway, he’s surprised that he wasn’t able to detect Zarovee.

I really don’t understand what Yoshida said because I don’t like this character to begin with. I tried my best to paraphrase her message, though. Anyway, it looks like the attitude thing that Yuji has developed is most likely going to come to an end due to Shana’s ultimatum to him. Looks like the next episode is going to be interesting considering none of the Flame Hazes have been able to detect Zarovee. It’s probably going to be Yuji to rise to the occasion to do battle.

It starts out with one of the Bal Masque members with an army of Tomogaras attacking an Outlaw facility. They easily destroy the place. Back at campus, Ike brings up with Ogata her relationship with Tanaka. He tells her she should invite Tanaka to her volleyball game. Tanaka, on the other hand, is still bothered from the recent events.

As Sato returns home, he overhears Margery and Wilhelmina talking about Outlaw. Wilhelmina explains that the information she receives are useless and has no bearing to the inquiries she sent in for. She believes something is happening to Outlaw internally. Margery calls Sato in as she senses his presence. He brings up Outlaw, but Margery stares him down and he walks away. Elsewhere, Yuji and Shana increases their training. Shana and Alastor explain they will throw in a few striking blows against Yuji, but Yuji demands that Shana include more of these attacks.

After seeing the opening minutes, it makes me wonder why the enemy doesn’t just send an army against one Flame Haze. Would probably make life easy on them, but I guess they’re in it for feeding on humans, not to kill Flame Hazes. Why does this sound like vampires and vampire slayers?? As for Yuji, his desire for increased training seems to be directly related to the experiments Bal Masque is doing on the apparent Silver. Perhaps altering Yuji’s state of mind.

The next day, Sato calls Shana out to the rooftop to ask her about Outlaw without Yuji or others knowing about it. The scene cuts over to Tanaka and Ogata having lunch together where Ogata points out he’s not the way he was before and walks off. After school, Sato meets up with Tanaka and explains to him he wants to work for Outlaw as Outlaw has regular humans working there. It would be a way for them to follow Margery and not be in the frontlines of battle. Tanaka does not want to join him and walks away.

It’s trouble in paradise between these two, but I guess they’ve been pushing this angle for a number of episodes already, so they have to follow through.

At Shana’s place, Wilhelmina stresses that they should be worried about Sabrac. She goes on to explain that she was once saved by Pheles and Johan from being killed by Sabrac. She used to travel with them, and so she would always distract Sabrac long enough for Pheles to blow him away with her powers. During one of their encounters, Sabrac managed to kill Johan. Back at Sato’s place, Sato tells her he wants to work for Outlaw. Margery explains to Sato that one of the key Outlaw facilities was recently destroyed, which was the same facility in the beginning of the episode. Not only that, but other facilities all around the world are experiencing similar attacks as well. At the volleyball game, Tanaka shows up at the game as Ike told him about the game. Watching her play, he makes the resolve about his future.

This scene gave a little bit of history between Wilhelmina and Pheles. What I found weird was that she was still wearing her maid gown. If this was something that happened a long time ago, shouldn’t she be wearing something else instead. She did during the flashback of the previous Flame Haze that Shana replaced. Should have been the same for this case. I guess they were lazy with the animation.

Back at Yuji and Shana, Yuji finally manages to sense Shana’s killing intent and parry’s her weapon away, only to receive a kick to the ribs. Alastor wants to end the training, but Yuji demands for more. Elsewhere, Tanaka calls Sato out to a convenience store to talk about his decision to not follow Margery anymore. He gives Sato the device that Margery gave them to have free roaming inside a Fuzetsu and asks that he give it back to her as he won’t be needing it any longer.

Shana is such a tsundere, unwilling to admit that she got outdone and so knocks Yuji down to avoid her embarrassment. That’s probably what makes her relationship with Yuji work so well in this series. Overall, the episode was quite boring. No real development, just a bunch of mini events that were remotely chronological in order. Oh well.

After the action-packed episode 15, episode 16 starts off with a new opening sequence and also a new ending sequence. Here’s a link to the opening sequence:
http://www.ninenines.net/ninesblog/index.php/anime/2008/shana-second-op2/

Since Mami Kawada performed both the opening and ending songs previously, this time it’s KOTOKO performing these two songs. Just like from season 1 when Mami Kawada did Hishoku no Sora for the first opening, and KOTOKO did Being for the second opening. And the song titles are “Blaze” for the OP and “Sociometry” for the ED. Unfortunately, they’re not as great as “Joint” or “Triangle”, but I guess it’ll grow on me. Besides that, this new opening is crazy. It reveals so much. It looks like Yoshida and Shana are entangled even more in personal pains. Yuji gets himself a weapon (the Blutsauger from season 1 to be exact) and he looks like he’s kicking ass. Shana is up against the usual Bal Masque guys, and they even show her fighting Sabrac too. Looks like this season’s going to have an epic finish.

Anyway, back to the story. So it’s the disassembly of the school festival and with the disappearance of Konoe, so does everyone’s memory of Konoe as well (except for the main characters who aren’t affected by the Fuzetsu). Shana sees it as part of the way things are, but Yoshida is somewhat disturbed by it. At Bal Masque, Hecate returns the bracelet that Konoe was wearing back to Bel-Peol. Turns out, that bracelet was actually part of her chain. They report back that they were unable to destroy Yuji to liberate the Reiji Maigo. Bel-Peol isn’t too worried. She’s confident they can kill Yuji at any time. The mad scientist agrees, claiming he can collect more data this way. Hecate charges up the armored creature and it starts to come to life.

Finally, that Konoe character is gone. Annoying as hell. Anyway, the episodes are starting to wear thin. It’s going to be 24 or 26 total episodes, and they’re barely scraping the surface of what’s going on with Bal Masque and Sabrac. Let’s get on with it. Too bad this episode is what I consider an “aftermath” episode.

Back at the campus, Sato tells everyone that Margery wants to examine Yuji some more. Noticing the uncomfortable look on Yoshida, he tells her that she doesn’t have to go. This leads to a flashback showing Pheles giving Yoshida a cross-like memento. The same one she was clutching towards the end of episode 15. Turns out, this item is a Hougu that Pheles believes suits Yoshida well. This Hougu, when used, will summon Pheles, but at the expense of the user’s power of existence. Therefore, if Yoshida summons Pheles, it will be at the expense of her life and also everyone’s memory of her as well.

This explains further how Yoshida has that item with her, what it does, and why she had such a strong reaction to the concept of disappearing from everyone’s memories. I doubt she’ll use this though, but she should. It would be good storytelling.

After being examined by Margery Daw at Sato’s place, she discovers that Hecate placed a seal on the Reiji Maigo. The seal is apparently acting like a transmitter. She further explains that Pheles inadvertently summoned the Silver when she was trying to call out Johan, which Bal Masque did not appreciate. She goes on to explain that Johan even managed to restructure the residuals of Margery’s spells on Yuji to materialize himself from Yuji. And in conclusion, she reasons that Bal Masque is still after the Reiji Maigo. The transmitter may be a way to track down the Reiji Maigo after Yuji is destroyed. Alastor throws in that the town of Misaki seems to be a place that attracts Tomogaras and Flame Hazes. Whatever that means.

I guess Alastor’s idea of the city attracting goodies and baddies together is a precursor to an epic battle in the city in the episodes to come. I wouldn’t mind seeing an all out war similar to the Claymore series, if and only if the animation quality stays top notch. Kinda like the new intro where Shana is going after Sabrac. Now that’s good animation quality.

The next day, Yuji’s father is leaving again. He and his wife head off to the airport. As they leave, Shana tells Yuji that Wilhelmina has a task for him. They abandon Yoshida who is currently with them. Ogata meets up with Yoshida as she’s still contemplating her role in the world of Crimson Lords and Tomogaras and whether or not to use the Hougu to summon Pheles if ever came down to it. At Shana’s place, Wilhelmina tells Yuji to help sort out the reports sent in by Flame Hazes. At this time, Yuji asks Shana to borrow the Blutsauger, the sword used by the brother of the incestual siblings back in season 1. Alastor agrees. Elsewhere, Bal Masque continues to experiment on the apparent Silver armored being.

That evening, Yoshida decides to toss the Hougu, but she is stopped by a Fuzetsu that Shana casts. She sees Yuji swinging the Blutsauger around and Shana teaching him how to wield the sword. With all the training he’s had with Shana, he doesn’t have too much trouble with the sword. Yoshida at that moment decides she wants to be where Yuji is, and as Pheles points out, if she wants to be part of the group, she will have to use that Hougu.

Yuji still looks like a pansy, but he’s actually able to wield the sword. I remember in the first season, Sato and Tanaka had no chance in hell of even holding it up in the air. Yuji is actually swinging it. And judging from the opening sequence, he’s going to be quite agile with it. Must be all that training. And next episode looks boring.

From the end of the previous episode, this episode starts out with Pheles impaled by a silver-armored arm. The arm is draining all of Pheles’ energy while she continues to summon out Johan. As she’s distracted Wilhelmina uses her ribbon to grab a hold of Pheles leg and pulls her down. Shana and Margery then head out to save YUji who still has the mysterious arm sticking out of his chest. Margery casts spells over Yuji to find out more information on the Silver. More of the armored being pulls its way out of Yuji. Meanwhile, Konoe and her butler are headed up towards the rooftop of the school.

Finally, shit’s starting to go down. It’s like 14 episodes in the making, and the storyline is finally starting to come to fruition. Ironically enough, Pheles seems to never get a moment’s break to summon forth Johan. The first time Shana interrupted her. This time, it’s some mysterious arm coming out of Yuji. Just not meant to be, I guess.

At Bal Masque, there is a similar looking piece of armor strapped in a science lab. The left arm and the headpiece are missing, with a black essence fuming out of those missing areas. The character Fecor examines the armor and is shocked at what’s happening. The mad scientist, Dantalion, says it’s impossible for “him” to teleport. He assumes it’s a certain ability calling it out, but Bel Peol believes that the armored being has appeared due to the appearance of the original owner of the Reiji Maigo, Pheles. Fecor points out that Pheles might discover they are up to something. Bel Peol points out that the faux vessel they sent out has completed her job and that it’s time to bail out.

So apparently at this point, we find out that this armored thing is restrained over at Bal Masque, but somehow found a way to teleport itself out via the Reiji Maigo. And apparently, it sensed the appearance of Pheles and is going after her. As for the faux vessel, it’s obviously Konoe who has been pointed out countless times that she looks exactly like Hecate.

As Margery Daw manages to grab a hold of the armored person coming out of Yuji, Konoe and her butler show up. Bel Peol brakes her chain, which breaks the bracelet off Konoe and her butler. Konoe flies over to Yuji, summons out Hecate’s trigon staff Hougu, and breaks the spells that Margery casted. She instructs the armored being back into Yuji and then she impales Yuji with her staff to seal the Reiji Maigo. Shana and Margery go on the attack, but are kept at bay by Fecor’s sudden appearance, whose ability is to rain down blocks of metal. Shana and Margery are unable to reach Yuji as the storm of metal is too thick to get past. Hecate appears during this time and consumes Konoe, including all of her memories and experiences. So far, Fecor explains that they’ve managed to prevent the armored being from materializing and also placed a seal on the Reiji Maigo. All that’s left is to disassembling the container, which means destroying Yuji.

At least the annoying Konoe is gone for good. And again, it’s no surprise that Konoe’s part of the bad guys. Just too easy not to be. Anyway, as for sealing the Reiji Maigo, not sure what that has to do with anything, but it might be a precaution on behalf of Bal Masque to prevent the armored being from using the Reiji Maigo to escape Bal Masque. They obviously do not want whatever is sealed within the armor to get out.

Shana and Margery make another attempt at saving Yuji. This time, Fecor is distracted by Wilhelmina and Margery, while Shana goes straight for Hecate. They clash weapons while yuji passes out and falls towards the ground. Hecate casts an attack on Yuji, seemingly destroying the body, but instead the body transforms into Johan. Pheles and Johan meet up and create a tornado to surround themselves. Neither Fecor’s or Hecate’s attacks can penetrate the tornado. They fly high over the Fuzetsu with Shana chasing after them. Johan starts releasing out all the power of existence from the Reiji Maigo. Shana, with tears in her eyes, starts to charge in thinking Yuji will disappear in the process. On her way in, the tornado explodes knocking Shana away. Pheles follows Shana down, but drops Johan. While falling Johan turns back into Yuji and a emotional Shana manages to catch him, and hugs him tightly. All this time, Hecate and Fecor already make a break for Bal Masque. Yoshida, on the other hand, looks up at Shana embracing Yuji, and is envious that she could not be up there with Yuji.

The last time this anime series showed Shana this emotional was back in episode 16 of the first season when she had to part ways with Wilhelmina to become a Flame Haze and battle Tomogaras. This time, she’s downright scared that she could lose Yuji’s existence with Pheles hooking back up with Johan. And at the scene where she finally gets Yuji back, she grabs a hold of him and doesn’t want to let go. At this point, one would be drawn into the drama and the emotion, as I was, after going through all the character development between these two characters and having the episode show more openly Shana at her most vulnerable. It’s something you would see normally as the hero/heroine usually carries with them some thick skin. Here, Shana is displayed as simply a normal person with some real personal feelings.

At the end of the day, after all the fighting, Pheles explains that Johan asked her to not summon him out ever again. He also told her to do a favor for him, a favor that she cannot reveal to anyone. She heads off immediately. The world returns to normal with Shana and Yuji confused as to everything that went down just now. Yoshida stands alone clutching onto a cross-like memento. Others like Wilhelmina and Margery Daw are all in a state of shock and alert as well.

Now that was an amazing episode. Almost every part of the episode had something important mentioned or something important hinted at. The only part that I felt seemed out of place was Hecate’s assimmilation with Konoe. It took too long, although it was probably to show newer audiences what kind of power Hecate has. In regards to Pheles, judging from episode 16’s new intro, it would seem that the armored being is none other than Sabrac, who Pheles mentioned back in episode 13.

The episode starts out with everyone waiting for the Reiji Maigo to restore itself at midnight. The reason for this is to detect what kind of problem the Reiji Maigo is having. However, Shana is missing. Shana has gone to pick up Yoshida so that she can be part of everything that’s going on. Once there, Margery casts her observation spells on Yuji.

In order for the observation to work, Yuji must transfer some of his energy to restore the energy Pheles lost during battle. Once completed, Margery was able to detect a spell that had been placed with the Reiji Maigo. Most likely from Sabrac. Margery doesn’t know for sure, so it’s another mystery to deal with.

They still made time to play on the love themes between Shana and Yoshida in this scene when Pheles leans into Yuji. Shana, of course, immediately draws out her sword confident that heads will roll if anything more happens. As for the detection, Margery has no idea what’s going on, which means this whole scene was more or less useless. Why bother with it all? Well, the next part might explain.

That night, Yoshida makes a request with Pheles. Her request was to have Pheles join her for the school festival so that Pheles would see how important the time she spends with Yuji it is to her. Shana volunteers to accompany the two. Yuji and Wilhelmina observe the festival from above. He learns more about Pheles and Johan. It turns out Johan was an orphan that Pheles decided to raise. Johan grew up and Pheles and Johan started having feelings towards each other. The festival reminds Pheles of when Johan first told Pheles that all he wanted was her. This is probably when the decision was made to convert Johan into a Mystes and fit him with the Reiji Maigo.

So if Pheles adopted Johan to raise him, doesn’t that make Johan an equivalent of Oedipus Rex? I don’t care if he’s not actually related, but I guess that’s the only way to make their relationship work. Not sure how they managed to create the Reiji Maigo, but at least we get the origin of the Reiji Maigo.

At the end of the day, Pheles thanks everyone for all the things they’ve done for her such as Margery detection of the Reiji Maigo’s defect, Shana not killing her, and Yoshida for showing her around. Then in a twist, Pheles explodes revealing that the Pheles they were in contact with was just a fragment of the real one used to search for the Reiji Maigo. Once found, the real Pheles would come in to take over. The real Pheles summons forth Johan to come out. Instead, an armored arm comes out impaling Pheles. On the ground, Konoe and her butler again have their bracelets sparkling, which means they are definitely up to no good.

Now that’s a crazy way to end the episode and to leave things on a cliffhanger. Again Pheles acts all high and mighty, and then what happens? She’s impaled and most likely will be incapacitated by next episode. And finally, Konoe is now officially a bad guy.. er.. bad girl. Evil. ‘Nuff said. Episode 15 is going to be crazy.

The tornado tears everything up in its way. Yuji is too scared to move as Pheles approaches him. In his moment of fright, he summons forth his Fuzetsu, bringing out the silver flame. This in turn fuels Margery Daw’s thirst for vengeance. She goes on the attack, but is stopped by Wilhelmina. Shana goes after Pheles to save Yuji. She prevents Pheles from reaching the Reiji Maigo, but now Pheles goes on the attack against Shana. Shana has a hard time against Pheles as she is able to mask her presence.

Finally, the storyline is starting to build its momentum. And from the beginning minutes, it’s already all out hell. Margery is going nuts and Shana and Pheles are going at it against each other, destroying the school in the process. I’m surprised Pheles already drew first blood against Shana so quickly. You would think Shana has better defense too.

Margery goes on a rampage destroying everything in sight, while Wilhelmina tries her best to hold her down. Shana notices that Pheles is getting weaker as their fight continues. In an effort to stop both Pheles and Margery, Shana knocks Pheles into Margery and Wilhelmina uses her wraps to tie down both of them. Everyone does their best to calm down Margery, which works. She stops her resistance and decides to back away from the situation. Wilhelmina tends to Pheles and explains to her that Johan is dead. Pheles tells her that Johan survives as she placed him in the Reiji Maigo.

The fight ended a lot sooner that I expected. I was looking forward to a long drawn-out battle, but it ended rather quickly. Also, from what I’ve seen, as long as Yuji possesses his fire resistant ring, Margery Daw can’t incinerate him to death. She would have to get in melee range to hurt him.

They reason that the Silver inside Yuji must be something that Sabrac, another Tomogara, did to the Reiji Maigo during her battle with him, that led to all this. After things have cooled down, Pheles explains to Margery that the Reiji Maigo has been altered, and should not be able to emit a silver flame. Margery helps restore things back to the way they were with the help of Yuji.

We’ll probably be seeing more of Sabrac later down the line since he’s been identified with being responsible for altering the Reiji Maigo.

The area goes back to the way they are after everything is restored. However, Wilhelmina and Pheles are having a private discussion and so are Konoe and her butler. The conversations are inaudible, leaving a sense that there’s more to it than meets the eye.

The inaudible conversations between these two groups tell me they’re up to something. Wilhelmina and Pheles are probably up to something devious. Wilhelmina has information she’s holding back that she didn’t tell Yuji and Shana that night at the highschool. Konoe and her butler obviously have some evil intentions the way they’re just staring out the window.

Yuji and Shana continue their training while Wilhelmina continues her research on both the Reiji Maigo and the silver flame. Wilhelmina decides that they cannot keep these matters from Margery Daw as they definitely will need her help if Pheles appears.

At the school, the class representatives are in their costumes and they are ready to begin their parade. At Margery Daw’s place, Wilhelmina says something to Margery Daw which immediately changes her mood entirely. Wilhelmina pulls Margery Daw to the parade, but wants her to wait until later to tell her about the Reiji Maigo and the silver flame. Margery seeing Sato and Tanaka cools off her anger.

I’m surprised Margery Daw looked so calm while standing in the crowd or even agreed to go with Wilhelmina. We never find out what she told Margery, but I can guess she said something about the silver flame.

After the parade, the crew start working at the Crepe stand. Wilhelmina and Margery show up and sample the Crepes. They then start enjoying the festival’s variety from the other classes. In a private moment, Yoshida confesses her love to Yuji and tells him that she wants to be with him, but wants to wait for the day he makes his choice between her and Shana. Their moment is interrupted by the announcement that Shana, Yoshida, and Yuji have been nominated for best costume. At another location, Konoe is enjoying a snack, but she becomes alert when she senses the wind that Pheles is generating.

Yuji just sat there and didn’t really say anything, but I guess he didn’t get a chance to due to the announcement. All part of the plan to keep the love triangle tension up. But come on. Shana and Yuji are going to end up together with the way things are, unless she ends up dying at the end. And Konoe sensing the wind? I didn’t realize that she realized the wind until I watched the episode again when writing this summary/review. Very suspicious indeed.

At the stage with all the nominees, Shana ends up winning best costume for the girls. She grabs the microphone and directs her message to Yuji. Yuji is taken back for a second and at that moment, a tornado is created that blows everyone away as Pheles appears inside the tornado overlooking Yuji.

For some reason, Pheles’ entrance with the epic choir music reminded me of Sephiroth. Everytime he makes an appearance, so does his theme song. Same thing here. Pheles shows up, roll the music. And I knew Pheles was that green-haired chick in the opening intro scene.