Not too much happens this episode except some explanation of the McGuffins they're searching for. I think the most interesting thing is that Hizuki's Heterochromia seems to have some kind of effect on her. Like with voices and pain.

@rikka@ani.social

And then, in true Demon Lord 2099 fashion, we get blindsided by a silly joke at the end.

spoiler

Also yay

What.... what was in the 4th chapter?

Okay, so this looks adorable. I'm definitely going to give it a try.

What a freaking cool episode. We got more insight into the test and it seems that I was correct in that Noel was pulling the strings for the test requirements behind the scenes. That also explains the penalty of having to disband the party if they fail the challenge, which would be overly harsh and seemingly not in line with the guild's values. I suspect Noel is planning to recruit Leon afterwards to be Blue Beyond's tank.

I predicted Blue Beyond would hang back at the start of the test, but this was pretty well executed:

@rikka@ani.social

We KNOW that Noel is going to be devious and sneaky, so of course he's not going to race in to fight the boss. But the way Noel handled things was absolutely brilliant. I kept expecting some kind of trick or shady business to be revealed, but nothing of the sort happened. Instead, Noel predicted that the Winged Knights would not be able to beat the monster on their own and that Leon would betray his party by trying to do the "right" thing.

Then Blue Beyond shows up an hour later and basically starts wiping the floor with the monster. Leveled up Alma is ready to slaughter a monkey

The cinematography and art direction continues to impress me. Changes in field of view, angles, colors... just everything comes together so well. It makes even the silly dialog scenes stand out.

I also REALLY love this callback to the original Acrobatic Silky:

As for the joke at the end, we all saw it coming and yet they still made it funny with the fisheye field of view, wacky animation, and cartoony art style

Dandadan makes even the predictable impressive.

or My Dress-Up Darling

or Maid Sama!

or Komi Can't Communicate

or Kubo Won't Let Me Be Invisible

or Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro

or Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki

or Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and the Inexperienced Me

or Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie

or...

But yeah, seems like a overly basic plot, right?

Also, I’m annoyed that Dan Da Dan employs the usual miscommunication / misunderstanding trope. Momo could have hear Okarun out and avoid this needless conflict.

Yeah, that bothered me a lot too. "Let me explain." "No, I'm just going to keep believing the wrong thing." The only saving grace was that Okarun WAS wrong in that he lied to Momo about doing a report. It's not much but at least Momo getting upset isn't entirely unprovoked.

ALICIA IS BACK! And the first thing she does is give her eye away. Guess she really wants a reason to wear that eyepatch. And boy does it make her look like such a villainess

@rikka@ani.social

Still, I found it weird that she gave it away basically for nothing. That wasn't very villainessy of her. We get confirmation that her magic is now at least at level 91, since she needed that level of magic to give away her eye. Whether or not her magic is at 100 or not remains to be seen. I still think it's possible she went straight to 100, but considering she was so excited about giving her eye away she did it immediately after leaving the cottage I have my doubts now.

And the confrontation with Liz. That was so fierce!

This exchange seems a bit more straightforward in answering some lingering questions. It appears that Liz doesn't have knowledge of the game. Rather, she is aware that no matter what she does things always work out for her. She basically has plot armor as the protagonist. It could be that her brainwashing is just a side-effect of this phenomena and she's completely unaware she's even doing it. If that's the case, it makes me wonder how Alicia is able to counteract it. I do love how Alicia basically reprimands Liz for not trying to min-max her cheat ability.

Prince Duke shows up to be creepy again. Yes Duke, tell the girl you've been watching her constantly without her knowledge.

But in a surprise twist, Alicia screws up. She ends up chastising Duke and pushing him away. Wait, isn't that a perfectly normal thing to do when someone basically admits to stalking you? Well, considering that Alicia internally says she didn't want to say those things, it makes me wonder if the game phenomenon isn't trying to force Alicia back towards her intended path. Or maybe she was just caught off-guard and genuinely screwed up since she wasn't expecting Duke to be angry with her.

At the very end we finally get a good look at Mel

This is the glimpse we got of Mel last week:

Considering that Duke tasks her with finding out the secrets of Liz's ability to brainwash people, how she seems to talk in an omnipresent voice to Duke, and how Mel calls Alicia a "villainess," I'm guessing she's some kind of supernatural entity. She might even have some insight to the workings of the game.

Just wow, what a lot to unpack this episode.

This show was just stupid fun. The insanely OP MC who just does whatever he wants. His maid who is a legendary swordswoman. The ultimate evil demon who gets tamed into something of a pet. Oh, and let's not forget the adventurer that falls for the MC's alter-ego, lol.

Has a season 2 been announced?

Oh snaps, I loved the original. And it's a sequel and not a remake. Joy!

Oof, what a weird episode. The pacing, battle tactics, animation, etc all felt off.

I did like this exchange though:

@rikka@ani.social

Ars giving him the toy spoke volumes without using words. It makes his appearance later feel very natural and in-character.

But the battle itself felt very un-natural. Telling people to get in a circle formation to counter the cavalry... no, that's what pikes are for. And it wasn't like the cavalry was a surprise; they knew the castle had cavalry.

"Hey great strategist, should we get some pikes? You know, the most basic military infantry tactic against horses?"

"Nah, just stand in a circle with swords. They'll NEVER see that coming!"

Later:

"Retreat!"

"What about our infantry?"

"They have horses now!"

"Uh... where were we keeping all these horses? And if they have horses why are they infantry and not cavalry?"

"Pssh... i dunno."

Even Later:

"The enemy cavalry has speed hacks and can get in front of us!"

"It's because your horses have to carry all that heavy armor"

"But... your troops also wear armor."

"I know what I said..."

I feel this probably made a lot more sense in the light novel but translating that into animation didn't quite work out. Speaking of animation, some of it was bad enough to be distracting. I know that horses are notoriously difficult to get right in anime but this wide-angle shot felt especially off:

If the foot soldiers had just retreated normally without magically summoning horses from their horse pocket, then the enemy cavalry catching up would not only make more sense, but would be more dramatic when they split the retreating army in two rather than nipping at their heels (as would be expected). Maybe we fix the animation struggles too since people are marching instead of horses bouncing around like they're on pogo-sticks.

I would also have liked to see more of the hostage rescue. "Oh no, it's the enemy." "We're here to rescue you whether you like it or not. Check out my knife. It's a Benchmade." "Oh, okay, we'll go with you."