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.

At the school, everyone is preparing for the school festival. Yuji still has the Silver flame in his thoughts, still wondering what to make of it all. Sato and Tanaka think about whether or not Margery will show up for the festival, but from his flashback about her thoughts on the school festival, chances are low that she’ll be around. Shana and Yoshida on the other hand have their thoughts on all the relationship advice they’ve received.

Ike is also preoccupied on things as his activity board partner Fujita is a workaholic and has a multitude of things she wants to do and in the process pulls Ike into doing those things as well. Yoshida tries to help his situation by offering him some quick snacks, but he’s immediately pulled away by Fujita who has more thing for him to do. Everyone else continues with their work and stays at the school overnight to complete things, all but for Konoe. After some shower antics that can be passed off as fan service, Shana and Yoshida have a brief discussion about how Yoshida will not give up pursuing Yuji as a love interest despite all the time Shana and Yuji spend together.

The next day, Shana reflects back on all the things she and Yuji did together around town. Alastor tells Shana he’s never heard of a Tomogara with a silver flame. He also tells Shana that Flame Hazes can love humans. At that point, Wilhelmina returns, with bad news. Shana takes Yuji to Wilhelmina later that night who explains to him that the Tomogara Pheles created the Reiji Maigo for her lover Johan so that the two can be together forever. However, the Reiji Maigo was lost in a battle, but Pheles is alive and in search of the Reiji Maigo and will definitely destroy Yuji in the process. They sure are hyping up Pheles. We’ll just have to see how amped up she really is.

Yuji asks about his connection with the silver flame. Alastor tells him these two things are separate problems, which means twice the predicament that Yuji is in. Wilhelmina tells Yuji she’ll investigate the silver flame further. On the way home the next day, Yuji makes the decision to fight for his existence. Wilhelmina on the other hand wants to avoid battle with Pheles at all costs, but of course, there wouldn’t be much of a show if Pheles doesn’t show up.

I don’t think Pheles would be all that powerful. Otherwise, you really wouldn’t have much of a competition between her and Shana. So it’s just going to be a relatively strong opponent, but not unbeatable.

Following up from the previous episode’s cliffhanger, Yuji realizes that the Silver flame is what Margery Daw is after. Unfortunately, no one understands why Yuji would have this flame. As a precaution, Shana tells Yuji to lay low on his power of existence.

The next day, Yuji heads out for school, and hiding in the shadows is a mysterious person watching Yuji and his mom. Yuji meets up with Ogata, who explains that Konoe is not feeling well, so her butler will be taking her to and from school for the time being. However, inside the mansion, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Both Konoe and the butler are wearing the same bracelet, and they stand there as if they are channeling something.

Now that things are starting to move along, we can now start seeing some of the cracks in the shell in terms of Konoe. These two are up to something. Don’t know what the bracelets are all about either. And what’s up with the mysterious guy standing in the street?

At the campus, the mysterious person is standing there, but his face is not shown. Just his feet. He runs off as Konoe’s limo pulls up. Konoe shows up to her classroom, which leads to Ike explaining what the school festival is all about and what their school is doing. He further explains that their class is doing costumes from Romeo and Juliet and Wizard of Oz. Shana and Yoshida both think about being Juliet, but Shana loses out and has to settle for Dorothy.

Wow, this whole scene was so useless. Anyway, it’s obvious that it comes down to Shana and Yoshida fighting over Yuji again. Yoshida wins out this time.

Yuji makes a phone call to his mom for some clothing supplies. Outside the house stands the mysterious person again. Shana and Yoshida decide to get the materials from Yuji’s house since he’s busy. At Yuji’s house, Yoshida and Shana talk about their feelings towards Yuji and how they want to pursue the physical aspects of a relationship. On their way back to campus, Shana tells Yoshida that they’re being followed by a human. They start moving and the man chases after them. Shana and Yoshida lose him and start following him. The man bumps into Yuji and they’re both stunned for a moment, allowing Shana to go on the attack. He dodges her kick but being caught off guard he loses his footing. Yuji immediately identifies the man as his father.

Yuji’s mom seems very open to having a pair of schoolgirls gawking over her son. I guess it’s fine for her since it’s less work for Yuji to find a relationship. After they finally pinned down the guy stalking everyone throughout the episode, I was surprised that it turned out to be Yuji’s father.

The two end up staying for dinner. After dinner, Yuji’s father discuss relationship matters with Shana and Yoshida. He explains how he met his wife and that their hearts led them to where they are now. Elsewhere, in Paris, Wilhelmina finds out that Pheles is still alive and after the Reiji Maigo as it is a memento of her lover.

I guess Yuji’s father only role in this series is similar to his mom’s role, which is to give advice to Shana and company. As for the Pheles thing, not sure if I mentioned this already, but I’m pretty sure Pheles is the one with the green hair in the opening intro sequence.

This is the second half of the Margery Daw flashback. It starts out with Alastor telling Yuji he’s ready to go to the next level, which is to cast an unrestricted spell. Yuji starts to channel his energy to cast a Fuzetsu. Margery Daw’s flashback cuts into the scene with her casting of a Fuzetsu. Continuing off from episode 8’s flashback, Margery again meets up with Anna Berg at the Empire State building, while Yuri observes from a distance.

Battle ensues between Margery Daw and Anna Berg. Metamorphosis jumps in to the fray. Yuri explains to his Guze that he wants to help out. Valac tells him that a Flame Haze’s job is to hunt down Tomogaras. Helping and saving others just happens to be a by-product. During the battle, Anna Berg starts talking about his intentions with speeding up the evolution of mankind, and in the process distracts Margery long enough for Metamorphosis to pull off an attack from behind.

The scene involving Anna Berg talking about human evolution was quite confusing. It may have been just the subtitles, but I honestly did not understand his motive at all. Good thing this enemy is irrelevant so it doesn’t matter whatever the fuck he’s talking about.

Yuri decides to go in to assist Margery. He draws in with his power the moths around the town. Fully charged, he becomes a vortex of energy and blasts towards the Fuzetsu. He cuts directly into Metamorphosis and cuts him in half, but that wouldn’t kill him. Yuri goes after Anna Berg, while Margery goes after Metamorphosis. These two always end in a draw. Yuri on the other hand leads Anna Berg into a head-on collision where he is defeated by Yuri’s attack.

I’m not sure what the moths are all about, and I’m not sure if it’s Yuri who’s generating the attack or if he’s drawing his power from Valac, similar to Shana manifesting Alastor. I also can’t believe that cutting Metamorphosis in half didn’t incapacitate him for some time. He just regrew the other half back with little effort; paying tribute to DBZ. And Anna Berg eats it, as expected. Like I said, irrelevant character.

Margery and Metamorphosis are both fatigued, but neither one wants to back off. Metamorphosis decides to use Yuri as a way to end the battle. Margery can’t save Yuri because she needs to stay alive to find the Silver Tomogara to exact her revenge. She lets Metamorphosis strike down Yuri. Marcosius explains that was the only way to end the battle in a draw.

Technically speaking, Margery Daw killed Yuri on purpose so she could let Metamorphosis escape, which would let her escape a potential death match. And the power difference between Yuri and Metamorphosis is evident. He landed his attack on Yuri pretty easily.

Back at Shana and Yuji, Yuji is still struggling with the Fuzetsu. After some words from Alastor, Yuji tries again and manages to cast a Fuzetsu. Unfortunately, his flame color is silver. Exactly what Margery Daw is after. Now that’s a cliffhanger.

The episodes starts out with a flashback of Margery Daw’s first encounter with the Tomogara with the silver flame. This Tomogara kills everyone in sight and Margery herself is quite bloodied up. It’s a more detailed event of what caused Margery Daw to become a Flame Haze and why she holds a death grudge against the silver flame. It also points out that she was a human around medieval times. She wakes up from the flashback dream to drink some more.

Over at Yuji’s training spot, he is training against Wilhelmina. Her wrappings transform into the large baby Rinne that he encountered when he first met Shana. The sudden reappearance throws him off guard, but he is able to block the attack. Sato observes the fight and walks away with frustration and envy. It’s another developing situation for the series involving Sato’s obsession to get stronger.

Alastor tells Yuji that it’s about time he started to learn how to cast a Fuzetsu. Later that night, Wilhelmina’s research into Yuji’s Reiji Maigo leads her to a name: Pheles. The next day, she packs up and tells Shana she’ll be gone for some time for more research. Pheles is still an unknown at this point, but it’s safe to assume that Wilhelmina knows something about Pheles.

Back at Margery Daw, Sato returns home and requests to be trained to get more power to follow Margery Daw. Margery tells him he would die if that were to happen. This leads to a flashback story of Margery Daw in the 1950s in New York. It starts out with her doing battle wih a Tomogara with a clock for a face called Anna Berg, which is also written on his clock/face. She is ambushed by Metamorphosis during the fight. She’s incapacitated, but Anna Berg decides to not kill her and instead move on to his plans.

At this point, I’m surprised Metamorphosis doesn’t just finish the job knowing the dangers of keeping Margery alive so that she can return to fight again. Villains and fiction at work here. OH well. Back to the episode.

After the two villains leave, Margery recuperates and has a change of wardrobe. While changing, a young boy runs up to her while the Fuzetsu is still up and sees her without any articles of clothing resulting in him receiving an off-screen beatdown for having come into such an awkward situation. Turns out he is a Flame Haze by the name of Yuri. As Margery narrates, she explains that Yuri was a strange one because he didn’t have it in him to kill Tomogaras. She even hints at a great battle in Europe between Flame Hazes and a group of Tomogaras calling themselves the Revolution. Margery is in America to deliver a message to a Flame Haze called Eastedge regarding the topic.

I wonder if that topic will be touched upon again. It could lead to an interesting side story. A war of Tomogaras and Flame Hazes.

Eastedge requests Margery to train Yuri for a while. For his own sake, I guess. Yuri explains how he was on an immigrant ship that got attacked by a Tomogara. He was knocked off the ship, and there he made a contract with Valac to become a Flame Haze. From this, it is obvious that he is not a good candidate to be a Flame Haze for his large compassion for saving human lives. Margery feels that he lacks the properties for the job and tells him to go home while she goes on to face Anna Berg at the Empire State Building.

Overall, this was a decent episode. I would say that they are moving the story along even though it’s mostly a flashback story. At least it’s not another wasted episode like the last four episodes.

Alright, one more useless episode to get through. Sorry, but the last few episodes have been pretty bad. This episode would make it the fourth “filler-like” episode. That’s a month’s worth of useless episodes. So let’s speed this one up too.

Turns out, Ike scheduled a theme park outing with the group so that he could eventually get some alone time with Yoshida on the ferris wheel. He has everything planned out, but all his plans go awry.

Long story short, he leads everyone to a giant maze and pairs everyone up to have a race to see who makes it out first. The only notable part of this whole episode is this one part where Shana and Sato are paired together. Sato takes the chance to ask Shana if he could become a Flame Haze. Another instance of his willingness to become stronger. We don’t find out Shana’s answer nor his reason for wanting to become one though. It’s a quick 15-second scene.

Ike and Yoshida end up exiting first and convinces her to go on the ferris wheel with him. Unfortunately, he has a bad case of motion sickness. The ferris wheel in the past did not give him motion sickness, but he fell victim to it this time. And.. that’s about it for this episode. From the previews, it would look like things are getting back to what the series is about: Flame Hazes battling Tomogaras. Finally, I say. Finally.

Before I begin with this episode, this is yet another craptastic episode. So I’m just going to do a speed summary.

Basically, there’s a surprise test for the next day and the usual cache of characters decide to get together for a study group. Shana isn’t sure of showing up and holds off on her decision. In the end, she shows up anyway.

They do some studying and some eating. Ogata and Yoshida bump into Margery Daw since they’re at Sato’s house. Margery gives them some love advice and everyone goes about their way. Yoshida shares the advice with Shana as they are frienemies.

By the end of the episode, Shana and Yoshida have started to accept Konoe a little more as they consider her as more or less harmless. With that, Shana returns to training Yuji.

That’s all I can say about this episode. It was really just that useless. Just another episode to progress the adolescent emotional mindsets of Shana and Yoshida. The next episode is pretty much the same too.