Last week was a little bit of a slow week when it came to things happening. A part of it was just remembering what happened in the previous cour, and the introduction of Veldora to the main cast. Nearing the end the politics started with Gazel and Elalude showing up to talk to Rimuru about the current status quo. This week we jump straight into unfamiliar territory and are shown a building called The Inner Sanctum of the Holy Empire of Lubelius. Almost immediately the clown known as Laplace is thrown out of the building by who he claims to be a vampire. He then gets turned into more pieces than buggy the clown on a bad day. I have to admit I don’t remember much about the clown troupe and their motives except that it’s nothing good. If Tokyo Ghoul and Hunter X Hunter have taught me anything it’s that clowns are not to be trusted under any circumstance.After last week I looked up the opening Like Flames by MindaRyn on Spotify. It only got about 100.000 plays and is one of her more popular songs. From what I can find she’s originally a cover artist on Youtube? If I have that right then it’s cool that the anime employed someone like that for the theme song. It’s always great when newer artists get some recognition. And the song is great, so give it a listen on Spotify or Youtube as well!
After the opening ends we immediately hear a familiar voice. It’s the guild master right, that was in the big city? I can’t think of his name right now. He’s talking very casually to Laplace, I wonder what their relationship is. Yuuki Kagurazaka. So he’s working with the clowns? Or, as we’re about to find out, the clowns are more or less working for him. The Clowns’ boss’ soul was inside the Grandmaster (not Guild Master like I thought) and has now been transferred to a Homunculus created in Thalion. We’ve heard this name last week, it’s where Eren and her father are from. The former Demon Lord Kazaream is now Kagali, the office worker? Either way, it looks like the people in this room are going to pose a problem to Rimuru soon enough from the way the conversation is flowing. More and more demon lords are entering the fray.
So to put all of this into perspective, Laplace, as well as Tear, Footman and Clayman are all part of this alliance and look to be it’s top gunners. Not to forget about Yuuki, who seems to be either on the same level as Kagali or even higher up. We also find out who slighted them. Leon Cromwell. He’s the one that summoned Shizu and the children, is he not? I really should rewatch the first season one of these days, it’s been a while. Or, I could wait for the first volume of the light novel to arrive. It was very hard to get a hold of one here in the Netherlands. It was sold out often on the websites I tend to use, but the other day I found one available so I ordered it immediately, ignoring the fact that I’m very, very broke right now. Back to the story at hand, I think this also explains why Clayman was wearing a mask in the opening theme. I always though he employed the clowns, but it seems like they might be more on the same level than it initially seemed. I wonder how strong that makes these clowns. Laplace could have their body sliced into pieces and return as if nothing was wrong, so they have at least some power. It looks like for the time being they want to find dirt on the Holy Western Church. That’s the organization that Sakaguchi Hinata works for, the powerful lady who almost killed Rimuru last season.
It turns out both this guy and Kagali are involved in creating the majority vote. It’s thanks to them that big actions require a vote amongst demon lords. But it only requires three votes, which dates back to the time of when there were only seven demon lords. There are a lot more now, as far as we’re aware. It looks like the clowns and Yuuki are allied to Demon Lord Milim and Demon Lord Frey, as well as the aforementioned Clayman. This conversation, and the fact that Milim attacked the beast nation last season makes me wonder if this conversation we’re seeing here actually happened a little while back and is the reason Milim attacked them. If not then I’m curious if Milim did something like that of her own accord instead, since although it’s been made very clear how dangerous she is, she also still seems like a lovely person at her core. We’ll see as the season progresses I suppose.
Shuna introduces everyone at the meeting of the important people and monsters. Veldora casually walks up and things are about to get wild. “Is this another one of your subordinates?”
Oh how wrong you are Gazel. The name Veldora terrifies everyone at the meeting, and rightfully so. He’s too handsome to be left alive! Lucky for all the rulers, Veldora is more interested in his manga than in harming anyone in the vicinity. I know many anime and manga try to have attractive characters, but I always find that Tensura absolutely nails this. Everyone looks interesting and attractive. Rimuru shares his backstory with the rest of his adventuring party and tells the two rulers how Veldora was revived. They are, understandably, not happy about the evil dragon being reborn. Luckily they end up choosing friendship, and Rimuru now has two great allies. To be fair, Gazel was already on friendly terms, but this could have gone south.
The meeting continues and Rimuru recounts his runin with Sakaguchi Hinata, who is one scary holy lady. It’s too bad that their fight is mostly based around a misunderstanding. And it makes sense that the other people at the meeting know her as someone kind who helps other people. So her attacking Rimuru like that is purely based on some false information she was fed by a certain someone. Rimuru figures it out almost immediately, but without the scene earlier in the episode I would not have realized that Yuuki was behind it. It’s interesting to try and figure out what his motives are, since he seems so casual about everything. The scariest villains are the ones that seem unassuming, aren’t they? It’s a good thing we have a whole haul of villains here, and they’re all jumping the line to try and get a chance at fighting Hinata. They don’t know what they’d be in for, but I like their guts.
As Rimuru announces, this concludes the debate on Hinata and the church. This is where he mentions the anonymous tip from earlier. Yuuki is the only one who knows he killed Shizu that has a chance of betraying him. Both Rimuru and Raphael seemed to have gotten to the same conclusion. I still wonder if he ends up being a villain or an ally in a sense. These kinds of people are dangerous regardless.
Ramiris shows up near the end to predict Tempest’s doom. Didn’t we just get through this last season? I’m sure Rimuru will figure out a way to deal with this, he’s calm and collected like that.
Another great episode, adding a lot of mystery to the entire situation. It’s still a bit strange to switch from last season’s Tensura Nikki back to the more storydriven main storyline. It’s great though, because I do like that things seem to be moving ahead fast. I’m curious what Yuuki’s motives are, which side Hinata will eventually end up on, although I think she’ll be defeated by Rimuru and then join him after he manages to explain himself. Next episode is called Ramiris’ warning, which admittedly tells us very little about what will actually happen, but I can’t wait. Let me know in the comments what you thought of this week’s episode, and if you think you know what Yuuki’s motivations are. (Obviously no spoilers if you know from the source material)
Opal Kaharis 