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.