We’ve reached the midway point of this season which means we are getting a new opening and ending. I woke up to a friend of mine messaging me that they are both very good, so I’m excited to see what this episode has in store for us. I don’t expect the content of the episode to be worldchanging as we’re probably just going to set up the next arc, but we’ll see.
So we get a little bit of a recap on how dragons work in this world. There are four true dragons, Veldora being one of them and I believe we’ve met another one that was part of Guy’s group back in the north pole or wherever that ice palace of his was. The third one is the Star Dragon who is being mentioned here, who was the most powerful of all of them and as far as I know we have not met the last dragon yet. The Star Dragon was the one that created the elemental dragons, including the original body of Gaia. The fun gets ruined when Frey shows up and takes Milim back. Gaia will stay in Tempest to train in the labyrinth. And now we head into the new opening!
There is a lot going on and I’m not Mother’s Basement so I’m not going to interpret everything that happens. There are too many unfamiliar characters here. I think the woman we see at the start might be the original hero though and not Shizu. Speaking of Shizu, we see her and Hinata pop by as well. We see Leon with a little girl who is probably the reason he’s summoning people from another world. Something in this upcoming arc seems to pit Leon and Rimuru against each other and it looks like Granville, Hinata and Luminus will also be involved. Finally, it looks like there is something special about Chloe, Shizu, Hinata, Rimuru and the original hero. Perhaps they all have something in common in a way that we don’t know yet, but it could also be that all of them have held onto the mask. Do we know if Hinata has done so at any point? Either way, this song by Daoko is great, it’s a very different vibe from the other openings but I like it. There’s also a bunch of characters I don’t know and we see Guy pop up as well. Much on the horizon from the looks of it.
Not only is Rimuru preparing bodies for almost a thousand of Diablo’s underlings, Ramiris is also putting elemental cores in all of them. They are creating an army of powerful demons that might terrorize the land in the near future. As much as the Rozzo’s suck, they have a point that Rimuru’s power is soon going to get out of hand. We next get a visit from Deeno, one of the demon lords we didn’t see all that much of in the previous seasons. He was present at Walpurgis but besides saying a few things he wasn’t very involved with the happenings at the time. It seems that he’s broke and kicked out of Dagrull’s home. He’s lazy as can be and is proud of it. But not proud enough that eating one cream puff won’t totally change his mind. And after Guy loads Deeno off to Rimuru, Rimuru now loads him off to Ramiris. The poor guy is about to be very busy. How far Vesta has come from being a little worm trying to undermine Rimuru back in Dwargo to now bossing a demon lord around. A generational character improvement.
In a very surprising development, the friendship that blossomed between Veldora and Ifrit during some of the recap episodes we’ve gotten throughout this series is actually turning into something more, as Veldora is requesting that the fire spirit gets turned into his new assistant. How the fuck does Veldora talk to Ifrit while Ifrit is still in Rimuru’s stomach. Is it that thing where people put their face to a pregnant woman’s belly – with consent – to listen to the baby? Either way, just like Rimuru I have mixed feelings about Ifrit returning. I still don’t fully trust Diablo after all these seasons and giving a powerful body to the creature that – not completely by his own wishes – severely hurt Shizu. I’m not sure I can be fully on board……… oh no, she’s hot. This isn’t the first time a powerful character comes back as a woman. And she seems very reasonable as well. Either way, another very powerful ally has joined Tempest. I don’t even really mind that the author plays fast and loose with a lot of the revival stuff. It’s never really breaking any clear rules he sets in place, but it does end up always being very convenient. Ifrit is also renamed to Charys now, so let’s be sure to not deadname her. Or them? They can swap at will? I am curious about Deeno’s powers, since right now he seems pathetic enough that even Vesta is a step above him. With the first batch of bodies being given to the dryads here, we now have to wait for the return of Diablo.
I love creative openings and endings like this. Little wooden dolls moving through a gameboard of the world of Tensura? How freaking cute is that? With how much we see of Shizu in both the opening and the ending, I wonder if we end up seeing more of her this season. It wouldn’t surprise me, but it could also just be that there will be a story that involves her from when she was still alive. Either way, I’m excited for the upcoming second half of this show and it definitely helps knowing that after this finishes, there should be three more cours coming to us in the near future. I also think the three mysterious women we see in the opening are those three demons that Diablo is collecting. I’m guessing they are the black numbers who will be the title of the next episode. I’m a little bit under the weather – I think the lack of sleep from the heatwave is getting to me – so I’m ending this one here. I’ll be back on Tuesday talking about Witch Hat Atelier. Look forward to that!
Opal Kaharis 