It’s time to round off this season of Tensura. As some of you might have noticed, I have not been as overwhelmingly positive about this season as I have been about some of the previous seasons. I’ve been talking about this show with some friends of mine as well, and although I definitely don’t mind it when a show tries to get away with a bunch of stuff that only really serves to make the good guys win, I feel like this season – in particular the second half – was just a bit much. Still, there was a lot to like about this season too, so let’s end this on a positive note, shall we?

As it stands at the start of the episode, Chloe is still stuck in Unlimited Imprisonment and Hinata’s soul is lost. Rimuru asks Chronoa to explain to him exactly what has happened to the three of them so far. He still has no clue, after all. We get to listen to the wonderful opening by Daoko one last time before diving into this though. One thing that I have been thinking about because a friend of mine who watched the show for the first time brought it up, is Rimuru’s morality. We touched on it briefly when the episode happened, but his care for otherworlders seems to be much higher than his care for people in this world. At least when it comes to those he doesn’t know or those who have wronged him. He had very little issue killing 20.000 soldiers who – although employed by a pretty greedy king – ultimately were just simple people probably hoping to make some money by risking their life. Contrasting that, the moment he found out that the people blocking his path in this current arc were otherworlders, he wavered. I wonder if we get to see that shift in morality that we have been slowly seeing throughout the series evolve into something darker. The reason I bring this up is because as much as I enjoy both Shion and Diablo being badasses, with the opening showing up all the primordials it paints a pretty clear picture what sort of people are in Rimuru’s employ. Just because they’re fun to be around and work perfectly well within Rimuru’s set limits for his people doesn’t mean they’re not demons. And this isn’t a series that tries to argue demons are actually good people. That’s a fun trope for sure, but not one being employed here. Diablo would burn a city to the ground – women and children included – if you gave him the chance. I’m hoping we see more of Rimuru tolerating this sort of behavior and it becomes a proper question of morals as the series continues. But I’ve been talking about this way too long, let’s move on to the rest of the episode.

Chronoa explains to us the crutch of all the problems and from the looks of it it’ll become the way to save everyone. Both Chloe and Hinata’s Preserver skill are locked within Chronoa’s Unlimited Imprisonment. If Rimuru can repair Hinata’s body and then get both of them out of the prison, he should be able to fix everything. He’ll still be going towards a future where he dies by Chronoa’s hands, but that’s future Rimuru’s problem. This is why I don’t like timestuff in anime by the way. We now have a fixed moment in the future we’re working towards that is certain doom for the main character but we all already know that he’ll find a way out of that predicament because otherwise the entire prediction would be a pointless plot point. So all of this feels like it is just wasting our time. Also, isn’t Unlimited Imprisonment the skill that trapped Veldora? So Rimuru should already know how to deal with it. It’s just a matter of separating all the soup that’s been mixed up inside of there into its different parts. Easy as pie.

I don’t know how to feel about the resolution to this arc being a nice chat with a bunch of naked women who all look very similar. I suppose it is all mainly in Rimuru’s mind palace and although the results of this intervention are real, the way things are seen are mostly made up by Rimuru, right? Either way, with this out of the way I suppose we can finally return to the real world and deal with the actual problem in the room. Hinata’s body is a mess and although badly wounded, Gran is still alive. In a final moment, Gran gives a skill to Luminus to pass on to Chronoa. He still wants Chronoa to be the savior of humanity. I think even he himself forgot how poorly he treated the people around him in his quest for protecting them. So many have died due to his and his granddaughter’s manipulation that there needs to be some serious disaster that Chronoa averts to make up for it. And with all that magical power, both Chloe and Hinata are back and Rimuru has some explaining to do. We see Gran and Maria in what I presume is the afterlife, with Maria not trusting him. But Maria never met Rimuru? I’m genuinely very confused about the resolution of this arc and although I will reiterate that I definitely enjoyed watching the vast majority of this season, it definitely leaves some questions towards the end. 

So we end the season with Chloe awakening as a true hero, acknowledging that Leon is her brother and Veldora and Luminus still hating each other. I do appreciate that Veldora was actually scared of Luminus. He knows what he did. With all being well on the western front, of course we finally get to see a tiny glance of the Eastern Empire. We see what looks to be a young blond emperor of sorts who is likely in league with Yuuki at this point. I do wonder if this ends up being another otherworlder or someone genuinely from this world. With them seeming to be the main villain of this story, let’s quickly go over the domestic issues we’re still facing. We haven’t really resolved the arcs of several of the members of Octagram yet. We’ve barely seen Dagrul so far and we definitely need to learn more about Guy before the series can fully transform into an east vs. west battle. This final fight has been hinted at for a very long time, considering much of what kept the two isolated from each other was the fact that Veldora was sealed in the Jura Forest between the two. But to see any of this upcoming arc we will unfortunately have to wait until the summer. I’m just going to get over my dislike of the last few episodes and build up excitement for the next season. If you like my weekly recaps of currently airing anime, please leave a like and/or check out the first post in the new series I’ll be covering: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 7. And as always, thanks for reading!